SUSAN-MARY GRANT
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264355
- eISBN:
- 9780191734052
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264355.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This lecture presents the text of the speech about masculinity, disability, and race in the American Civil War delivered by the author at the 2007 Sarah Tryphena Phillips Lecture in American History ...
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This lecture presents the text of the speech about masculinity, disability, and race in the American Civil War delivered by the author at the 2007 Sarah Tryphena Phillips Lecture in American History held at the British Academy. It discusses the centrality of the Civil War to America's national history, and also highlights the role of the dead in the construction both of Northern/Union nationalism and the Southern civic religion.Less
This lecture presents the text of the speech about masculinity, disability, and race in the American Civil War delivered by the author at the 2007 Sarah Tryphena Phillips Lecture in American History held at the British Academy. It discusses the centrality of the Civil War to America's national history, and also highlights the role of the dead in the construction both of Northern/Union nationalism and the Southern civic religion.
Wayne Wei‐siang Hsieh
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195342536
- eISBN:
- 9780199867042
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195342536.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter discusses the relationship between evangelical Protestantism and the American Civil War through the lives of Abraham Lincoln and William T. Sherman. The jeremiad script of evangelical ...
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This chapter discusses the relationship between evangelical Protestantism and the American Civil War through the lives of Abraham Lincoln and William T. Sherman. The jeremiad script of evangelical Protestantism played a major role in sustaining both the Union's and the Confederacy's war efforts, even while Abraham Lincoln's own views on Providence evolved in a manner both similar to and distinctive from that of his contemporaries. Sherman, in contrast, represented the war's potential for fomenting godlessness, with the challenge his Deification of the State represented to conventional nineteenth‐century Christianity. While evangelicals proved equal to the task of fending off this heterodoxy in the short term, the military and political forces Sherman represented had lasting effects on some postwar figures like Oliver Wendell Holmes, and in historical terms, they cannot be ignored.Less
This chapter discusses the relationship between evangelical Protestantism and the American Civil War through the lives of Abraham Lincoln and William T. Sherman. The jeremiad script of evangelical Protestantism played a major role in sustaining both the Union's and the Confederacy's war efforts, even while Abraham Lincoln's own views on Providence evolved in a manner both similar to and distinctive from that of his contemporaries. Sherman, in contrast, represented the war's potential for fomenting godlessness, with the challenge his Deification of the State represented to conventional nineteenth‐century Christianity. While evangelicals proved equal to the task of fending off this heterodoxy in the short term, the military and political forces Sherman represented had lasting effects on some postwar figures like Oliver Wendell Holmes, and in historical terms, they cannot be ignored.
Adam I. P. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195188653
- eISBN:
- 9780199868346
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195188653.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
During the Civil War, Northerners fought each other in elections with almost as much zeal as they fought Southern rebels on the battlefield. Yet politicians and voters alike claimed that partisanship ...
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During the Civil War, Northerners fought each other in elections with almost as much zeal as they fought Southern rebels on the battlefield. Yet politicians and voters alike claimed that partisanship was dangerous in a time of national crisis. This book challenges the prevailing view that political processes in the North somehow helped the Union be more stable and effective in the war. Instead, it argues, early efforts to suspend party politics collapsed in the face of divisions over slavery and the purpose of the war. At the same time, new contexts for political mobilization, such as the army and the avowedly nonpartisan Union Leagues, undermined conventional partisan practices. The administration's supporters soon used the power of antiparty discourse to their advantage by connecting their own antislavery arguments to a powerful nationalist ideology. This book offers a reinterpretation of Northern wartime politics that challenges the “party period paradigm” in American political history and reveals the many ways in which the unique circumstances of war altered the political calculations and behavior of politicians and voters alike. As this book shows, beneath the superficial unity lay profound differences about the implications of the war for the kind of nation that the United States was to become.Less
During the Civil War, Northerners fought each other in elections with almost as much zeal as they fought Southern rebels on the battlefield. Yet politicians and voters alike claimed that partisanship was dangerous in a time of national crisis. This book challenges the prevailing view that political processes in the North somehow helped the Union be more stable and effective in the war. Instead, it argues, early efforts to suspend party politics collapsed in the face of divisions over slavery and the purpose of the war. At the same time, new contexts for political mobilization, such as the army and the avowedly nonpartisan Union Leagues, undermined conventional partisan practices. The administration's supporters soon used the power of antiparty discourse to their advantage by connecting their own antislavery arguments to a powerful nationalist ideology. This book offers a reinterpretation of Northern wartime politics that challenges the “party period paradigm” in American political history and reveals the many ways in which the unique circumstances of war altered the political calculations and behavior of politicians and voters alike. As this book shows, beneath the superficial unity lay profound differences about the implications of the war for the kind of nation that the United States was to become.
