Civil War in Art

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Tintype, . . . of Union Soldier, J. L. Balldwin, c. 1863, Chicago History Museum
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The Civil War in Art website offers a pictorial entry point to the Civil War. The site consists of a set of web exhibits, with text by specialists at DePaul University, as well as photographs, images of statuary, paintings, and more. The artworks and their descriptions have been contributed by a variety of Chicago-area institutions—the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago History Museum, Chicago Park District, Chicago Public Library, DuSable Museum of African Art, Newberry Library, and the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Two features are worth noting. One, the broad definition of artwork adopted by the site includes documentary practices such as portrait photography and journalistic sketches. Two, the site states that the majority of the works are from Northern states. Educators should keep artists' perspectives and intended audiences in mind as they analyze images and guide students in analyzing them.

Each exhibit offers a few short pages of text, alongside selected works of art. Hover over bold names and selected words to reveal a definition or short biography. In addition, all of the artworks referenced can be accessed together on the final page of each exhibit or, for the more than 120 artworks located throughout the website, as a list under "Image Gallery." Clicking on a piece enlarges the image and presents details about the artwork's content and context, as well as a list of suggested classroom questions and further reading. Exhibits available at the time of writing cover causes of the Civil War, life in the military, emancipation and freedom, the Northern homefront, Lincoln, and remembering the Civil War.

There are three additional smaller sections. "Glossary," lists all of the vocabulary terms and short biographies available as "mouse-over" text in the exhibits. The page also offers downloadable PDFs of the vocabulary and the biographies. "Classroom Projects" offers three middle-to-high-school-level lessons, each of which has been implemented in Chicago area classrooms. Here, you can also access a file on teaching with art. Finally, "Additional Resources" provides external links for further enrichment.

RaceSci: History of Race in Science

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Logo, History of Race in Science
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RaceSci is a site dedicated to supporting and expanding the discussion of race and science. The site provides five bibliographies of books and articles about race and science. The section on current scholarship has 1,000 entries, organized into 38 subjects. A bibliography of primary source material includes 91 books published between the 1850s and the 1990s. Visitors can currently view 14 syllabi for high school and college courses in social studies, history of science, rhetoric, and medicine. The site links to 13 recently published articles about race and science and to 49 sites about race, gender, health, science, and ethnicity. This site will be useful for teachers designing curricula about race and for researchers looking for secondary source material.

Indiana's Storyteller: Connecting People to the Past

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Image, Brewett, Chief of the Miami, James Otto Lewis, 1827, Indiana's. . . site
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The Indiana Historical Society's main digital archive site contains more than 34,000 images, most of which are directly related to Indiana's past, grouped into almost 30 themed collections that include photographs, prints, sheet music, manuscripts, old court documents, letters, Indiana ephemera, and maps. Also collected here are images from the Jack Smith Lincoln Graphics Collection (containing photographs, lithographs, and engravings of Abraham Lincoln) and the Daniel Weinberg Lincoln Conspirators Collection (containing newspaper clippings, manuscripts, and other material pertaining to the Lincoln assassination). A sampler of the other collections: digitized images of the Indianapolis Recorder; manuscripts and images of James Whitcomb Riley; a collection of 900 postcards of scenes from Indiana from the first two decades of the 20th century; and fascinating panoramic photographs from the early part of the 20th century, showing church groups, picnics, army recruits, and conventioneers.

Jamestown Virtual Colony

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Logo, Jamestown Virtual Colony
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Useful resources for teaching the founding and settlement of Jamestown colony in Virginia. This site offers a series of lesson plans around four themes. "Corporate Colonization" covers the establishment of the London Company, colonial charters, and background to English colonization of the New World. "Development of Government" reviews the economic and social conditions in England that motivated many to migrate to America and the rights of Englishmen. "Economic Matters" discusses the economic goals of colonization, hardships and successes settlers experienced, and development of a tobacco and slave economy in Virginia. "Organization of Society" outlines cultural differences between Indians and English settlers, Indian/white relations, and the roles of religion and women in Virginia. The final section, "Broader Themes of Jamestown", provides general information on geography, competition among European powers for colonization of the New World, and the evolution of Virginia society. Each section contains lesson objectives, outlines, plans, and an annotated bibliography of helpful scholarly works. There are links to 13 online exhibits and ten sites for primary documents. For elementary school teachers looking for creative teaching ideas, this is an extremely useful site.

