The history department at the University of Nebraska has a number of lectures on digital history projects available, including Edward Ayers’ “Civil War and Emancipation: Visualizing American History.” Ayers, who developed the Valley of the Shadow, discusses that project as well as the Emancipation Project and the Southern History Database. While a transcript is not available, Ayers also presents his ideas in a short essay, “Mapping Freedom.” Digital history projects like the Valley of the Shadow allow historians to “bore down to the stories of individual people and families and, as Ayers explains, in this case “see how people held in bondage created new lives for themselves.” Also be sure to check out the interviews with other historians who share their thoughts on digital history.

Most students are unfamiliar with the Filibuster of the 1850s. If anything, one associates it with attempts to prevent a vote on bills in the US Senate. T. J. Stiles’ essay in the Gilder Lehrman’s online journal History Now provides a nice overview of the subject and profiles the infamous “Filibuster King” William Walker. “Filibusters were independent adventurers who launched freelance invasions of foreign countries” and most planned “to annex them to the United States,” as Stiles explains. Walker’s actions violated the US Neutrality Act, but he always believed that he was “destined to create a central American empire.” One of Walker’s targets was Nicaragua, which he invaded in 1855 and was later forced out by May 1857. While Stiles discusses this invasion, another short essay provides images from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. House Divided also has material on this topic, including more primary sources related to Walker and other filibusters like John A. Quitman.

The New York Times recently published a review of two new exhibits on John Brown – one from the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond and another from the New York Historical Society. (The New York Historical Society’s exhibit draws on material from the Gilder Lehrman Institute and some of it is online, as I noted in previous post). Both exhibits may tell a similar story, but they have different perspectives on Brown. Edward Rothstein explains that the New York exhibit “suggests” that “Brown’s legacy…finally found fruition in the 1960s civil rights movement.” As for the Richmond exhibit, the focus is Brown’s decision to sue violence as a means to end slavery. “We hear the clamor of the debate more clearly” as Rothstein notes that this exhibit asks visitors to consider whether “an individual [has] the right to carry out violent acts based on conscience.” While different views on Brown are not surprising, it is interesting to see them reflected in exhibits open at the same time.

The Library of Congress’ American Memory has constructed an interactive database containing over 3,000 maps from the Civil War era. The collection offers detailed descriptions of a variety of topics such as Union General William Tecumseh Sherman’s successful Atlanta Campaign to an outline of 23 forts defending the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Another great tool within the database is the fact that each map contains a list of subject links that help to expand upon your research. The collection contains map collections originally owned by both Union and Confederate military authorities.

American Memory has other databases that can prove useful in your research. Civil War railroad maps show an intricate description of the development of railroads through 1900.  There is also a collection of over 1,000 photographs from the Civil War era that have been specifically selected due to their innate detail.

The University of Richmond Digital Scholarship Lab’s “Voting America” is great resource on US Presidential elections. The site provides a series of maps on each election between 1840 and 2004  that show a variety of different information. For example, the 1860 election map includes layers that breakdown the popular vote by county and counties with small margins of victories (when a second place candidate lost by less than 10 percent of the vote). The site also organizes the maps by topic, such as turnout and third party voting. In addition, this interactive map allows you to select the election data that appears. Also, be sure to check out all of the videos – including this one with Professor Edward Ayers who discusses the elections before the Civil War.

Walt Whitman is the subject of not one, but two, interdisciplinary lesson plans hoping to explore the connection between the literature of the Civil War and the War itself. The first, aimed at students in grades from 7-12, is written by Nancy Hall and based off of Ken Burns’ documentary The Civil War, which has already been discussed previously. The second, aimed at students in grades from 9-12, is available through the National Endowment for the Humanities.

While both ask students to evaluate Whitman’s work in the context of the War, the lesson plan from the NEH is arguably the better of the two. Specifically, it asks students to examine primary sources such as photographs and letters, poems, and short prose pieces he wrote. Topics covered in the lesson include Civil War hospitals, the 51st New York regiment, and Washington DC during the War. In addition, students are encouraged to look at pages from Whitman’s notebooks, which offer an interesting look at how the writer worked. Group work is essential in completing this lesson and assumes an average of thirty-one students per class, though the numbers are flexible depending on individual class needs. Conclusions to the lesson include having students write their own poems or small presentations.

The New York Historical Society recently opened “Lincoln and New York,” a new exhibit that aims to “fully trace the evolution of Lincoln’s relationship” with the state. The exhibit includes not only Lincoln’s visits to New York, such as for his Cooper Union address in February 1860, but also explores the impact of his administration’s policies during the Civil War. In addition, the material on display highlights the extent of serious political opposition that Lincoln could face even in northern states. “We see New York’s version of the Civil War being fought using words, ideas, images and, at least during the 1863 Draft Riots, a fair amount of blood, with Lincoln as the battles’ nexus,” as the New York Times’ Edward Rothstein explains in his review. If you can’t make it to the exhibit (which runs through March 25, 2010), be sure to check out their interactive exhibit online.

The American Antiquarian Society, an independent research library, has provided a digital collection of the Grant-Burr family papers on their website.  The letters in this collection were written between the years 1827-1892, and a majority of the correspondence is between Daniel Grant and his wife Caroline Burr Grant.  There are over 500 letters, covering a great range of 19th century topics from courtship and childrearing to westward expansion and the Civil War.  The collection can be searched by keyword or, perhaps more usefully, can be browsed according to subject.  Additionally, the website offers genealogical information and images of the family.  All of the transcribed letters are available as a scanned pdf file which is useful for those seeking to use these letters in the classroom.  For more information on how to use primary sources in the classroom, teachers may want to refer to this page from the Library of Congress.

After his victory in the 1860 election, President-Elect Abraham Lincoln quickly started to work on filling the positions in the federal government that were political appointments. While selecting cabinet members was an important task, historian Harold Holzer explains that “Lincoln understood” how critical it was “to purge [the] Democrats” and “guarantee the loyalty of the federal bureaucracy.” Even as Lincoln considered the appropriate response to the secession crisis, he held countless meetings with office seekers who showed up at his temporary office in the Illinois Statehouse (see image to the right – it is #1 on this map). Those unable to travel to Springfield sent numerous letters to recommend either themselves or their friends. Other letters offered Lincoln advice on the appointment process. “Do not be led astray by corrupt Politicians,” as one anonymous author warned. The significant amount of incoming mail even caught the eye of at least one reporter. After a meeting in December, the reporter’s only comment about Lincoln’s office was to note that “[the secretary’s] desk [was] heaped up with letters and documents.” The political activity in Springfield did not escape the notice of Democratic papers like the New York Herald, which used the opportunity to portray their rivals as corrupt. The Herald predicted a “great republican feast” on all “the fat things” and identified the two “cooks” who would direct “the distribution of federal offices” in Pennsylvania.