Judith N. McArthur and Orville Vernon Burton
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195093124
- eISBN:
- 9780199853915
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195093124.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the wartime letters sent by James B. Griffin to his family during the American Civil War. Griffin was a wealthy plantation owner in ...
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This chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the wartime letters sent by James B. Griffin to his family during the American Civil War. Griffin was a wealthy plantation owner in Edgefield, South Carolina when he volunteered for the Confederate Army in 1861. This book examines the war time experiences of Griffin, the loss of his properties after the war and his subsequent rebirth as a businessman.Less
This chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the wartime letters sent by James B. Griffin to his family during the American Civil War. Griffin was a wealthy plantation owner in Edgefield, South Carolina when he volunteered for the Confederate Army in 1861. This book examines the war time experiences of Griffin, the loss of his properties after the war and his subsequent rebirth as a businessman.
Paul Giles
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691136134
- eISBN:
- 9781400836512
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691136134.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines how the lineaments of U.S. national identity were shaped and consolidated by three wars over a span of eighty years: the American Civil War, World War I, and World War II. It ...
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This chapter examines how the lineaments of U.S. national identity were shaped and consolidated by three wars over a span of eighty years: the American Civil War, World War I, and World War II. It explains how American writers during these years sought to accommodate the heterogeneous nature of national space within an allegorical circumference where the geography of the nation would embody its redemptive spirit. The chapter first considers the establishment of social boundaries in William Dean Howells's novel A Hazard of New Fortunes and its effort to redescribe regionalism as a nationalist phenomenon. It then explores the concerted attempt to restore the “multilingual” dimensions of American literature and the nationalistic approach adopted by some writers that incorporates geography as a mode of allegory. It also analyzes the fiction of Wallace Stevens and Gertrude Stein, the latter of whom used the airplane as an emblem of modernism.Less
This chapter examines how the lineaments of U.S. national identity were shaped and consolidated by three wars over a span of eighty years: the American Civil War, World War I, and World War II. It explains how American writers during these years sought to accommodate the heterogeneous nature of national space within an allegorical circumference where the geography of the nation would embody its redemptive spirit. The chapter first considers the establishment of social boundaries in William Dean Howells's novel A Hazard of New Fortunes and its effort to redescribe regionalism as a nationalist phenomenon. It then explores the concerted attempt to restore the “multilingual” dimensions of American literature and the nationalistic approach adopted by some writers that incorporates geography as a mode of allegory. It also analyzes the fiction of Wallace Stevens and Gertrude Stein, the latter of whom used the airplane as an emblem of modernism.
Paul Quigley
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199735488
- eISBN:
- 9780199918584
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199735488.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
Between 1848 and 1865 white southerners felt the grounds of nationhood shift beneath their feet. The regional conflict over slavery that culminated in the American Civil War forced them to confront ...
