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 […]
30
Oct
09
Two John Brown Exhibits
Posted by sailerd Published in 19th Century (1840-1880), Places to Visit, Recent Newsno comment
28
Oct
09
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 […]
28
Oct
09
“Voting America: United States Politics, 1840-2004”
Posted by sailerd Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), MapsThe 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 […]
27
Oct
09
The blog Civil War Women provides a great deal of useful information about individual women during the Civil War era. The information is largely biographical, but many entries use primary resources to substantiate the stories. The women are divided into categories: wives of generals, nurses, African-Americans, civilians, diarists, soldiers, spies, teachers, writers, doctors, and activists. […]
27
Oct
09
Walt Whitman in the Civil War
Posted by Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Images, Lesson Plans, Letters & DiariesWalt 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 […]
26
Oct
09
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 […]
25
Oct
09
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 […]
23
Oct
09
Election of 1860 – Political Appointments
Posted by sailerd Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Historic Periodicals, Letters & DiariesAfter 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 […]
22
Oct
09
Marist College’s Kathryn Silberger has put together an impressive collection of thirty-one letters by Union soldier Daniel Francis Kemp from his tenure as a landsman in the US Navy between 1862 and 1863. Your Affectionate Son offers a wide range of pictures detailing the specific events and locations described in Kemp’s letters. It offers a […]
22
Oct
09
Exploring the Union and Confederate Armies Through Song
Posted by Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Lesson PlansA great general resource on the web is PBS Teachers. Easily searchable, resources are broken down by grade, subject, and topics. It seems that PBS strives to make their resources interdisciplinary and tie in with different media sources. One example uses the Ken Burns’ film, The Civil War, to explore the music of the period. […]
