The Deaths and Afterlives of Protestant Relics; Or Why Enlightened People Forgot the History and Presence of Protestant Relics

Abstract The Conclusion considers how and why modern Americans came to ignore the history and presence of Protestant relics. It highlights some of the ways Protestant relic culture continued, transformed, died, and persisted in the United States after the 1860s. It examines Protestant relics in the Civil War, the Lost Cause, “the religion of secularism,” and modern museums. It traces how most Americans came to regard Protestant relics as dead, decaying, and disease-ridden matter in the ages of germ theory, the funeral home industry, and “secular” history methods. It discusses why most Protestant relics have been forgotten by scholars of early America, and how some relics—such as Confederate monuments—still linger in public spaces today.