• Home
  • About
  • How to Contribute
  • Our Correspondents

13

Feb

10

Seeing Slavery in a Digital Age

Posted by Matthew Pinsker  Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Rare Books

One of the great wonders of the digital age is the ability to read rare books and documents from your desktop. Admittedly, reading online isn’t always easy or fun, but nothing compares to ease of access or the ability to search the full text of these resources. A great case study for this brave new […]

Continue reading...

13 comments

3

Feb

10

Help Improve the UGRR Digital Classroom

Posted by Matthew Pinsker  Published in Antebellum (1840-1861), Images, Lesson Plans, Letters & Diaries

James McPherson writes in Battle Cry of Freedom (1989) that “On all issues but one, antebellum southerners stood for state’s rights and a weak federal government” (p. 78). Yet that one exception –the fugitive slave law– was a principal cause of the coming Civil War and potentially changes one’s view of the war’s meaning. White […]

Continue reading...

14 comments

26

Jan

10

Teaching Civil War Era –To Judge or Not To Judge

Posted by Matthew Pinsker  Published in Civil War (1861-1865), General Opinion

On 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 […]

Continue reading...

18 comments

30

Sep

09

Lincoln's Future Is Digital –Deal With It!

Posted by Matthew Pinsker  Published in 19th Century (1840-1880), General Opinion

This month the Journal of American History published a special issue on Abraham Lincoln where I contributed an essay which claimed that the future of Lincoln studies lies mainly in digital work –both in new, ambitious research projects and also in innovative forms of web-based presentation.  Okay, so I realize this claim seems more than […]

Continue reading...

17 comments

19

Aug

09

College Student Finds Lincoln Fingerprint

Posted by Matthew Pinsker  Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Recent News, Recent Scholarship, Video

This year a freshman at Miami University in Ohio discovered a rare fingerprint from Abraham Lincoln just barely visible on one of his letters housed within the college’s archives.  Lydia Smith, now a psychology major, made the discovery in November 2008 while examining a letter that Lincoln wrote on October 5, 1863.   John Lupton, director […]

Continue reading...

2 comments

19

Nov

08

Was Lincoln's "Team of Rivals" a myth?

Posted by Matthew Pinsker  Published in Civil War (1861-1865), General Opinion, Recent News

I argued yesterday in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times that Lincoln’s experience with cabinet-making (the famous “Team of Rivals”) was more of a cautionary tale than a model to follow. Consider this inconvenient truth: Out of the four leading vote-getters for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination whom Lincoln placed on his original team, […]

Continue reading...

12 comments

5

Nov

08

Friedman Declares End of Civil War with Obama Victory

Posted by Matthew Pinsker  Published in Civil War (1861-1865), General Opinion, Recent News, Reconstruction (1865-1880)

In a thought-provoking column today in the New York Times, headlined “Finishing Our Work,” Tom Friedman argues that the Obama victory represents a final act of closure for the American Civil War.  And he finds it particularly fitting that it was Virginia in many ways that provided the key to Obama’s electoral triumph.  Friedman writes: […]

Continue reading...

1 comment

31

Oct

08

Helpful websites for Johnson Impeachment (1868)

Posted by Matthew Pinsker  Published in Historic Periodicals, Images, Reconstruction (1865-1880)

Two websites currently stand out for the access they provide to primary sources about the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868.  The first from Douglas O. Linder’s quite exceptional “Famous Trials” series.  Linder, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) has put together invaluable primary source packets on trials from Socrates to […]

Continue reading...

no comment

27

Oct

08

Good article about new Lincoln books

Posted by Matthew Pinsker  Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Recent News, Recent Scholarship

A recent USA Today article provides a good overview of some of the best new Lincoln books upcoming in the run up to the bicentennial of his birth in 2009.   The article features information about James McPherson’s new work, Tried by War, a study of Lincoln as Commander-In-Chief.  Along the way, the story provides some […]

Continue reading...

no comment

19

Oct

08

Lincoln and Civil Liberties

Posted by Matthew Pinsker  Published in Civil War (1861-1865), Lesson Plans, Video

Yesterday at a teacher training workshop at the Lincoln Cottage in Washington, I discussed Abraham Lincoln’s use of war powers and his approach to civil liberties with a group of K-12 colleagues from the DC and northern Virginia area. We had an excellent exchange at a forum hosted by the National Trust for Historic Preservation […]

Continue reading...

no comment
Page 4 of 5«12345»

Search

Categories

  • Dickinson & Slavery
  • History Online
  • Period
    • 19th Century (1840-1880)
    • Antebellum (1840-1861)
    • Civil War (1861-1865)
    • Reconstruction (1865-1880)
  • Type
    • Editor's Choice
    • General Opinion
    • Historic Periodicals
    • Images
    • Lesson Plans
    • Letters & Diaries
    • Lists
    • Maps
    • Places to Visit
    • Rare Books
    • Recent News
    • Recent Scholarship
    • Recollections
    • Video
  • What Would Lincoln Do?

Project Links

  • Digital Lincoln
  • HDiv Research Engine
  • House Divided Index
  • L-D Debates Classroom
  • Lincoln in PA
  • PA Grand Review
  • UGRR Classroom
  • Virtual Field Trips
  • William Stoker Exhibit

Administration

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
Donate

Recent Post

  • Black Employees and Exclusive Spaces: The Dickinson Campus in the Late 19th Century
  • Friend or Foe: Nineteenth Century Dickinson College Students’ Perception of Their Janitors
  • Teaching Gettysburg: New Classroom Resources
  • Coverage of the Gettysburg Address
  • Welcome to Chicago: Choosing the Right Citation Generator
  • Augmented Reality in the Classroom
  • Beyond Gettysburg: Primary Sources for the Gettysburg Campaign
  • African Americans Buried at Gettysburg
  • The Slave Hunt: Amos Barnes and Confederate Policy
  • Entering Oz – Bringing Color to History

Recent Comments

  • George Georgiev in Making Something to Write Home About
  • Matthew Pinsker in The Slave Hunt: Amos Barnes and Confederate Policy…
  • linard johnson in Making Something to Write Home About
  • Bedava in The Slave Hunt: Amos Barnes and Confederate Policy…
  • Adeyinka in Discovering the Story of a Slave Catcher
  • Stefan Papp Jr. in Where was William Lloyd Garrison?
  • Stefan Papp Jr. in Where was William Lloyd Garrison?
  • Jon White in Albert Hazlett - Trial in Carlisle, October 1859
  • Pedro in Discovering the Story of a Slave Catcher
  • Matthew Pinsker in Register Today for "Understanding Lincoln," a New …

by Wired Studios, Corvette Garage, Jeff Mummert
© Content 2007-2010 by Dickinson College