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Between 1848 and 1865 white southerners felt the grounds of nationhood shift beneath their feet. The regional conflict over slavery that culminated in the American Civil War forced them to confront difficult problems of nationalism, allegiance, and identity. In doing so, white southerners drew on their long experience as American nationalists and their knowledge of nationalism in the wider world. Shifting Grounds tells the story not just of the radical secessionists who shattered the Union in 1861, but also of the moderate majority who struggled before and after secession to balance their southern and American identities and loyalties. As they pondered the changing significance of the Fourth of July, as they fused ideals of masculinity and femininity with national identity, they revealed the shifting meanings of nationalism and citizenship. Southerners also looked across the Atlantic, comparing southern separatism with movements in Hungary and Ireland, and applying the transatlantic model of romantic nationalism first to the United States and later to the Confederate States of America. The creation of the Confederacy and the onset of brutal war in 1861 both built on and transformed antebellum ideas. A powerful national government imposed newly stringent obligations of citizenship while the shared experience of suffering united many Confederates in a sacred national community of sacrifice. For all white southerners—Unionists, die-hard Confederates, and the large majority torn between the two—the problems of nationalism had come to matter more by 1865 than ever before.Less
Between 1848 and 1865 white southerners felt the grounds of nationhood shift beneath their feet. The regional conflict over slavery that culminated in the American Civil War forced them to confront difficult problems of nationalism, allegiance, and identity. In doing so, white southerners drew on their long experience as American nationalists and their knowledge of nationalism in the wider world. Shifting Grounds tells the story not just of the radical secessionists who shattered the Union in 1861, but also of the moderate majority who struggled before and after secession to balance their southern and American identities and loyalties. As they pondered the changing significance of the Fourth of July, as they fused ideals of masculinity and femininity with national identity, they revealed the shifting meanings of nationalism and citizenship. Southerners also looked across the Atlantic, comparing southern separatism with movements in Hungary and Ireland, and applying the transatlantic model of romantic nationalism first to the United States and later to the Confederate States of America. The creation of the Confederacy and the onset of brutal war in 1861 both built on and transformed antebellum ideas. A powerful national government imposed newly stringent obligations of citizenship while the shared experience of suffering united many Confederates in a sacred national community of sacrifice. For all white southerners—Unionists, die-hard Confederates, and the large majority torn between the two—the problems of nationalism had come to matter more by 1865 than ever before.
Suellen Hoy
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195111286
- eISBN:
- 9780199854011
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195111286.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Americans in the early 19th century were, as one foreign traveler bluntly put it, “filthy, bordering on the beastly.” Yet gradually this changed, and today Americans are known for their obsession ...
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Americans in the early 19th century were, as one foreign traveler bluntly put it, “filthy, bordering on the beastly.” Yet gradually this changed, and today Americans are known for their obsession with cleanliness. This book provides a history of this transformation, from the pre-Civil War era to the 1950s. The book examines the work of early promoters of cleanliness, such as Catharine Beecher and Sylvester Graham; and describes how the Civil War marked a turning point in attitudes toward cleanliness, discussing the work of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, headed by Frederick Law Olmsted, and revealing how the efforts of Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War inspired American women—such as Dorothea Dix, Clara Barton, and Louisa May Alcott—to volunteer as nurses. The postwar efforts of George E. Waring, Jr., a sanitary engineer who constructed sewer systems around the nation and who, as head of New York City's street-cleaning department, transformed the city from the nation's dirtiest to the nation's cleanest in three years, are also included. The book details the efforts to convince African-Americans and immigrants of the importance of cleanliness, examining the efforts of Booker T. Washington, Jane Addams, and Lillian Wald. Indeed, we see how cleanliness shifted from a way to prevent disease to a way to assimilate, to become American. As the book enters the modern era, we learn how advertising for products such as soaps and deodorants showed people how to cleanse themselves and become part of the sweatless, odorless, and successful middle class.Less
Americans in the early 19th century were, as one foreign traveler bluntly put it, “filthy, bordering on the beastly.” Yet gradually this changed, and today Americans are known for their obsession with cleanliness. This book provides a history of this transformation, from the pre-Civil War era to the 1950s. The book examines the work of early promoters of cleanliness, such as Catharine Beecher and Sylvester Graham; and describes how the Civil War marked a turning point in attitudes toward cleanliness, discussing the work of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, headed by Frederick Law Olmsted, and revealing how the efforts of Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War inspired American women—such as Dorothea Dix, Clara Barton, and Louisa May Alcott—to volunteer as nurses. The postwar efforts of George E. Waring, Jr., a sanitary engineer who constructed sewer systems around the nation and who, as head of New York City's street-cleaning department, transformed the city from the nation's dirtiest to the nation's cleanest in three years, are also included. The book details the efforts to convince African-Americans and immigrants of the importance of cleanliness, examining the efforts of Booker T. Washington, Jane Addams, and Lillian Wald. Indeed, we see how cleanliness shifted from a way to prevent disease to a way to assimilate, to become American. As the book enters the modern era, we learn how advertising for products such as soaps and deodorants showed people how to cleanse themselves and become part of the sweatless, odorless, and successful middle class.
Ron Johnston (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264355
- eISBN:
- 9780191734052
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264355.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This volume of the Proceedings of the British Academy contains seventeen lectures delivered at the British Academy in 2007. Subject matter ranges from commemoration of the American Civil War, to an ...