Colonial Williamsburg

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Photo, Asynchronous Fashion Photography Interactive, Colonial Williamsburg.
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Intended to promote tourism to Colonial Williamsburg, this website is also rich in educational resources. Visitors may "Experience the Life" by selecting one of 12 categories, ranging from animals to food to the African-American Experience; and will find information and resources about each topic. For example, visitors can learn about colonial clothing for men, women, and children. There is a paper doll game where players must assemble the various layers of colonial clothing in the proper order. Selecting the link "See the Places" allows users to virtually visit 27 buildings, including the prison (Public Gaol), the Capitol, and eight colonial sites, including Market Square and Duke of Gloucester Street. "Meet the People" allows visitors to learn about prominent Williamsburg natives, such as the Randolph family, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry; or meet more diverse groups, like African Americans or colonial children.

The "Teacher Resource" section allows educators to virtually tour Colonial Williamsburg or learn about the science of mapping colonial America. It also provides 18 lesson plans for exploring such topics as the colonial reaction to the Stamp Act or the murder trial of Abigail Briggs. Listen to the audio review:.

Jumpin' the Broom: Examining Slave Marriages

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photographic print, Slave Family, 1862, G. H. Houghton, LOC
Question

Could slaves marry?

Answer

While American slaves “married” throughout the more than two centuries that slavery existed on the North American mainland, none of those marriages received legal sanction or protection from any colonial, state, or federal governments. The question illustrates the profound truth that “marriage” has never been a simple, self-defining institution in any era of human history.

Africans held as slaves carried a wide variety of marriage customs across the Atlantic, as did white European settlers. Native American inhabitants, some of whom enslaved each other, also experienced several forms of married life, all of which contributed to marriage traditions among slave populations.

Many early modern Africans engaged in the monogamous practice of a single household for husband and wife. In fact, monogamy appears to have been the most common tradition within the regions most affected by the Atlantic slave trade, but there were also numerous African families who experienced different types of plural marriage and domestic life within complicated, extended households.

As slaves in America, Africans were generally encouraged by white masters to live together as nuclear families and to have children, yet they were also denied any legal support for those households. The resulting cultural evolution appeared to reinforce monogamous marriage among slaves, while simultaneously undermining the main elements essential for a fully realized domestic life.

Enslaved couples, especially on larger plantations, were often said to be “taking up” with each other and then allowed to “marry” with permission from their owners. These marriages sometimes resulted in full-fledged wedding ceremonies with pastors or ministers, described in folklore as “jumping the broom.” These might be attended not only by slaves, but also by masters and their families. Slaves within smaller farms or households typically had to marry “abroad,” meaning with spouses owned by different masters and living apart.

Regardless of how they married or the degree to which their marriages had open encouragement from churches or owners, the absence of legal protection meant that all slave marriages were vulnerable. Scholars estimate that in the Upper South, where the domestic slave trade flourished most vigorously before the Civil War, about one third of slave marriages were broken apart by sale and that nearly half of the enslaved children in that region were separated from parents by the human marketplace.

Despite difficult and disruptive circumstances, the persistence of marriage practices during the era of American chattel slavery testifies to the immense power and appeal of this complicated but enduring domestic tradition.

For more information

American Memory, Library of Congress. Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938.

Cott, Nancy F. Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.

University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Digital Library of American Slavery.

Kolchin, Peter. American Slavery, 1619-1877. New York: Hill and Wang, 2003.

Thirteen/WNET New York (PBS). “The Slave Experience: Family.” Slavery and the Making of America.

Thornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1680. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Defining Dred Scott bhiggs Mon, 10/01/2012 - 11:49
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Engraving, Dred Scott, 1887, LOC
Question

Who was Dred Scott, and what was the significance of his case?

Answer

Dred Scott was one of the most famous slaves in American history. By filing for freedom in St. Louis Circuit Court on April 6, 1846, this husband and father of two girls set in motion a chain of events that helped bring about the coming of the Civil War and the destruction of slavery.

