{{Short description|American editor}} {{Infobox person | name = Edith Drake Pope | image = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = 1869 | birth_place = Williamson County, Tennessee, U.S. | death_date = January 27, 1947 | death_place = Williamson County, Tennessee, U.S. | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | nationality = | other_names = | known_for = | education = | alma_mater = Tennessee Female College | employer = | occupation = Editor | title = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | political_party = | boards = | spouse = | children = | parents = William Campbell Pope<br/>Mary Caroline Drake | relatives = }} '''Edith D. Pope''' (1869 – 1947) was an American editor. She was the second editor of the ''Confederate Veteran'' from 1914 to 1932, and the president of the Nashville No. 1 chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy from 1927 to 1930. She played a critical role in the promotion of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.
==Early life== Edith Drake Pope was born in 1869 to a former slaveholding family.<ref name="simpson1">{{cite book|last1=Simpson|first1=John A.|title=Edith D. Pope and Her Nashville Friends: Guardians of the Lost Cause in the Confederate Veteran|date=2003|publisher=University of Tennessee Press|location=Knoxville, Tennessee|isbn=9781572332119|oclc=428118511|pages=1–2; 23; 29–31; 45; 63}}</ref> She grew up in Williamson County, "less than one mile" from the John Pope House in Burwood, Tennessee, built by her paternal great-grandfather.<ref name="simpson1"/> Her father, William Campbell Pope, served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War of 1861–1865.<ref name="simpson1"/> She had two brothers and three sisters.<ref name="simpson1"/>
Pope graduated from the (now defunct) Tennessee Female College in Franklin, Tennessee, in 1888.<ref name="simpson1"/>
==Career== Pope began her career as Sumner Archibald Cunningham's secretary; Cunningham was the founder and editor of the ''Confederate Veteran'', a monthly magazine about veterans of the Confederate States Army.<ref name="moody107">{{cite book|last1=Moody|first1=Wesley|title=Demon of the Lost Cause: Sherman and Civil War History|date=2011|publisher=University of Missouri Press|location=Columbia, Missouri|isbn=9780826272669|oclc=842399455|page=107|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RBPSigye5IsC&dq=%22edith+drake+pope%22&pg=PA107}}</ref> When he died in December 1913, she became its editor until her retirement in 1932.<ref name="tennesseestatelibrary">{{cite web|title=CONFEDERATE VETERAN RECORDS, 1904-1941|url=http://tsla.tnsosfiles.com.s3.amazonaws.com/history/manuscripts/findingaids/CONFEDERATE_VETERAN_RECORDS_1904-1941.pdf|website=Tennessee State Library and Archives|publisher=State of Tennessee, Department of State|accessdate=September 24, 2017}}</ref> In a 1927 edition of the magazine, she refuted William Mack Lee's false claim that he was a body servant to General Robert E. Lee during the American Civil War.<ref name= cwmemory>{{cite magazine |last= Pope|first= E.D.|date= 1927|title= More Historical "Bunk"|url= https://cwmemory.com/2016/05/27/william-mack-lee-outed-in-confederate-veteran/|magazine= Confederate Veteran|location= Nashville, Tennessee|publisher= Methodist Publishing House|access-date= November 16, 2025}}</ref> thumb|right|Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument Pope was an active member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.<ref name="tennencyclopediabio">{{cite web|last1=Simpson|first1=John A.|title=Edith Drake Pope|url=https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=1072|website=The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture|publisher=Tennessee Historical Society and the University of Tennessee Press|accessdate=September 24, 2017}}</ref> She was the president of the Nashville No. 1 chapter from 1927 to 1930, and its recording secretary from 1930 to 1935.<ref name="tennencyclopediabio"/> She helped install the Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument in Richmond, Virginia, and the Tennessee Confederate Women's Monument in Nashville.<ref name="tennencyclopediabio"/> She was also a member of the Confederate Memorial Literary Society,<ref name="tennencyclopediabio"/> which established the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond; it was later renamed the American Civil War Museum. thumb|right|Confederate Memorial Hall at Vanderbilt University. Pope also played a key role in the construction of Confederate Memorial Hall at Peabody College (now Vanderbilt University) in Nashville, where she made sure the college would also teach a course on Southern history.<ref name="simpson98">{{cite book|last1=Simpson|first1=John A.|title=Edith D. Pope and Her Nashville Friends: Guardians of the Lost Cause in the Confederate Veteran|date=2003|publisher=University of Tennessee Press|location=Knoxville, Tennessee|isbn=9781572332119|oclc=750779185|pages=98–99|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Dwh0dEOFS8C&dq=Edith+D.+Pope+peabody+college&pg=PA98}}</ref>
Pope supported the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow laws.<ref name="simpson1"/> She was a proponent of the "repatriation" of African-American United States citizens to Africa, and she was nostalgic about the American Colonization Society.<ref name="simpson1"/>
==Personal life and death== Pope resided in the West End neighborhood of Nashville, next to Centennial Park and Vanderbilt University.<ref name="simpson1"/>
Pope died on January 27, 1947, in Burwood, Tennessee.<ref name="tennencyclopediabio"/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{commons category|Edith Drake Pope}}
{{Neo-Confederates}} {{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pope, Edith D.}} Category:1869 births Category:1947 deaths Category:People from Williamson County, Tennessee Category:People from Nashville, Tennessee Category:American magazine editors Category:American women magazine editors Category:Members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy Category:Neo-Confederates