Today, 70 years after those first African Americans joined the Marines, Montford Point veterans are being formally honored with the Congressional Gold Medal. Continue Reading First African American Marines Honored with Congressional Gold Medal
“Because the Civil War, by chance, began right at the beginning of an administration, that part of the Constitution that gave the president a four-year term and made the president the commander-in-chief was extremely important. That meant that, barring impeachment or assassination, there would be a determined Republican in the White House fighting the South until March of 1865.”—Mark E. Neely Jr. Continue Reading Video: Mark E. Neely Jr. on the advantage of the U.S. Constitution during the Civil War
In the United States, even from Bunner’s time, what nourished the nature love of the more and less scientifically qualified alike was a shared suburban experience. It was one not so much of home buying as home owning. Nor was it reducible to suburban dwellers’ relationship with “the land,” however fraught. What finally secured the breadth of environmentalism’s appeal was how nature love itself had become ever more suffused with anxieties about human health. Continue Reading Excerpt: Crabgrass Crucible, by Christopher C. Sellers
For all his genius as a political theorist (we remember him as “the Father of the Constitution”) and despite remarkable success as a politician (he lost only one election in a public career spanning forty years) James Madison has never been ranked among the greatest of presidents. The War of 1812 permanently stained his reputation. Yet Madison’s wartime leadership deserves a second look. Continue Reading Jeff Broadwater: James Madison, the Constitution, and the War of 1812
Panetta’s formal comments and casual remarks reveal little interest in this rich past, no insights that would be instructive, and some generalizations that are distinctly misleading if not wrongheaded. Continue Reading Michael H. Hunt: Panetta on tour in an Asia without history
What matters more than the goal of language learning is its motivation. Instead of regarding “foreign” language instruction as a means for preserving academic privilege or meeting the demands of a global marketplace, we need to embrace the acquisition of languages as a preparation for one of the most fundamental experiences we share as human beings—the encounter with difference. Continue Reading Patrick M. Erben: Learning Foreign Languages Increases Inter-Human Understanding
What is missing here is any social and economic context. True, the Civil War is the film’s encompassing social explanation, but it leaves me wondering why the set of social and economic circumstances that confronted folks in post war Appalachia is completely ignored. In the Tug Valley, as in all Appalachia and even the entire South, economic decline was a serious threat to almost everyone. Continue Reading Altina L. Waller: The Hatfield-McCoy Feud
He ordered them to leave the camp as soon as possible, but they received permission to stay one more day because of bad weather “if they behave themselves properly.” They did not. Continue Reading Excerpt: Battle Hymns, by Christian McWhirter
As a Delta town, Clarksdale typified many movement sites, yet for many reasons it is unique. Clarksdale’s movement was more homespun than in other Delta towns—the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had its strongest branch there, founded in the early 1950s by local people. Continue Reading Excerpt: Crossroads at Clarksdale, by Francoise N. Hamlin
Although she returned to Virginia and lived the vast bulk of her life as a plantation mistress in rural Albemarle County, as a widow she chose to spend most of her time in Boston or Washington, D.C. And she often recalled her time in Paris as “the brightest part” of her life. Continue Reading Cynthia A. Kierner: Taking the Kid to Europe
I think the quilt on the cover really captures some of the pain of separation as well as the hope that some enslaved people held on to. There is a little girl’s dress, but no little girl, and the handwriting is traced from a letter sent by an enslaved woman to the family of her former owner asking what had ever become of her little girl. Vilet Lester, the child’s mother, was literate enough to write this letter seeking information about her daughter. She was hopeful that her current owner would be able to purchase the child and restore Lester’s family. One of the sad things about doing this work is that I do not know if Vilet Lester ever received an answer to her letter or whether she ever saw her daughter again. Continue Reading Interview: Heather Andrea Williams on the search for family lost in slavery
The History Channel will be airing a three-part miniseries about the Hatfield and McCoy families starting on Memorial Day. The miniseries stars Kevin Costner, Bill Paxton, Mare Winningham, and lots and lots of guns and violence. Historian Altina L. Waller, author of Feud: Hatfields, McCoys, and Social Change in Appalachia, 1860-1900, was interviewed extensively for the accompanying documentary to the miniseries. Continue Reading The History of the Hatfield-McCoy Feud
Madison’s more eloquent and charismatic friend Thomas Jefferson would come to overshadow him as a party leader, and later historians would write of Jeffersonian, not Madisonian, Republicans. Yet as a member of the first federal Congress, Madison laid the foundation for a new party and was initially a more aggressive partisan than Jefferson. Continue Reading Excerpt: James Madison, by Jeff Broadwater
The performance of domesticity is a major theme of my book and the main means by which Martha helped construct her father’s public image as a virtuous republican family man while he was alive. Martha visited Washington twice during Jefferson’s presidency. Her presence, and that of her children, helped Jefferson to present himself to the public as a family man at the very time when his political enemies were spreading the scandal about him and Sally Hemings. Continue Reading Interview: Cynthia Kierner on the Life of Martha Jefferson Randolph
Historically, race and gender have had the most significant impact on the creation of immigration policy and its outcomes; but those factors have always been intertwined with larger social concerns about foreign policy and national security, the economy, scientific and medical issues, morality, and attitudes about class, religion, and citizenship. Continue Reading Excerpt: National Insecurities, by Deirdre M. Moloney
How we understand the legacies of the Civil Rights Movement depends on how we remember the movement in the South. If we remember it as confined to the South, as just about legalized segregation and voting rights, then its legacy looks pretty simple. It succeeded; it removed a terrible stain from American democracy. If we remember it as being broader and wider and deeper and longer than that, then its legacy looks very different. Continue Reading Video: Jacquelyn Dowd Hall on the Legacies of the Civil Rights Movement
Glory is noteworthy as one of the few popular representations of the war to include African American music. The Civil War had a tremendous impact on black music but the songs created and sung by African Americans are rarely included in books and films. Although Burns makes use of black spirituals, even he does not incorporate those that were actually most popular among slaves, freedpeople, and USCTs. Continue Reading Christian McWhirter: Did They Get It Right?: Civil War Music in Popular Film
James Madison won the presidency in a landslide in 1808, prevailed in a closer race in 1812, and left office as a revered elder statesman four years later. Among his most appealing traits was a lifelong commitment to religious freedom, but if we could raise him from the dead–never mind the Twenty-Second Amendment limiting presidents to two terms–his views on the separation of church and state might well keep him out of today’s White House. Continue Reading Jeff Broadwater: James Madison, Secular Humanist
The reality is that the large-scale targeted killing of civilians has been an integral part of America’s military strategy for well over a century. Continue Reading Steven I. Levine & Michael H. Hunt: Civilian Casualties: Tactical Regrets and Strategic Hypocrisy
Harnett County, North Carolina, celebrates native son and Pulitzer-Prize winning dramatist Paul Green this weekend with the Paul Green Festival. UNC Press is proud to publish many of Green’s plays, stories, and letters, including many books brought back into print recently through our Enduring Editions program. Continue Reading Celebrating Paul Green
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