Comparative African American Cultures
History 315
Spring 2003
T,Th, 11 - 12:15
Ren 127
Dale Graden
Office: Admin 305 A
Office Hour: Tuesday 2-3, or by appointment
Office Telephone : 885-8956
Email: Graden@uidaho.edu
Web: www.class.uidaho.edu/Graden
The purpose of this course is to offer an overview of African American history and cultural expression in the United States and other regions of the Americas from the 19th century to the present. Through readings, discussion, lectures, and films, we shall discuss some of the historical forces that have influenced African Americans and the societies in which they live.
It is imperative that you attend the classes, and that you do the readings. When it is noted discussion, please come prepared to discuss. The quality of the discourse in the classroom depends upon your preparation and commitment. Do not hesitate to ask questions at any time in the class. Please, feel free to challenge my interpretations and share your own insights. My days are enhanced significantly when I learn about new ideas and your perspectives. My goal is for this to be one of the great learning experiences in your journey.
I reserve the right to determine a grade based on attendance and participation. If you miss more than five classes during the semester, your final mark will drop by a grade. If you cannot attend a class for health or other reasons, please leave a note in my mailbox in the department of history (Admin 315) or send a message via email to let me know. I emphasize to you that your involvement makes a class of this nature a worthwhile endeavor for everyone.
Course requirements
There will be a mid-term exam and a final examination. There are also two short papers of two to four (2-4) typed pages. Everyone is required to write on W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk; this essay is due in class on Thursday, February 6th. The second paper is chosen from two other options (books by Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory or Benjamin, Benedita da Silva) and is due on the date noted on the syllabus. You are welcome to substitute the suggested books for paper number two with a reading of your own choosing. Just let me know in advance a book you have chosen. Each essay is worth twenty (20) points, the mid-term exam is worth twenty-five (25) points, and the final exam is worth thirty-five (35) points. The final exam will be a take home question to which you will respond during the scheduled examination period.
Two book critiques
The two short papers of two to four pages (2-4 pages) are assigned to help you to learn how to write effectively and to ensure that you come to the specific discussion meeting prepared to share your ideas and interpretations. These essays should address some theme(s) that you consider relevant from the assigned reading. The short paper is not a "book report." Rather, it is a critique of the book that you have read. I want to read about your ideas and observations and critical analysis, and not an overview of what the author has written. Show me that you have read and thought about the book. According to the law of effective writing, the paper should begin with an introduction, and the last sentence of the introductory paragraph should inform the reader (me) of the central theme or focus of the critique. Then construct coherent paragraphs that analyze in a logical manner the topic. Finally, finish with a conclusion.
Please, write the paper a few days before the due date, so that you can return to the computer at least once before you hand it to me. This will enable you to make corrections and refinements. I have read several thousand of these short papers, and know when someone has scribbled down a bunch of ideas the night before and when the assignment has been approached seriously. I believe that these short papers are among the most important exercises that you can do as a student in a university. And you have asked me why ?!! Because the majority of students graduate from universities and colleges across the land unable to write 3-4 coherent pages on a specific topic or reading. I hope that you find the readings challenging and stimulating. In other words, I hope that the assigned readings make you feel like you want to take pen (computer) in hand to write down your ideas. The discussion offers a great opportunity for you to share with the class your ideas, impressions, sentiments, worldview, etc. I am convinced that we all have much to gain by engaging in a reasoned and critical dialogue with each other, no matter how much you might agree or disagree with the viewpoint of other persons. Late papers will not be accepted. You are welcome to write as many papers as you like, and such initiatives will be considered in my final evaluation of your work and involvement in this course. Also, I encourage you to take advantage of the opportunities that are available to you at the UI writing center.
Please note that in taking History 315 this spring of 2003, you are agreeing (by a "contract" of sorts in the form of the syllabus) that the two book critiques are written with your own words and that the mid-term and final exams have been written by you in the classroom during the examination period. If you have any questions in this regard, please get in touch with me. I encourage the use of web sites to help you learn about topics; I discourage use of materials from a web site or any other source when you sit down to share your thoughts about a book you have read.
Readings
The following books are available at the UI bookstore and are on reserve at the library:
Joe William Trotter, Jr., The African American Experience
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
Maya Angelou, The Heart of a Woman
Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory: A Novel
Medea Benjamin and Maisa Mendonça, Benedita da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian Woman's
Story of Politics and Love
Class meetings
Week one : Why Study African American Cultures? Could there be a North American - Centric bias in the teaching of African American History in US universities ?