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This volume of the Proceedings of the British Academy contains seventeen lectures delivered at the British Academy in 2007. Subject matter ranges from commemoration of the American Civil War, to an examination of our capacity as human beings to live in the world of imagination, and the opportunities and challenges that face cultural institutions in Britain today.Less
This volume of the Proceedings of the British Academy contains seventeen lectures delivered at the British Academy in 2007. Subject matter ranges from commemoration of the American Civil War, to an examination of our capacity as human beings to live in the world of imagination, and the opportunities and challenges that face cultural institutions in Britain today.
Williamson Murray
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199608638
- eISBN:
- 9780191731754
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199608638.003.0010
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Chapter 9 focuses on the relationship between the evolving grand strategy and military strategy in the American Civil War (1861–5). Williamson Murray emphasizes the symbiotic relationship between ...
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Chapter 9 focuses on the relationship between the evolving grand strategy and military strategy in the American Civil War (1861–5). Williamson Murray emphasizes the symbiotic relationship between Abraham Lincoln's grand strategy—aimed at the preservation of the Union with its form of government—and Ulysses S. Grant's ability to execute the military expression of that strategy through effective generalship, selection of capable subordinates, and decisive combat. Murray argues that two main factors explain why it took the North four years to defeat the Southern states. First, the vast size of the theatre of operations posed great logistical challenges. Second, enormous popular enthusiasm for their respective causes led both sides to insist on holding out to the bitter end, despite huge casualties and suffering. Ultimately, Lincoln's grand strategy succeeded because the verdict that ‘the United States is a country’, singular rather than plural, was never seriously challenged again.Less
Chapter 9 focuses on the relationship between the evolving grand strategy and military strategy in the American Civil War (1861–5). Williamson Murray emphasizes the symbiotic relationship between Abraham Lincoln's grand strategy—aimed at the preservation of the Union with its form of government—and Ulysses S. Grant's ability to execute the military expression of that strategy through effective generalship, selection of capable subordinates, and decisive combat. Murray argues that two main factors explain why it took the North four years to defeat the Southern states. First, the vast size of the theatre of operations posed great logistical challenges. Second, enormous popular enthusiasm for their respective causes led both sides to insist on holding out to the bitter end, despite huge casualties and suffering. Ultimately, Lincoln's grand strategy succeeded because the verdict that ‘the United States is a country’, singular rather than plural, was never seriously challenged again.
Bernadette Whelan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719083013
- eISBN:
- 9781781703281
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719083013.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Political History
This book reconstructs American consular activity in Ireland from 1790 to 1913 and elucidates the interconnectedness of America's foreign interests, Irish nationalism and British imperialism. Its ...
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This book reconstructs American consular activity in Ireland from 1790 to 1913 and elucidates the interconnectedness of America's foreign interests, Irish nationalism and British imperialism. Its originality lies in that it is based on an interrogation of American, British and Irish archives, and covers over one hundred years of American, Irish and British relations through the post of the American consular official while also uncovering the consul's role in seminal events such as the War of 1812, the 1845–51 Irish famine, the American Civil War, Fenianism and mass Irish emigration. The book is a history of the men who filled posts as consuls, vice consuls, deputy consuls and consular agents. It reveals their identities, how they interpreted and implemented US foreign policy, their outsider perspective on events in both Ireland and America and their contribution to the expanding transatlantic relationship.Less
This book reconstructs American consular activity in Ireland from 1790 to 1913 and elucidates the interconnectedness of America's foreign interests, Irish nationalism and British imperialism. Its originality lies in that it is based on an interrogation of American, British and Irish archives, and covers over one hundred years of American, Irish and British relations through the post of the American consular official while also uncovering the consul's role in seminal events such as the War of 1812, the 1845–51 Irish famine, the American Civil War, Fenianism and mass Irish emigration. The book is a history of the men who filled posts as consuls, vice consuls, deputy consuls and consular agents. It reveals their identities, how they interpreted and implemented US foreign policy, their outsider perspective on events in both Ireland and America and their contribution to the expanding transatlantic relationship.
J. Matthew Gallman
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195161458
- eISBN:
- 9780199788798
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195161458.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
One of the most celebrated women of her time, Anna Elizabeth Dickinson was a charismatic orator, writer, and actress, who rose to fame during the Civil War and remained in the public eye for the next ...
