Founded in 1901, the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH) was the first state-supported archival bureau in the United States. Although intended to locate, acquire, and preserve all Alabama historical and governmental records in an unbiased and professional manner, the institution, under its first director, Thomas Owen, became a vehicle for supporting and disseminating the Lost Cause narrative of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Acquisitions at the ADAH focused on Confederate war records; cataloging practices relied on distinctly pro-southern historical terminology; research assistance and general reference policies bolstered the scholarship of Dunning School historians; and museum exhibits and commemorative activities upheld a pro-Confederate point of view. Artifacts, documents, and stories that challenged that view were often completely disregarded.

Because the ADAH provided a model for other nascent record-collecting institutions, such practices soon became standard in southern archives. Cone's study is the first comprehensive exploration of how the tenets of the Lost Cause narrative could affect every aspect of an archive's daily operations. Collector of the Lost Cause is indispensable reading for anyone interested in how that narrative became so deeply rooted in southern culture.