Recommended readings: Peter Applebome, "Can Harvard's
Powerhouse Alter the Course of Black Studies?" New York Times, November 3,
1996
"The Black Americas, 1492-1992," NACLA: Report on the
Americas (February 1992), both on reserve
Thursday Jan 16 : Introduction
Week two : Nineteenth-Century Slave Systems across the Americas
Reading : Trotter, The African American Experience, 26-79.
Begin, Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk.
Recommended is www.yaleslavery.org
David Brion Davis, "Looking at Slavery from Broader
Perspectives," American Historical Review 105:2 (April 2000)
T.21 International slave trade to the Americas, 1510s-1868
Th.23 Comparative Emancipations 1770s - 1888
Thursday evening 23rd
Fr.24 MLK and non violence : presentation in Commons, 12:30-2:30
Fr.24
MLK panel "Teach-in" UI Commons fourth floor
12:50 – 1:20
“Non-violence as a political strategy” session
Dale Graden from U of I and Noel Sturgeon from the community
1:20 – 1:50
Strategizing for clubs and orgs to
respond to the Campus Climate survey to be led by Steve Janowiak from U
of I and Gretchen Stewart from UI Law School
1:50-2:20
A presentation about the Diversity Dialogue series to done by Jamie Nekich-Locke
and
2:20-2:30
a brief conclusion by Emily Sly
Week three : Slave Resistance, Civil War, and Reconstruction in the US
Reading : Trotter, The African American Experience, 183-235; continue Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
T.28 Reconstruction: "America's Unfinished Revolution"
Th.30 film "Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice"
"Without Sanctuary: Photography and Postcards of Lynching
in America"
http://www.journale.com/withoutsanctuary/
Week four : The "Redeemed South", 1880s-1920s
Reading : conclude Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
Recommended : Trotter, The African American Experience, 269-342.
T.Feb 4 "A Rage for Order": Jim Crow laws, segregation, movement to the north and west
W.5 and Th.6 the film "Bowling for Columbine"
directed by Michael Moore ("Roger and Me" and "Roger and Me
Revisited") will be shown at SUB Borah Theater at 7 and 9:30 pm
Th.6 film: "W.E.B. Du Bois of Great Barrington"
Required first critique is due on Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk and
short discussion
Recommended is the "W.E.B. Du Bois Virtual Library" at http://members.tripod.com/~DuBois/index.htm
Week five : Race and Imperialism
Reading : essay by Lawrence J. Oliver, "`Jim Crowed' in
Their Own Countries: James Weldon Johnson's New York Age Essays on Colonialism
during the Wilson Years," on reserve
Recommended : Lewis H. Lapham, "The American Rome: On the Theory of
Virtuous Empire," Harper's Magazine, August 2001, on reserve
T.11 Late Nineteenth Century European Imperialism and "Science"; The "New Empire of the United States, 1860s-1930
Th.13 Guest presentation by the slam poet Shihan
Week six : International Renaissance, 1915-1930s
Reading : Trotter, The African American Experience, 402-33.
Begin Maya Angelou, The Heart of a Woman
Recommended : review the home page of the Schomburg Center in New York City at
http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html
and one of several Harlem Renaissance sites (scroll to bottom) at
http://www.wvu.edu/~lawfac/jelkins/lp-2001/johnson_jw.html
See discussion questions for Angelou's The Heart of a Woman at
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/breath_eyes_memory.asp
T.18 film: "Against the Odds: The Artists of the Harlem
Renaissance"
Th.20 Lot's happening: New York, São Paulo, the Caribbean, Paris in the 1920s
Week seven : Depression, New Deal, World War Two, and McCarthyism
Reading : conclude Angelou, The Heart of a Woman
Recommended : Trotter, The African American Experience, 434-516
T.25 World War; and then wealth and bad times in the 1950s
Th.27 documentary : Frontline "Forgotten Daughter"
Week eight : The Black Power Movement
T.March 4 mid term examination
Th.6 Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam war; MLK before and
after 1967
Recommended is Who Killed the Dream ? Insights concerning the assassination of
MLK
http://www.whokilledthedream.com/main.html
Week nine : Malcolm X
Reading : Trotter, The African American Experience, 546-603.
