Civil War 
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2/26/2023
Kara Walker Disrupts the Visual History of the Civil War in New Exhibition
by Allison Robinson and Ksenia M. Soboleva
The artist Kara Walker's 2005 series of prints merged the historical illustrations that shaped Americans' understanding of the Civil War in its immediate aftermath and in the 1890s with her original subversive take on the tradition of silhouette art to highlight the erasure of Black experiences of war. Two curators are putting Walker's work in context in a new exhibition.
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SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
1/17/2023
Kidada Williams on The Reconstruction that Wasn't
In the new "I Saw Death Coming," Williams describes a "shadow Confederacy" that refused to cede freedom or dignity to African Americans who often lived far from the reach of a federal government that was unreliably committed to their protection.
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/23/2023
The 14th Amendment Should Put a Stop to Debt Ceiling Hostage Taking
by Eric Foner
The provisions of the Reconstruction Amendments dealing with the national debt were tied to the nation's short-lived commitment to interracial democracy in the South; today they offer the Biden administration a possible tool to use if Congress pushes to the brink of default.
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SOURCE: Nursing Clio
1/19/2023
Masculinity and Trauma in War and Football
by Sarah Handley-Cousins
Sports have been cast as a (relatively) peaceful way of inculcating a set of masculine virtues otherwise associated with war. But the experience of injury and grief will continue to confound the rules of manhood—and football fans and citizens should pay attention.
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1/15/2023
Teach the History Behind "Emancipation" with the Primary Sources
by Alan J. Singer
Antoine Fuqua and Will Smith's "Emancipation" has rediscovered the life of an enslaved man variously called Peter or Gordon, who had been made famous through an 1863 photograph. Here's how history teachers can use the primary records of his life to accompany the film.
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SOURCE: Black Perspectives
1/12/2023
The Black Widows' Struggle for Civil War Pensions
by Hilary Green
Black women's struggles to claim pensions earned by their late husbands' service in the Union Army reflected the incomplete realization of freedom after emancipation and the intrusive controls the pension system and growing administrative state placed on Black families.
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SOURCE: New York Times
12/21/2022
Was the Civil War Inevitable?
by David W. Blight
As a growing number of Americans entertain the idea that dissolving the nation might be better than holding its incompatible parts together, it's worth revisiting the series of decisions that led to the Civil War, and to ask whether the nation has, or will, experience the equivalent of the Dred Scott decision.
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SOURCE: New York Review of Books
12/16/2022
Was Emancipation Intended to Perpetuate Slavery by Other Means?
by Sean Wilentz
Protests movements have latched on to a misguided interpretation of the Thirteenth Amendment that argues it allowed and even encouraged the system of mass incarceration as an extension of slavery. A new global history extends that critique to the age of emancipation in general.
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SOURCE: Substack
11/20/2022
Push Confederates Out of Gettysburg for Good
by Kevin M. Levin
Why are the forces that fought to preserve slavery, and who invaded the free state of Pennsylvania and kidnapped free Black Americans into slavery in 1863, allowed to march in Gettysburg's Remembrance Day parade?
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SOURCE: Substack
10/29/2022
Michigan Gubernatorial Candidate Steeped in Disinformation About Parties' Roles
by Heather Cox Richardson
Focusing on the tension between hierarchy and equality rather than party affiliation helps to clarify why a candidate of the "Party of Lincoln" can make white power rants on public media.
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SOURCE: Nashville Scene
10/10/2022
What Freedom Meant to Black People in Nashville During the Civil War
Incoming AHA President Thavolia Glymph discussed how the actions of Black refugees who moved behind Union lines at Fort Negley and other locations changed the meaning of the war and ensured that it would ultimately abolish slavery.
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SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
8/14/2022
If American History Needs Heroes, Why Aren't We Teaching about the Abolitionists?
by Stephanie Coontz
Those who feel discomfort over studying the history of abolitionism do so because of their refusal to build on the work of an interracial group of American visionaries.
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8/7/2022
Healing a Divided Nation
by Carole Adrienne
From specialized trauma care to emergency transportation to board certification of physicians, when we encounter the medical system today, we are experiencing Civil War medicine.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
7/14/2022
What the Antebellum Period Tells Us about the Coming Battles Over Abortion
by Kate Masur
"The history of the 19th century reminds us that arguments for states’ rights, or for federal power, have no intrinsic political or moral valence."
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6/19/2022
"Oh, We Knowed What Was Goin’ On": The Myths (and Lies) of Juneteenth
by Clyde W. Ford
After the myths of Juneteenth are stripped away, the day symbolizes the incompleteness of the promise of emancipation.
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5/25/2022
A Century After its Dedication, the Lincoln Memorial's Meaning is Still Contested
by Patrick Malone
From its dedication to the present, the meaning and legacy of Lincoln and his memorial have been the focus of struggle between those who see Lincoln as the savior of the Union and those who claim him as the great emancipator.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
5/15/2022
A Neighborly Civil War in Virginia over Street Names
Leaders of a group of suburban Virginia homeowners who want to change the Confederate-related street names in their community have been accused of being puppets of George Soros and threatened.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
3/31/2022
Lies We Teach to Kids about the Reconstruction Era
by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca
"The narrative of Reconstruction perpetuated by many state social studies standards is part of a longer and larger struggle over the past, the latest episode of which can be seen in a rash of new restrictions on what teachers can tell young people about our nation’s history.
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3/6/2022
How Lincoln and Douglass Joined Forces for Freedom
by Jonathan W. White
Lincoln's discussions with Frederick Douglass should make clear the difference between the president's public statements and his inner convictions on emancipation.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
1/17/2022
New Book Challenges Civil War Myths in Maryland
Charles W. Mitchell and Jean H. Baker's book assembles essays from historians who undermine myths of Maryland history shaped by Confederate sympathizers.
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