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One of the most celebrated women of her time, Anna Elizabeth Dickinson was a charismatic orator, writer, and actress, who rose to fame during the Civil War and remained in the public eye for the next three decades. This book offers a full-length biography of Dickinson. The book describes how Dickinson's passionate patriotism and fiery style, coupled with her abolitionism and biting critiques of anti-war Democrats struck a nerve with her audiences. In barely two years, she rose from being an unknown young Philadelphia radical, to becoming a successful New England stump speaker and eventually a national celebrity. At the height of her fame, Dickinson counted many of the nation's leading reformers, authors, politicians, and actors among her friends. Among the famous figures who populate this book are Susan B. Anthony, Whitelaw Reid, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The book explores Dickinson's public triumphs but also discloses how, as her public career waned, she battled with her managers, critics, audiences, and family. The book demonstrates how Dickinson's life illustrates the possibilities and barriers faced by 19th-century women, revealing how their behavior could at once be seen as worthy, highly valued, shocking, and deviant.Less
One of the most celebrated women of her time, Anna Elizabeth Dickinson was a charismatic orator, writer, and actress, who rose to fame during the Civil War and remained in the public eye for the next three decades. This book offers a full-length biography of Dickinson. The book describes how Dickinson's passionate patriotism and fiery style, coupled with her abolitionism and biting critiques of anti-war Democrats struck a nerve with her audiences. In barely two years, she rose from being an unknown young Philadelphia radical, to becoming a successful New England stump speaker and eventually a national celebrity. At the height of her fame, Dickinson counted many of the nation's leading reformers, authors, politicians, and actors among her friends. Among the famous figures who populate this book are Susan B. Anthony, Whitelaw Reid, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The book explores Dickinson's public triumphs but also discloses how, as her public career waned, she battled with her managers, critics, audiences, and family. The book demonstrates how Dickinson's life illustrates the possibilities and barriers faced by 19th-century women, revealing how their behavior could at once be seen as worthy, highly valued, shocking, and deviant.
Craig L. Symonds (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823232864
- eISBN:
- 9780823240777
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823232864.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
Despite a wealth of books on the campaigns of the American Civil War, the subject of combined or joint operations has been largely neglected. This revealing book offers ten case studies of combined ...
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Despite a wealth of books on the campaigns of the American Civil War, the subject of combined or joint operations has been largely neglected. This revealing book offers ten case studies of combined army–navy operations by Union forces. Presented in chronological order, each chapter illuminates an aspect of combined operations during a time of changing technology and doctrine. The chapters cover the war along the rebel coast, including the operations in the North Carolina Sounds in 1861, the Union thrusts up the York and James rivers during the Peninsular Campaign in 1862 and 1864, and the various Union efforts to seize rebel seaports from the Texas coast to Charleston and Wilmington in 1863–5. Concluding the volume are two chapters that evaluate the impact of Union combined operations on subsequent doctrine in both the United States and England.Less
Despite a wealth of books on the campaigns of the American Civil War, the subject of combined or joint operations has been largely neglected. This revealing book offers ten case studies of combined army–navy operations by Union forces. Presented in chronological order, each chapter illuminates an aspect of combined operations during a time of changing technology and doctrine. The chapters cover the war along the rebel coast, including the operations in the North Carolina Sounds in 1861, the Union thrusts up the York and James rivers during the Peninsular Campaign in 1862 and 1864, and the various Union efforts to seize rebel seaports from the Texas coast to Charleston and Wilmington in 1863–5. Concluding the volume are two chapters that evaluate the impact of Union combined operations on subsequent doctrine in both the United States and England.
Desmond S. King and Rogers M. Smith
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691142630
- eISBN:
- 9781400839766
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691142630.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
This chapter discusses the formation of political alliances centered on differences over racial politics in antebellum America. Even before there was a Constitution, there were pro-slavery and ...