Scott was born about 1800 in Virginia, and grew up as the property of Peter Blow. The Blow family moved westward and eventually settled in St. Louis, MO, by 1830. A few years later, U.S. Army surgeon John Emerson purchased Scott and brought him to Illinois and then the Wisconsin Territory. At Fort Snelling (in what is now Minnesota), Dred Scott married Harriet Robinson, who was owned by another white man living in the fort. Dred and Harriet Scott then raised two girls, Eliza and Lizzie.

The Scotts had a strong legal claim, derived from the principle known as "once free, always free."

After returning to St. Louis. John Emerson died in 1843, and his widow Irene Emerson, with the help of her brother, John Sanford, began hiring out Dred and Harriet to other slaveholders. However, because the Scotts had been held as slaves in free states and territories–not just during transit or “sojourn,” but for extended periods of time—they were eligible to sue in Missouri courts for freedom. Many historians now believe that Harriet Scott discovered this information from her pastor and was behind their freedom suits in April 1846.

The Scotts brought suit against Mrs. Emerson in 1846, which was decided against them, but in a subsequent action in 1850 the court sided with the Scotts. The Scotts had a strong legal claim, derived from the principle known as “once free, always free” and protected within the federal system by the doctrine of comity, meaning that the states had to honor each other’s laws. The startling reversal by the Missouri Supreme Court in 1852 of an earlier legal victory by the Scotts signaled a dramatic breakdown in comity and the rising threat of disunion. Both pro- and anti-slavery forces quickly realized the national implications of the state verdict and re-filed arguments in federal courts as Dred Scott v. Sandford.

Dred Scott, however, was not alive to see either that political contest or the war that subsequently ended slavery.

The legal battle continued until March 6, 1857, when Chief Justice Roger Taney read a sweeping majority opinion from the Supreme Court that denied blacks federal citizenship rights, swept aside comity concerns, and invalidated the 1820 Missouri Compromise legislation, declaring that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories. The furious backlash against the decision by Northern Republicans essentially guaranteed that the election of 1860 would be one of the most significant in American history.

Dred Scott, however, was not alive to see either that political contest or the war that subsequently ended slavery. He had died in 1858, a free man and head of a free household. Taylor Blow, the son of Dred Scott’s first owner, had made the remarkable decision in May 1857 to purchase the entire Scott family and set them free. There are still descendants of the Scotts alive today.

For more information

Arenson, Adam. “Freeing Dred Scott.” Common-Place 8:3 (April 2008)

Ehrlich, Walter. They Have No Rights: Dred Scott’s Struggle for Freedom. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979.

Fehrenbacher, Don E. The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Konig, David Thomas, Paul Finkelman, and Christopher Alan Bracey, eds. The Dred Scott Case: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Race and Law. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010.

Pinsker, Matthew. “Dred and Harriet Scott: A Family Story of Slavery and Freedom.” Video presentation. Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History.

Washington University in St. Louis. “The Revised Dred Scott Case Collection.”

VanderVelde, Lea. Mrs. Dred Scott: A Life on Slavery’s Frontier. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Labor Arts

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Lithograph, "John Henry," William Gropper, Between 1897 and 1977
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A modestly-sized exhibition of visual materials from a variety of labor-related organizations that focuses on ways in which artists and others have celebrated working people and labor unions in 20th-century America. Includes 44 photographs, 19 images of leaflets and pamphlets, 13 buttons, badges, and ribbons, 25 examples of cartoon art, eight songbook and sheet music covers, six images from murals, and nine covers from the journal Labor Defender. Covers themes of workers at work, strikes, parades, demonstrations, and the civil rights movement. Provides exhibits on original art depicting labor, the New York City "culture of solidarity," and the early struggles of the Hotel and Motel Trades Council. Materials are identified with short descriptions of up to 100 words. Offers links to 61 related sites. Useful for those studying political uses of visual culture in 20th-century America.

Mayme Clayton's Collection Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/17/2008 - 20:28
Description

Gwen Wright of PBS's History Detectives speaks to Avery Clayton, son of Mayme Clayton, about his mother's collection of African-American history and memorabilia—the world's largest private collection on the topic.

African American Genealogy Tips Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/17/2008 - 13:20
Description

Tukufu Zuberi of PBS's History Detectives discusses the particular challenges of tracing African American family histories.