1st Edition
Civil War America A Social and Cultural History with Primary Sources
As war raged on the battlefields of the Civil War, men and women all over the nation continued their daily routines. They celebrated holidays, ran households, wrote letters, read newspapers, joined unions, attended plays, and graduated from high school and college. Civil War America reveals how Americans, both Northern and Southern, lived during the Civil War—the ways they worked, expressed themselves artistically, organized their family lives, treated illness, and worshipped.
Written by specialists, the chapters in this book cover the war’s impact on the economy, the role of the federal government, labor, welfare and reform efforts, the Indian nations, universities, healthcare and medicine, news coverage, photography, and a host of other topics that flesh out the lives of ordinary Americans who just happened to be living through the biggest conflict in American history. Along with the original material presented in the book chapters, the website accompanying the book is a treasure trove of primary sources, both textual and visual, keyed for each chapter topic.
Civil War America and its companion website uncover seismic shifts in the cultural and social landscape of the United States, providing the perfect addition to any course on the Civil War.
Acknowledgements
Foreword by John Stauffer
Introduction by Maggi M. Morehouse and Zoe Trodd
Part I: Dissent and Disobedience
- Draft Resistance and Rioting: Shannon Smith Bennett
- Southern Dissent: David Williams
- Women Soldiers: Rachel Redfern
- The Domestic Sphere: Phyllis Thompson
- Labor Organizations: Mark A. Lause
- Commerce and Industry: Daniel Rasmussen
- The Environment: Megan Kate Nelson
- Religion in the South: Thomas Lawrence Long
- Religion in the North: James R. Rohrer
- Reform and Welfare Societies: Lauren Brandt
- Higher Education: A.J. Angulo and Kimberly Cook
- Military Schools: Bradford A. Wineman
- Military Medicines: Guy R. Hasegawa
- Civilian Healthcare: James M. Schmidt
- Slave Emancipation: Sharon A. Roger Hepburn
- Black Troops: Maggi M. Morehouse
- Immigrants: Jennifer A. Stollman
- Native Americans: W. Craig Gaines
- Newspapers: Brayton Harris
- Literature: Vanessa Steinroetter
- Photography: Mandy A. Reid
- Painting and Illustration: Jennifer Raab
- Music: Jack Hamilton
- Theater: Laura Ansley and Renée M. Sentilles
- Baseball: Ryan Swanson
- Sacred and Secular Holidays: Suanna H. Davis
- Death and Dying: Nicole Day
- Veterans: John Casey
- Competing Memories: James M. Gillispie
Part II: Labor and Land
Part III: Religion and Reform
Part IV: Health and Education
Part V: Ethnic American Lives
Part VI: Literature and Visual Culture
Part VII: Leisure and Performance
Part VII: Death and Aftermath
About the Editors
Biography
Maggi M. Morehouse is Associate Professor of Southern History and Director of the Burroughs Fund for Southern Studies at Coastal Carolina University.
Zoe Trodd is Professor and Chair of American Literature in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham.
"Civil War America offers readers a remarkably insightful and comprehensive collection of essays on the social and cultural history of the home front and the battlefield. Students and professors alike will find the essays accessible and substantive, perfect for sparking classroom discussions of this vital era. Covering a range of diverse topics such as wartime music and theater, education, sports, draft resistance, and African American troops, Civil War America opens myriad avenues for dialogue and understanding."
Jonathan D. Wells, author of A House Divided: The Civil War and Nineteenth Century America (Routledge)
"A new collection of twenty-nine short essays edited by Maggi Morehouse and Zoe Trodd falls into new thinking about the war...Especially useful are chapters covering cultural metamorphoses. These help students think beyond military and political institutions and consider the roles played by newspapers, literature, photography, the fine arts, music, and sports in shaping perceptions of the war and the broader, slippery entity called “American” culture."
Robert E. Weir, Smith College/University of Massachusetts Amherst