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This chapter discusses the formation of political alliances centered on differences over racial politics in antebellum America. Even before there was a Constitution, there were pro-slavery and anti-slavery alliances in the not-so-United States. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence, which embedded the rhetoric of human equality and inalienable rights into American political culture, still sought to justify tribal subjugation (by denouncing “merciless Indian Savages”) and to avoid criticism of chattel slavery (by editing out Jefferson's language attacking the slave trade). Throughout the antebellum era, pro-slavery forces retained great power, particularly in regard to the protection of slavery where it was already established. Moreover, the chapter considers how racial politics continued to shape American life—particularly for the disenfranchised people of color—during the period of transition after the Civil War.Less
This chapter discusses the formation of political alliances centered on differences over racial politics in antebellum America. Even before there was a Constitution, there were pro-slavery and anti-slavery alliances in the not-so-United States. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence, which embedded the rhetoric of human equality and inalienable rights into American political culture, still sought to justify tribal subjugation (by denouncing “merciless Indian Savages”) and to avoid criticism of chattel slavery (by editing out Jefferson's language attacking the slave trade). Throughout the antebellum era, pro-slavery forces retained great power, particularly in regard to the protection of slavery where it was already established. Moreover, the chapter considers how racial politics continued to shape American life—particularly for the disenfranchised people of color—during the period of transition after the Civil War.
Edlie L. Wong
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479868001
- eISBN:
- 9781479899043
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479868001.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
Chapter 1 mines an under-examined archive of American travelogues to Cuba to explore the emergence of Chinese “cooliesm” as a transatlantic racial formation enmeshed in the geopolitics of U.S. Empire ...
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Chapter 1 mines an under-examined archive of American travelogues to Cuba to explore the emergence of Chinese “cooliesm” as a transatlantic racial formation enmeshed in the geopolitics of U.S. Empire and in national debates over labor versus capital. Controversies over U.S. participation in the lucrative “coolie trade,” involving the transport of thousands of Chinese indentured laborers to Cuba and Peru, intensified as sectional tensions over the future of slavery threatened to erupt into Civil War. This chapter explores how popular travel narratives by writers, including Richard Henry Dana and Eliza McHatton Ripley, refracted and reshaped American ideas about slavery, citizenship, and free labor, especially in relation to contract ideology and its associated concepts of self-ownership and free will. These narratives helped disseminate the specter of the Chinese “coolie-slave,” which influenced U.S. debates over slavery and later became a potent symbol for the enduring legacy of slavery in Reconstruction America.Less
Chapter 1 mines an under-examined archive of American travelogues to Cuba to explore the emergence of Chinese “cooliesm” as a transatlantic racial formation enmeshed in the geopolitics of U.S. Empire and in national debates over labor versus capital. Controversies over U.S. participation in the lucrative “coolie trade,” involving the transport of thousands of Chinese indentured laborers to Cuba and Peru, intensified as sectional tensions over the future of slavery threatened to erupt into Civil War. This chapter explores how popular travel narratives by writers, including Richard Henry Dana and Eliza McHatton Ripley, refracted and reshaped American ideas about slavery, citizenship, and free labor, especially in relation to contract ideology and its associated concepts of self-ownership and free will. These narratives helped disseminate the specter of the Chinese “coolie-slave,” which influenced U.S. debates over slavery and later became a potent symbol for the enduring legacy of slavery in Reconstruction America.
Fred I. Greenstein and Dale Anderson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151991
- eISBN:
- 9781400846412
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151991.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to use the period from the Mexican–American War to the Civil War (1846–1865) as a stage to assess the strengths and weaknesses of six American ...
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This chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to use the period from the Mexican–American War to the Civil War (1846–1865) as a stage to assess the strengths and weaknesses of six American presidents: James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln. These men merit attention because of the demands placed on the chief executive in this momentous era and because they varied so greatly in the caliber of that leadership. The chapter then provides context by discussing the background against which these six presidents performed their duties, followed by a discussion of the causes of the Civil War.Less
This chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to use the period from the Mexican–American War to the Civil War (1846–1865) as a stage to assess the strengths and weaknesses of six American presidents: James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln. These men merit attention because of the demands placed on the chief executive in this momentous era and because they varied so greatly in the caliber of that leadership. The chapter then provides context by discussing the background against which these six presidents performed their duties, followed by a discussion of the causes of the Civil War.
Quigley Paul
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199735488
- eISBN:
- 9780199918584
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199735488.003.0000
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
White southerners experienced a crisis of nationalism during the era of the American Civil War. This introduction raises the problems of national identity and citizenship that southerners confronted; ...
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White southerners experienced a crisis of nationalism during the era of the American Civil War. This introduction raises the problems of national identity and citizenship that southerners confronted; defines the key terms; and discusses the scholarly framework. In contemplating the problems of nationalism, white southerners reached backward (taking into account their long experience as American nationalists), outward (to reflect on their knowledge of nationalism in the transatlantic world), and inward (embedding nationalism in their personal lives and identities).Less
White southerners experienced a crisis of nationalism during the era of the American Civil War. This introduction raises the problems of national identity and citizenship that southerners confronted; defines the key terms; and discusses the scholarly framework. In contemplating the problems of nationalism, white southerners reached backward (taking into account their long experience as American nationalists), outward (to reflect on their knowledge of nationalism in the transatlantic world), and inward (embedding nationalism in their personal lives and identities).