Recommended : Anthony Walton, "A Dream Deferred: Why Martin Luther King has
yet to be heard," Harper's Magazine (August 2002)
Shelby Steele,
"The Age of White Guilt, and the disappearance of the black
individual," Harper's Magazine (November 2002), both on reserve.
Van Gosse, Where the Boys Are: Cuba, Cold War America and the Making of a New
Left
Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Michael Eric Dyson, Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X
T.11 film "Malcolm X: Make it Plain"
Th.13 : 1959 and 1968 : years that shook the world and legacies (don't miss this class !!)
spring break : suggested reading of Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory and then Benjamin, Benedita da Silva
Week ten : African Caribbean I
Reading : Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory
T.25 Haiti's revolution 1791-1804 and legacies; US intervention 1915-34
Th.27 20th century Haiti : Papa Doc, Baby Doc, Jean-Bertrande Aristide and the Haitian diaspora
Week eleven : African Caribbean II
Reading : finish Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory
View in class the film "Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti"
T.April 1 Discussion of Danticat novel and optional book critique two is due
Th.3 Who was Bob Marley ?
Week twelve : Brasil I
Reading : Benjamin, Benedita da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian
Woman's Story of Politics and Love
Recommended : R.K. Kent, "Palmares: An African State in Brazil,"
Journal of African History 6:2 (1965), 161-75, on reserve
Dale Gradem, "History and Motive as seen through Antonio Frederico de
Castro Alves's "Saudacao a Palmares [Salute to Palmares]," Brasil/Brazil:
A Journal of Brazilian Literature 9:6 (spring 1993), 27-44, on reserve
T.8 film "The Faces of Slavery"
Th.10 The myth of racial democracy
Week thirteen : Brasil II
Reading : finish Benedita da Silva
T.15 film
Th.17 Discussion of Benedita da Silva and optional book critique three is due
Fr.18 7 pm SUB, free admission : "World In Union" dance and cultural performances
Week fourteen : Hip Hop, Rappers, and international culture
Suggested reading : UK and International Hip Hop site
http://www.low-life.fsnet.co.uk/ukhiphop/international
Urban Ambiance Journal
http://www.uajournal.com
International Hip Hop Festival 2002
http://www.hiphopelements.com/ProAmAll/2002/MainProAm2002.htm
Hip Hop from Senegal
http://www.senerap.com/
The Hip Hop Congress
http://www.hiphopcongress.com/index.html
T.22 Earth Day : no class
Please consider attending one or more of the following presentations in Commons
Mezzanine
Earth Day 2003 UI Speakers Series: "Alternatives To A
Plundered Planet. And For A Saner World"
Speakers and Departments:
9:30 AM
Simba Tirima, Environmental Science, "Imposing Wilderness
on Africa"
10:00 AM
Kurt Queller, English, "Beyond Stewardship: Judeo-Christian
Alternatives to Dominionism."
10:30
Julia Parker, Core Curriculum and Resource Recreation and
Tourism, "Natives, Nukes and Environmental Justice."
11:00
Dale Graden, History, "Addicted To War: Why Militarism
And Empire Are Bad For Our Collective Health and Well-
Being."
11:30
Jan Johnson, English and Native-American Studies, "Saving
the Salmon, Saving the People: Environmental Justice and the
Columbia River Tribes."
12:00
Gundars Rudzitis, Geography, "Alternatives to Neoliberal
Development and Models of Cultural, Economic and
Environmental Destruction,"
Th.24 Film on Hip Hop in Sao Paulo, Brasil
Week fifteen : African Liberation Movements
T.29
Th.May 1
Week sixteen : Race and Racism
Reading : John Edgar Wideman, "Whose War: The color of
terror," Harper's Magazine (March 2002), on reserve.
All below are recommended:
"The Social Origins of Race: Race and Racism in the
Americas, Part I," NACLA: Report on the Americas (May/June 2001) on reserve
Derrick Bell, Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism, on
reserve
Florence George Graves, "The Complete Anita Hill,"
Boston Globe Magazine, January 19, 2003 http://www.boston.com/globe/magazine/2003/0119/coverstory.htm
T.6 Discussion
T.8 conclusions
Final exam question handed out on Thursday 8 May and response
to be written during exam period 10am - 12pm on Wednesday 14 May. Books,
notes, or written materials can not be consulted when writing your response in
class.
