Home  >  History  >  American History

Category: American History

November 26, 2012

M. Todd Bennett: How and Why Humphrey Bogart, in Casablanca, Taught American Moviegoers to Risk Their Necks for Others’ Well-Being

Today marks the 70th anniversary of Casablanca’s world premier on November 26, 1942. In the following post, M. Todd Bennett, author of One World, Big Screen: Hollywood, the Allies, and World War II, reveals what fans may not know about the movie, widely considered among the best ever made. Continue Reading M. Todd Bennett: How and Why Humphrey Bogart, in Casablanca, Taught American Moviegoers to Risk Their Necks for Others’ Well-Being

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Cultural Studies/Film/Guest Bloggers/History
November 19, 2012

Elizabeth Keckley in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln”

Spielberg based more than 40 of his characters on historical figures; included in this group is Elizabeth Keckley, an enslaved woman whose 1868 book (Behind the Scenes, Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House) UNC Press and the UNC Library republished last year through the DocSouth Books program. Continue Reading Elizabeth Keckley in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln”

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Civil War/History
November 8, 2012

Video: Elizabeth Leonard talks to The Civil War Monitor

In this video, Elizabeth Leonard talks to the Civil War Monitor about Joseph Holt. She says Joseph Holt is “a very much forgotten personage from our historical past, and he’s someone who I think is probably the most important people from Lincoln’s administration who has been forgotten about.” Continue Reading Video: Elizabeth Leonard talks to The Civil War Monitor

Categories American History/Civil War/History/Video
November 7, 2012

Fall sale wrap-up: new categories 50% off, sale ends soon!

Announcing our last four sale subjects, all at 50% off, with free shipping for orders over $75 for the next two weeks. Continue Reading Fall sale wrap-up: new categories 50% off, sale ends soon!

Categories African American Studies/American History/American Studies/Art / Architecture/Biography / Autobiography/Business/Civil War/Craft/History/Latino Studies/Literature/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies/Political Science/Religion/Sale/Southern Studies/UNC Press News/Women's Studies
November 5, 2012

Interview: Daniel W. Patterson on The True Image

A thousand unique gravestones cluster around old Presbyterian churches in the piedmont of the two Carolinas and in central Pennsylvania. Most are the vulnerable legacy of the Bigham family, Scotch Irish stonecutters whose workshop near Charlotte created the earliest surviving art of British settlers in the region. In The True Image, Daniel Patterson documents the craftsmanship of this group and the current appearance of the stones. In two hundred of his photographs, he records these stones for future generations and compares their iconography and inscriptions with those of other early monuments in the United States, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Continue Reading Interview: Daniel W. Patterson on The True Image

Categories American History/American Studies/Art / Architecture/folklore/History/Interviews/North Carolina/Religion
November 1, 2012

M. Todd Bennett: When Behaviorism Went to the Movies

Developed at the beginning of the twentieth century, movies quickly arose to become the cultural centerpiece, especially during Hollywood’s “golden era” of the 1930s and ’40s. In 1941, 85 million Americans—85 million, more than three-fifths of the overall U.S. population, which totaled 131 million at the time—attended movie theaters each week. Cinema’s remarkable popularity led observers to conclude that movies strongly influenced impressionable theatergoers. Continue Reading M. Todd Bennett: When Behaviorism Went to the Movies

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Film/Guest Bloggers/History
October 31, 2012

Congratulations to James Sweet, winner of the 2012 Frederick Douglass Book Prize

We are happy to announce UNC Press author James Sweet, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, has been selected as the winner of the 2012 Frederick Douglass Book Prize for his book, Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World. Continue Reading Congratulations to James Sweet, winner of the 2012 Frederick Douglass Book Prize

Categories Africa & African Diaspora/African American History/African American Studies/American History/Awards/European History/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist.
October 24, 2012

UNC Press Fall Sale: New categories

New Fall sale categories: business history and southern history. Throughout the fall, we’re offering 50% off selected titles in the disciplines listed below. Enter 01SALE12 at checkout. Spend $75.00 and the shipping is free. Continue Reading UNC Press Fall Sale: New categories

Categories African American History/American History/American Studies/Art / Architecture/Biography / Autobiography/Business/Civil War/Craft/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Literature/Religion/Sale/Southern Studies/Women's Studies
October 22, 2012

