Selective Civil War Battlefield Preservation as a Method of Marketing The Southern “Lost Cause”

While the marketing of ideas is mentioned in all Principles of Marketing texts, there is not much concerning it in the literature. An example of the marketing of ideas, the Southern “Lost Cause”, may have been the first large scale marketing campaign. One aspect of the marketing of the “Lost Cause”, i.e. selective battlefield preservation, is the subject of this paper. Battlefield preservation in different historical eras is presented and differentiation is made among the types of emphasis in the preservation depending upon which level of government or organization is responsible for it. Conclusions are made about the reasons for differing amounts of preservation and interpretive bias