Selected Bibliography
International Slave Trade, Slavery, Emancipation, the Black Atlantic:
John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the
Atlantic World, 1400-1680
Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the
Modern, 1492-1800
Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery
Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade; The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870
Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger
Charles Johnson, Middle Passage
James Walvin, Black Ivory: A History of British Slavery
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
Stelamaris Coser, Bridging the Americas: The Literature of Paule Marshall, Toni
Morrison, and Gayl Jones
Maria Diedrich et al., Black Imagination and the Middle Passage
Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness
Caribbean:
Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd, eds., Caribbean Slave
Society and Economy
Barbara Bush, Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650-1838
Franklin W. Knight and Colin Palmer, eds., The Modern Caribbean
Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar, trans. Harriet De Onis
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1995 [1947])
Miguel Barnet, Biography of a Runaway Slave
Walter Rodney, A History of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905
Martin Ros, Night of Fire: The Black Napoleon and the Battle for Haiti, trans.
Karin Ford-Treep
Brasil:
Robert Edgar Conrad, Children of God's Fire: A Documentary
History of Black Slavery in Brazil
João José Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in
Bahia, trans. Arthur Brakel
Hendrik Kraay, Culture and Politics in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Afro-Bahia
Ruth Landes, City of Women
Amelia Simpson, Xuxa: The Mega-Marketing of Gender, Race, and Modernity
Abdias do Nascimento, Brazil: Mixture or Massacre; Essays on the Genocide of a
Black People
Kim D. Butler, Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition
São Paulo and Salvador
Phyllis Galembo, Divine Inspiration: From Benin to Bahia
David J. Hellwig, ed., African-American Reflections on Brazil's Racial Paradise
France Windham Twine, Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White
Supremacy in Brazil
Caetano Veloso, Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil
Christopher Dunn, Brutality Garden: Tropicalia and the Emergence of a Brazilian
Counterculture
US:
John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., From Slavery to
Freedom: A History of African Americans, 8th edition
Robin D.G. Kelley and Earl Lewis, To Make Our World Anew: A History of African
Americans
Darlene Clark Hine et al., The African-American Odyssey
Adam Fairclough, Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890-2000
Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North
America
Robert William Fogel, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American
Slavery
Winthrop Jordan, White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro,
1550-1812
W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880
Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
C. Peter Ripley, et.al., Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race,
Slavery, and Emancipation
William H. Chafe et.al, Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life
in the Segregated South
Paul Goodman, Of One Blood: Abolitionism and the Origins
of Racial Equality
Hayward Gallery and University of California Press, Rhapsodies in Black: Art of
the Harlem Renaissance
Willie E. Gary et.al., "Making the Case for Racial Reparations: Does
America owe a debt to the descendants of its slaves," Harper's Magazine,
November 2000, 37-51.
Henry Louis Gates and Nellie Y. McKay, The Norton Anthology of African American
Literature
Some web sites of interest
www.yaleslavery.org
http://www.thenation.com/ and
type in under search "African American history"
http://www.theatlantic.com/ and type
in under seach "African American" or "race" or
"multicultural"
Timothy Charoenying, "Jazz at the Crossroads," The Atlantic, 26 Feb.
2003
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/jazz.htm
See also the cd rom Encarta Africana
The links below are provided from the cd rom produced by McGraw-Hill Company entitled "Who Freed the Slaves"
GENERAL OVERVIEW OF EMANCIPATION AND THE CIVIL WAR
American
Civil War Home Page (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/
This extensive site links to hundreds of resources, including timelines, images,
letters, accounts and diaries, bibliographies, state studies, specific battles,
and rosters.
American
Memory (Library of Congress)
http://memory.loc.gov/
The American Memory project has a tremendous collection of primary sources on
the Civil War period with a particular emphasis on the African American
experience.
Freedmen
and Southern Society Chronology of Emancipation (Freedmen and Southern Society
Project, University of Maryland)
http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Colleges/ARHU/Depts/History/Freedman/chronol.htm
This site contains a detailed chronology of major events in the history of
Emancipation with linked keywords and events.
SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE
The
Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record (University
of Virginia)
http://gropius.lib.virginia.edu/Slavery/
This site holds multiple digital images depicting slave life and culture before,
during, and after emancipation.