Sarah E. Ruble: All Americans Are Missionaries

2012 marks the two hundredth anniversary of the first Protestant American foreign missionaries. Over the course of those years, the movement’s fortunes and its public presence have waxed and waned. In 1812, the movement boasted five missionaries sailing to the Indian subcontinent. One hundred years later, its most prominent members were recruited for diplomatic missions. Yet whatever the public perception of missionaries, their work raises significant questions, even for people who might have little interest in the movement itself. Continue Reading Sarah E. Ruble: All Americans Are Missionaries

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Christian Studies/Guest Bloggers/History/Religion
October 11, 2012

Video: Glenn David Brasher talks to The Civil War Monitor

Glenn David Brasher, author of “The Peninsula Campaign & the Necessity of Emancipation,” talks to the Civil War Monitor about the important role of African Americans in the strategy and tactics of the Civil War. Continue Reading Video: Glenn David Brasher talks to The Civil War Monitor

Categories African American History/American History/Civil War/History/Interviews/Video
October 10, 2012

Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: The Christ-less Revolution

Jesus was part of the Revolution and formation of the United States, but not as much as one might expect. As a physical presence, he was almost completely absent. And in the language of law and legislation for the new republic, he was virtually as nonexistent. In comparison to how prominent Jesus would become in the United States of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Revolution and founding of the new nation were profoundly Christ-less. Continue Reading Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey: The Christ-less Revolution

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Christian Studies/Guest Bloggers/History/Religion
October 4, 2012

Congratulations to Dylan C. Penningroth, 2012 MacArthur Fellow

Today we’re excited to announce that historian Dylan C. Penningroth has been awarded a 2012 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Penningroth is the author of The Claims of Kinfolk. Continue Reading Congratulations to Dylan C. Penningroth, 2012 MacArthur Fellow

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Awards/History/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
October 2, 2012

Interview: C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa on Crooked Paths to Allotment

In Crooked Paths to Allotment, C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa complicates standard narratives of nineteenth century Native American history by uncovering the stories of individuals who contested federal Indian policy and proposed viable alternatives during a critical moment in its development. Continue Reading Interview: C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa on Crooked Paths to Allotment

Categories American History/American Studies/History/Interviews/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies
October 1, 2012

Miles Orvell: Main Street in the 21st Century

Travel across the U.S.A., from Maine to California, and sooner or later you’re bound to stop at a new Main Street-inspired mall. Along the way, you may also find yourself driving into a town with an actual historic Main Street that is struggling to assert its relevance in the age of malls and supermalls. After the postwar romance with the mega shopping mall—which drained the vitality out of small towns across the U.S.—Americans are gradually coming back to the idea of the small-scale community embodied in the Main Street model. Continue Reading Miles Orvell: Main Street in the 21st Century

Categories American History/American Studies/Art / Architecture/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History
September 27, 2012

Anne M. Butler: Nuns and the Road to Academic Recognition

In nineteenth-century America, Catholic sisters, despite disapproval, increasingly pursued opportunities for higher education. They did so to satisfy their personal intellectual interests and to meet new requirements for certification by government agencies. Continue Reading Anne M. Butler: Nuns and the Road to Academic Recognition

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Christian Studies/Education/Guest Bloggers/History/Religion/Women's Studies
September 24, 2012

Interview: Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey

When Americans made Jesus white, they gave a racial spin to creation, to redemption in the form of Jesus, and to the future Apocalypse. This is crucial because it allows white people to see whiteness and racial categories as everlasting. Continue Reading Interview: Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey

Categories African American Studies/American History/American Studies/Christian Studies/History/Interviews/Religion
September 20, 2012

Beth Tompkins Bates: What is Society’s Obligation to Those in Distress?

Murphy attacked the tight-fisted policy of Ford Motor Company (FMC) and its indifference toward unemployed workers. Henry Ford publicly maintained he would never cut wages or jobs, even as he proceeded to do both. Employment at the largest facility of FMC in Dearborn, just outside Detroit, fell nearly 50 percent between 1929 and 1932. But the overwhelming majority of laid-off Ford workers resided in Detroit, raising the question, who bore responsibility for assisting them? Continue Reading Beth Tompkins Bates: What is Society’s Obligation to Those in Distress?

Categories American History/American Studies/Author blog entry/Economics/Guest Bloggers/History/Politics
September 19, 2012

The UNC Press fall sale is underway! Save up to 50% on select titles

Throughout the fall, we’re offering 50% off selected titles in the disciplines listed below. Enter 01SALE12 at checkout. Spend $75.00 and the shipping is free. Continue Reading The UNC Press fall sale is underway! Save up to 50% on select titles

Categories African American History/American History/American Studies/Art / Architecture/Biography / Autobiography/Civil War/Craft/History/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Literature/Religion/Sale/UNC Press News/Women's Studies