“N. A. Chandler California Gold Rush Era Letters” is a great digital project available from Claremont College. Newton Chandler (1818?-1880), who arrived in San Francisco in 1855, wrote over fifty letters to his wife between 1855 and 1872. These letters provide interesting insights into the Gold Rush, including Chandler’s journey to California in 1855. While […]
29
Jan
10
Newton Chandler California Gold Rush Era Letters
Posted by sailerd Published in 19th Century (1840-1880), Letters & Diaries1 comment
27
Jan
10
Historic Iowa Children's Diaries
Posted by sailerd Published in 19th Century (1840-1880), Images, Letters & DiariesThe University of Iowa has a small but interesting digital collection of diaries from children who lived in Iowa from 1860 to the 1900s. Of the eleven diaries that are available, three were written between 1860 and 1870. Even though they are relatively short (only a few pages have been digitized in some cases), the […]
26
Jan
10
Teaching Civil War Era –To Judge or Not To Judge
Posted by Matthew Pinsker Published in Civil War (1861-1865), General OpinionOn Tuesday, January 26, 2010, I am beginning my Civil War Era history class with a quotation from Frederick Douglas at the top of my syllabus. “I shall never forget the difference,” the great activist claimed in 1894, “between those who fought for liberty and those who fought for slavery; between those who fought to […]
25
Jan
10
Emergence of Advertising in America
Posted by sailerd Published in 19th Century (1840-1880), Images, Letters & DiariesDuke University’s “The Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850 – 1920” is a great resource for learning more about the early advertising history in the United States. This collection, which has over 9,000 images, is organized into eleven categories – almost all of the advertisements produced before 1870 are in “Broadsides” and “Advertising Ephemera.” Yet […]
22
Jan
10
The University of Maryland has an interesting collection of sixty two letters from a family who lived in Maryland during the Civil War. This project consists primarily of Tillie Farquhar Sterling’s correspondence with her mother, which can provide an interesting look into daily life in Maryland between 1862 and 1864. Other letters in the collection […]
21
Jan
10
Post Office and the Press
Posted by sailerd Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Historic PeriodicalsThe United States Post Office had an important role in suppressing antislavery material in slave states before the Civil War. Newspapers and books, such as the New York Tribune and Hinton Rowan Helper’s The Impending Crisis of the South (1857), were not always distributed in southern states.The Chicago Press and Tribune, which supported the Republican […]
18
Jan
10
The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue (1858)
Posted by sailerd Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Historic Periodicals, Images, Letters & DiariesOberlin College has a great digital exhibit on the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue that took place in September 1858. This event represented an important challenge to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, as residents were successful in their efforts to prevent southerners from returning fugitive slave to slavery. Some of the rescuers were arrested and their trial […]
15
Jan
10
Papers of Jefferson Davis
Posted by sailerd Published in 19th Century (1840-1880), Images, Letters & DiariesRice University has created a great online supplement for their 12 volume Papers of Jefferson Davis project. While not all of the papers have been posted online, the site offers a nice selection of material from his entire career. One can read “a listing of the demerits Davis received while” at West Point, a newspaper […]
13
Jan
10
Webcast – "America on the Eve of the Civil War"
Posted by sailerd Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Video“America on the Eve of the Civil War,” a conference held in April 2009 and sponsored by the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission, is now available online as a Webcast. Sixteen historians participated in this conference, which included four different sessions – “Taking Stock of the Nation in 1859”, “The Future of […]
11
Jan
10
"WalMart and the Civil War"
Posted by sailerd Published in Civil War (1861-1865), General Opinion, VideoTa-Nehisi Coates, a contributing editor at the Atlantic, has an interesting essay on “the war between [battlefield] preservation and commerce.” This essay focuses on the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia and the controversy over Wal-Mart’s plan to build a store at a key location. In addition, check out the author’s video tour of this […]