Tangled
Roots (Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition
at Yale University)
http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/
The "Tangled Roots" project brings together speeches, legal documents,
letters, interviews, cartoons, articles, and document-based classroom projects
related to the intertwining history of American slaves and immigrants from
Ireland.
AFRICAN AMERICAN RESISTANCE AND ACTIVISM
The
African-American: A Journey from Slavery to Freedom (C.W. Post University)
http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/aaslavry.htm
Although this site is basic in content, it does provide detailed information
concerning key figures in the process of emancipation. This site also provides a
valuable bibliography for each of its topics and persons of interest.
African
American Odyssey (Library of Congress)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aointro.html
This online Library of Congress exhibition showcases books, government
documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings on
the history of African Americans and their quest for equality.
African-American
Slave Resistance in America (AFRO-Americ@, Carolyn L. Bennett, Ph.D.)
http://www.afro.com/history/slavery/main.html
This site chronicles slave resistance in American history, examining specific
instances of resistance, the role of women in resistance, and a chronology of
slave insurrections and uprisings.
Africans
in America (PBS)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/home.html
PBS's "Africans in America" site accompanies the eponymous series,
with historical essays, biographies, interviews, documents, and teachers'
guides. Under the subcategory, Civil War (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4narr5.html),
a further detailing of the Harpers Ferry raid, military conscription, and racist
attitudes faced by African Americans who wished to fight in the Civil War is
provided.
Dred
Scott Case (Washington University Libraries)
http://library.wustl.edu/vlib/dredscott/
A rich exhibit on the Dred Scott case with scans of all primary documents
involved as well as a thorough chronology of the case itself.
The Face
of Slavery and Other Early Images of African Americans (American Museum of
Photography)
http://photographymuseum.com/faceof.html
This site includes only ten photographs of African Americans from 1855 to 1905
but the bulk of them are portraits, unusual for their time.
Freedmen's
Bureau On-Line (The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands)
http://freedmensbureau.com/
A private, genealogically-oriented site with a large array of primary documents
relating to the activities of the Freedmen's Bureau.
Photographs
of African-Americans During the Civil War (Library of Congress)
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/081_cwaf.html
This site lists Library of Congress photograph holdings of African Americans
during the Civil War. Less than half of the listings have actual images online,
but they do provide an important glimpse of captured everyday moments.
The
Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony (University of Virginia)
http://www.roanokefreedmenscolony.com/
This site presents the history of a Civil War refuge for escaped slaves, through
maps, letters, and project ideas for high school and college students.
Slave
Voices (Duke University)
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/slavery/
This site contains several documents based on slave narratives recorded by the
Federal Writer's Project in the 1930s.
Valley of
the Shadow (University of Virginia)
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2/
The premier archive of the Civil War period, this path-breaking site focuses on
two counties (one slave, one free) and provides a nearly exhaustive documentary
and statistical picture of the two communities before and during the Civil War.
ABOLITIONISM
Freedom's
Journal (State Historical Society of Wisconsin)
http://www.shsw.wisc.edu/library/aanp/freedom/
Digitized copies of all 103 issues of the Freedom's Journal, the first African
American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States from 1827
to 1929.
Nineteenth-Century
Documents Project (Furman University, SC)
http://www.furman.edu/~benson/docs/
This site contains a range of nineteenth century documents, such as newspaper
editorials, abolitionist tracts, political speeches, legislative resolutions,
and statistical data. Issues addressed by these sources include slavery and
sectionalism, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854, the Dred Scott Case, the
election of 1860, the secession of the southern states, and the impact of the
Civil War on the South.
Uncle
Tom's Cabin and American Culture (Institute for Advanced Technologies in the
Humanities at the University of Virginia)
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/
This website features materials relating to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle
Tom's Cabin, such as the first published edition, audio files of the hymns
presented in the book, anti-slavery and Christian abolitionist texts, materials
on nineteenth century Sentimental Culture, newspaper reviews, articles and
notices, African American and pro-slavery responses to the novel, adaptations,
and an interactive timeline.
Underground
Railroad (National Geographic)
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/99/railroad/
This site provides an interactive journey along the fabled Underground Railroad
that ushered some runaway slaves to freedom.