Adam Mendelsohn
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814740910
- eISBN:
- 9780814786796
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814740910.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This introduction traces the origin and evolution of the earlier literature on Jews and the Civil War and considers the possible reasons why a number of factually incorrect but attractive ideas about ...
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This introduction traces the origin and evolution of the earlier literature on Jews and the Civil War and considers the possible reasons why a number of factually incorrect but attractive ideas about Jewish involvement in the conflict have endured. The historical literature on the American Jewish experience of the Civil War can be divided into two eras: the period from the 1880s until 1950, when the field was dominated by amateur historians, and the period from 1951, when Bertram Korn published American Jewry and the Civil War. In this introduction, the focus is on the period before American Jewish history became an academic field and on how amateur historians developed a consensual understanding of the meaning and importance of the Civil War for Jews. These Jewish historical writings include Isaac Markens's The Hebrews in America (1888) and Simon Wolf's The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier and Citizen (1895).Less
This introduction traces the origin and evolution of the earlier literature on Jews and the Civil War and considers the possible reasons why a number of factually incorrect but attractive ideas about Jewish involvement in the conflict have endured. The historical literature on the American Jewish experience of the Civil War can be divided into two eras: the period from the 1880s until 1950, when the field was dominated by amateur historians, and the period from 1951, when Bertram Korn published American Jewry and the Civil War. In this introduction, the focus is on the period before American Jewish history became an academic field and on how amateur historians developed a consensual understanding of the meaning and importance of the Civil War for Jews. These Jewish historical writings include Isaac Markens's The Hebrews in America (1888) and Simon Wolf's The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier and Citizen (1895).
Lorien Foote and Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823264476
- eISBN:
- 9780823266609
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823264476.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This edited collection of essays brings together the work of senior and junior scholars to demonstrate how social and cultural tools complement intellectual history. George Fredrickson’s pioneering ...
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This edited collection of essays brings together the work of senior and junior scholars to demonstrate how social and cultural tools complement intellectual history. George Fredrickson’s pioneering work, The Inner Civil War (1965), has long been the seminal text for scholars interested in the intellectual history of the American Civil War Era. The historians in this volume broaden the scope of what has traditionally been considered intellectual history. By including works about the history of medicine, art history, Catholic history, education, ethnicity, and identity, these contributions demonstrate how intellectual history informs many different fields within the study of nineteenth-century U.S. history. Additionally, the volume expands the definition of which individuals in society are considered intellectuals: Health reformers, sketch artists, college professors, lawyers, and religious leaders are considered alongside Fredrickson’s writers and business leaders. Following up on Fredrickson’s queries, this volume examines whether the Civil War forced out or strengthened old notions and ideas, supported or suppressed democratic individualism, and challenged or maintained ideas about nationalism. In short, the essays in this collection ponder whether the Civil War changed how northerners viewed themselves, others, and individuals’ roles in American society.Less
This edited collection of essays brings together the work of senior and junior scholars to demonstrate how social and cultural tools complement intellectual history. George Fredrickson’s pioneering work, The Inner Civil War (1965), has long been the seminal text for scholars interested in the intellectual history of the American Civil War Era. The historians in this volume broaden the scope of what has traditionally been considered intellectual history. By including works about the history of medicine, art history, Catholic history, education, ethnicity, and identity, these contributions demonstrate how intellectual history informs many different fields within the study of nineteenth-century U.S. history. Additionally, the volume expands the definition of which individuals in society are considered intellectuals: Health reformers, sketch artists, college professors, lawyers, and religious leaders are considered alongside Fredrickson’s writers and business leaders. Following up on Fredrickson’s queries, this volume examines whether the Civil War forced out or strengthened old notions and ideas, supported or suppressed democratic individualism, and challenged or maintained ideas about nationalism. In short, the essays in this collection ponder whether the Civil War changed how northerners viewed themselves, others, and individuals’ roles in American society.
