Lincoln’s Presidency
Did Abraham Lincoln violate the Constitution in his actions as commander-in-chief? When and why did Lincoln change his mind about making the Civil War about emancipation?
History
The Blessings of Civilization: The Roots of American Imperialism
For most of the nineteenth century the United States followed the foreign policy enunciated by George Washington: avoid entangling alliances. By the 1890s, however, two forces thrust the nation more squarely into world affairs: the European competition for colonial territory and the search for overseas markets. Adding to the impulse to look beyond our borders … Continued
Becoming American: Immigration and Assimilation in Late Nineteenth-Century America
The history of immigration thrusts several questions forward. First, where does migration begin? As its geographical settings changed, so did migration. Second, when does migration arise? Even though migrations copied from one another, immigrants developed movements that responded to the challenges of specific times. Third, what did immigration change? This last question runs through our … Continued
The 1950s and the Cold War
In the early years of the Cold War, fear of the Soviet Union led some Americans to conclude that Soviet subversion was destroying American society from within. If not actual spies, then certainly enemies — some deliberate apostles of Communism, others unwitting dupes — were everywhere: in the universities, in the entertainment industry, in journalism, … Continued
The Cult of Domesticity
The Cult of Domesticity was a societal ideal promoted especially during the mid- and late nineteenth century. It provided a behavioral handbook, a “code,” for middle-class white women in America that served as a way to value, to judge, and to control how they would both see themselves and be understood by others. Women who … Continued
“Something to Marvel At”: Urban Life in America, 1865-1920
Between 1880 and the first decades of the twentieth century, American cities became something new on the nation’s landscape. Millions of men and women from small-town and rural America and from abroad flooded into them. Some found jobs in skyscrapers, rode the subways, and played in amusement parks. Others toiled in sweat shops, lived in … Continued
The Legacy of the Civil War
Why or how has Civil War memory been an ongoing struggle between “healing” and “justice”? How did Civil War memory change or challenge the country at the time of the war’s centennial (1950s–60s)? Was the Civil War at its 150th anniversary still the most vexing element in our national historical memory?
The Role of Medical Care in the Civil War: The Hospital and the Battlefield
During the Civil War, in Northern hospitals men shot rats for target practice; in Southern hospitals they roasted them for lunch. The differences that lay behind that comparison offer insights into why the North won and why the South lost. This seminar will explore the best and worst of Civil War medicine to assess what … Continued
The Meaning of the West in Late Nineteenth-Century America
This seminar is an exploration of how the two great events in nineteenth-century American history, the acquisition of 1.2 million square miles of western territory and the Civil War, created what was essentially a new nation.
For Union and Freedom: African Americans in the Civil War
From the beginning of the Civil War, blacks served the Union army as laborers, teamsters, cooks, laundresses, hospital attendants, and personal servants but not as soldiers. When the War broke out, they volunteered to fight. Yet whites, knowing that blacks saw participation in the War as a step toward racial equality, flatly rejected their help … Continued