THE SOUTH
Beyond
Face Value (United States Civil War Center at Louisiana State University)
http://www.lib.lsu.edu/cwc/BeyondFaceValue/
"Beyond Face Value" explores the portrayal of slavery in Confederate
currency, with over 100 digital images of Confederate notes.
Confederate
Broadside Poetry Collection (Wake Forest University Library)
http://www.wfu.edu:80/Library/rarebook/broads.html
The collection features poems, pamphlets, and broadsides written by southerners
and Confederate sympathizers during the Civil War.
Documenting
the American South (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
http://docsouth.unc.edu/
A collection of over 1,000 manuscripts including slave narratives and southern
literature from the Civil War years. The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865 (http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/)
extends beyond the bounds of the basic site by examining the transformation of
the homefront in the American South during the era of the Civil War. There are
numerous sources and documents on site that cover topics ranging from science
and medicine to home life.
WOMEN AND THE WAR
Hearts At
Home: Southern Women and the Civil War (University of Virginia)
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/exhibits/hearts/
This site allows access to an assortment of primary sources that detail the role
of southern women in the Civil War. Many interesting topics, such as women and
spying and women in the labor force, make this site an important resource for
women's history.
Women and
the Civil War (Duke University)
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/women/civilwar.html
This site contains a few interesting diaries and letters written by women who
lived during the Civil War. Also, it includes a highly useful links page with
several informative sites concerned with women and the Civil War.
MILITARY AND POLITICAL
Abraham
Lincoln Papers (Library of Congress)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/malhome.html
This is the official collection of Lincoln Papers with 61,000 images and 10,000
transcriptions of the nearly 20,000 items in the physical collection.
American
Civil War Research Database (Historical Data Systems, Inc.)
http://www.civilwardata.com/
A fee-based service allowing searches of the two-million-person database of
Confederate and Union Soldiers. Subscriptions are $25 or less.
Civil War
Parks (National Parks Service)
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/categrs/mili2.htm
The site contains a brief essay and a collection of links to numerous National
Park Civil War battlefields and museums.
Emancipation
Proclamation (National Archives)
http://www.nara.gov/exhall/featured-document/eman/emanproc.html
A special exhibit showing multiple drafts of the Emancipation Proclamation and
an audio clip of a former slave discussing life post-emancipation.
Eye of
the Storm (Simon & Schuster)
http://www.journale.com/eyeofthestorm/main.html
This site features Union soldier Private Knox Sneden's watercolors, maps, and
journal entries from 1861-1864. There are also links to photographs of Civil War
battlefields and a Matthew Brady exhibit.
Historical
New York Times Project (Universal Library at Carnegie Mellon University)
http://www.nyt.ulib.org/index.cgi
The Historical New York Times Project displays New York Times articles on Civil
War topics from 1860 to 1866. The hi-tech imagery allows visitors to browse
through old newspapers online.
Lincoln.net
(Northern Illinois University)
http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/
The premier collection of Lincoln materials outside of the Library of Congress,
this site includes presidential papers, songs, texts, and interactive maps.
The Time
of Lincolns (PBS)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lincolns/
A PBS documentary site which provides a virtual slave cabin, information on
women in the war, and the experiences of the average footsoldier.
U.S.
Civil War Center (Louisiana State)
http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/
A searchable collection of links and documents on the Civil War as well as a
thorough cemetary database.
Virtual
Visit: The Emancipation Proclamation (New York State Library)
http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/library/features/ep/
An excellent display and analysis of the various drafts of the proclamation,
including rare nineteenth century photographs of the final hand written draft of
the proclamation.
Civil War
Cartoons (University of Virginia)
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/SCARTOONS/cartoons.html
With hundreds of illustrations, this site focuses on the impact of political
cartoons on Civil War history.
MATERIAL CULTURE AND AUDIO/VISUAL RESOURCES
Private
Passions, Public Legacy (University of Virginia Library)
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/mellon/
Culled from the estate of Paul Mellon, a prominent philanthropist, this
collection includes a Civil War section with pictures of artifacts such as
playing cards, broadsides, lithographs, and a moving Myriopticon (a toy that
presents Civil War scenes).
Radio
Diaries: People Documenting Their Lives on National Public Radio (Radio Diaries,
Inc.)
http://www.radiodiaries.org/radiodiaries.html
The site includes audio files and transcripts of interviews with the last two
known remaining Civil War widows whose husbands fought on opposing sides of the
war.