Catherine Robson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691119366
- eISBN:
- 9781400845156
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691119366.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter resurrects “The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna.” Charles Wolfe's poem, a reimagining of the hasty interment of a fallen general after one of the land battles in the Napoleonic ...
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This chapter resurrects “The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna.” Charles Wolfe's poem, a reimagining of the hasty interment of a fallen general after one of the land battles in the Napoleonic wars, was repeatedly quoted by soldiers and other individuals during the American Civil War when they found themselves having to organize, or witness, the burials of dead comrades. In recent years, cultural historians of Great Britain have tried to account for the massive shift in burial and memorial practices for the common soldier that occurred between 1815 and 1915. The chapter argues that the presence of Wolfe's poem in the hearts and minds of ordinary people played its part in creating the social expectations that led to the establishment of the National Cemeteries in the United States, and thus, in due course, the mass memorialization of World War I.Less
This chapter resurrects “The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna.” Charles Wolfe's poem, a reimagining of the hasty interment of a fallen general after one of the land battles in the Napoleonic wars, was repeatedly quoted by soldiers and other individuals during the American Civil War when they found themselves having to organize, or witness, the burials of dead comrades. In recent years, cultural historians of Great Britain have tried to account for the massive shift in burial and memorial practices for the common soldier that occurred between 1815 and 1915. The chapter argues that the presence of Wolfe's poem in the hearts and minds of ordinary people played its part in creating the social expectations that led to the establishment of the National Cemeteries in the United States, and thus, in due course, the mass memorialization of World War I.
James B. Griffin
Judith N. McArthur and Orville Vernon Burton (eds)
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195093124
- eISBN:
- 9780199853915
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195093124.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
In 1861, James B. Griffin left Edgefield, South Carolina, and rode off to Virginia to take up duty with the Confederate Army. He was thirty-five years old, a wealthy planter, and the owner of ...
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In 1861, James B. Griffin left Edgefield, South Carolina, and rode off to Virginia to take up duty with the Confederate Army. He was thirty-five years old, a wealthy planter, and the owner of sixty-one slaves when he joined Wade Hampton's elite Legion as a major of cavalry. This book features eighty of Griffin's letters written at the Virginia front, and during later postings on the South Carolina coast, to his wife Leila Burt Griffin. The letters encompass Griffin's entire Civil War service, detailing living conditions and military maneuvers, the jockeying for position among officers, and the different ways in which officers and enlisted men interacted. The letters shed light on the life of a middle officer—a life of extreme military hardship, complicated further by the need for reassurance about personal valor and status common to men of the southern gentry. Griffin describes secret troop movements, such as the Hampton Legion's role in the Peninsula Campaign. Here he relates the march from Manassas to Fredricksburg, the siege of Yorktown and the retreat to Richmond, and the fighting at Eltham's landing and Seven Pines, where Griffin commanded the Legion after Hampton was wounded. Griffin recounts day-to-day issues, from the weather to gossip. Monumental historical events sent Griffin off to war but his heartfelt considerations were about his family, his community, and his own personal pride. Griffin's letters present the Civil War as the ordeal by fire that tested and verified—or modified—Southern upperclass values.Less
In 1861, James B. Griffin left Edgefield, South Carolina, and rode off to Virginia to take up duty with the Confederate Army. He was thirty-five years old, a wealthy planter, and the owner of sixty-one slaves when he joined Wade Hampton's elite Legion as a major of cavalry. This book features eighty of Griffin's letters written at the Virginia front, and during later postings on the South Carolina coast, to his wife Leila Burt Griffin. The letters encompass Griffin's entire Civil War service, detailing living conditions and military maneuvers, the jockeying for position among officers, and the different ways in which officers and enlisted men interacted. The letters shed light on the life of a middle officer—a life of extreme military hardship, complicated further by the need for reassurance about personal valor and status common to men of the southern gentry. Griffin describes secret troop movements, such as the Hampton Legion's role in the Peninsula Campaign. Here he relates the march from Manassas to Fredricksburg, the siege of Yorktown and the retreat to Richmond, and the fighting at Eltham's landing and Seven Pines, where Griffin commanded the Legion after Hampton was wounded. Griffin recounts day-to-day issues, from the weather to gossip. Monumental historical events sent Griffin off to war but his heartfelt considerations were about his family, his community, and his own personal pride. Griffin's letters present the Civil War as the ordeal by fire that tested and verified—or modified—Southern upperclass values.
