History Commons^™

American Military Cemeteries: Temples Of Nationalism And Civic Religion, Kyler James Webb

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Beginning with the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg and the address given by Abraham Lincoln, American military cemeteries would have a dual objective to honor nationalism and expand civic religion. Military cemeteries have been on the leading edge of accomplishing ideals such as equality during their construction, implementation, and development. As military cemeteries were created both domestically and on foreign soil between 1860-1960 they became temples to honor nationalism and civic religion.

Accepting The Cost: German Baptist Brethren, Faith, And The American Civil War, Sheilah Rana Elwardani

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The German Baptist Brethren, Dunkers, were a Pietist sect which organized in the Palatinate region of the German lands in central Europe in 1708. The sect was founded upon the structure of the Apostolic, or Primitive, Christian Church. The founder, Alexander Mack, was strongly engaged with the theology of the Pietist movement and taught that the structure of the Christian life must be firmly founded in scripture with Mathew 5 proscribing the elemental principles of the sect. The Brethren practiced adult, believers, baptism and firmly adhered to core peace principles as interpreted from Mathew 5. Increasing persecution forced the two …

Perry Collection (Mss 676), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 676. Letters, papers, photographs and scrapbooks of the Perry family, principally Gideon Babcock Perry, rector of Grace Episcopal Church, Hopkinsville, Kentucky and his children, Reverend Henry G. Perry, Chicago, Illinois, and Emily B. Perry, Hopkinsville.

Traitors In The Service Of The Lord: The Role Of Church And Clergy In Appalachia's Civil War, Sheilah Elwardani

Masters Theses

Studies of the guerrilla war in the central and southern Appalachian Mountains reveal repeated instances of violence and threats directed at the pastors of mountain churches. Instances of churches being burned, pastors and laymen beaten and at times murdered are sprinkled throughout the primary source materials. The question raised here is why were pastors and specific churches being targeted for violence? The church was the center of the life for secluded Appalachian communities, church leadership carried tremendous weight in influencing loyalties. Research focused solely on the Dunkard Church in Floyd County, Virginia revealed that amidst a particularly violent guerrilla war, …

Our Country: Northern Evangelicals And The Union During The Civil War Era [Bibliography], Grant Brodrecht

History

On March 4, 1865, the day Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address, Reverend Doctor George Peck put the finishing touches on a collection of his sermons that he intended to send to the president. Although the politically moderate Peck had long opposed slavery, he, along with many other northern evangelicals, was not an abolitionist. During the Civil War he had come to support emancipation, but, like Lincoln, the conflict remained first and foremost about preserving the Union. Believing their devotion to the Union was an act of faithfulness to God first and the Founding Fathers second, Our Country explores …

John H. Vincent: The Other Co-Founder Of Chautauqua, Timothy S. Binkley

Bridwell Library Research

This address, delivered at the Chautauqua Institution Hall of Philosophy on July 20, 2018, reviews the life of John Heyl Vincent (1832-1920) and his relationship to the Chautauqua Institution. Vincent was an American Methodist clergyman and bishop and a leading figure in the Sunday School movement. In 1874 Vincent and businessman Lewis Miller (1829-1899) established an innovative, trans-denominational Sunday School teachers’ training event on the shores of Lake Chautauqua in southwestern New York state. Under the leadership of Vincent and Miller, that event developed into the Chautauqua Institution: an annual summer-long celebration of the arts, religion, education, and recreation, and …

Retroactive Definitions: The Problem With The Traditional Marriage Argument, Atticus Garrison

Religion: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Words often change meaning over time. For example, until the 1960s, the word “gay” meant “Light-hearted and carefree” or “Brightly coloured; showy”.[1] But after the 1960’s, the definition of “gay” drastically changed, to meaning a “homosexual.”[2] “When you're with the Flintstones, Have a yabba dabba-do time A dabba-do time, We'll have a gay old time!”[3] This means that when we look at the theme song for the classic cartoon The Flinstones, we should not apply our definition of what gay means to how it is used in the theme song. Definitions of marriage work much in …

Shakers - South Union, Kentucky (Mss 598), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 598. Shaker Record B, a journal of the activities of the Shaker colony at South Union, Kentucky. The journal has been typescripted from the original, held at the Shaker Museum at South Union. Click on "Additional Files" below for an index of names.

Shakers - South Union, Kentucky (Mss 62), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 62. Diary of Shaker eldress Nancy E. Moore, and a journal, probably kept by Shaker eldress Lucy Shannon. The diary and journal record life in the Shaker colony at South Union, Kentucky, with Moore’s diary focused on the Civil War years 1863-1864.

Shakers - South Union, Kentucky (Mss 63), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid for Manuscripts Collection 63. Business records, deeds, notes, receipts, surveys, agreements, bill of complaint, etc., 1800-85; account books, 1843-89; journals, 1865-1916; agreement book of probationary members, 1858-1904; and manuscript hymnals, 1844-86 (6) of the Shaker Society of South Union, Kentucky. Journals include censuses of members. Click on "Additional Files" below for a list of deaths at South Union "from the beginning to the present date January 1st, 1879," with addenda to 1892; and for a name index to Shaker Record C.

Did Religion Make The American Civil War Worse?, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

If there is one sober lesson Americans seem to be taking out of the bathos of the Civil War sesquicentennial, it’s the folly of a nation allowing itself to be dragged into the war in the first place. After all, from 1861 to 1865 the nation pledged itself to what amounted to a moral regime change, especially concerning race and slavery—only to realize that it had no practical plan for implementing it. No wonder that two of the most important books emerging from the Sesquicentennial years—by Harvard president Drew Faust, and Yale’s Harry Stout—questioned pretty frankly whether the appalling costs …

Civil War Staff Rides, Paul Fessler

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Tired of a visit to historic sites looking like the scene from Chevy Chase’s Vacation where they stand as a family looking at the Grand Canyon for 30 seconds and then heading on? In order to make your upcoming summer visit to a Civil War battlefield not only more educational but far more engaging and interesting, consider taking the “staff ride” approach."

Posting about visiting Civil War battlefields from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/civil-war-staff-rides/

They Both Prayed To The Same God, Scott Culpepper

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"The influence of faith in the American Civil War was complicated. As Lincoln so astutely observed, both sides prayed to the same God. Both sides believed that God heard them and supported their cause."

Posting about religious views during the American Civil War from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/they-both-prayed-to-the-same-god/

Jones, Drucilla Montgomery (Stovall), 1907-2007 (Mss 493), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 493. Correspondence, chiefly from the Fort and Flowers families of Logan County, Kentucky, which includes prisoners of war correspondence from the Civil War. Also includes cemetery, church, and funeral home records, as well as news clippings about historic sites, people and events in Logan County.

Vertrees, Peter, 1840-1926 (Sc 1282), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1282. Autobiography of Peter Vertrees, an African-American native of Edmonson County, Kentucky, who served as a cook in the Confederate Army, 6th Kentucky Cavalry. Afterward, he was an educator and Baptist minister, chiefly in Sumner County, Tennessee. Includes associated biographical data, and the autobiography of his third wife Diora.

Blohm, Amanda (Sc 1129), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1129. Student paper titled “Changes in the Economic Role of Women in Kentucky Shaker Communities” submitted as honors program thesis at Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky by Amanda Blohm.

Goodknight, Thomas Mitchell, 1837-1908 (Sc 2769), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2769. Thomas Mitchell Goodknight's "Pastor's Journal" of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which includes a short biography, as well as a list of elders and deacons ordained, marriages performed, church members added, etc., during his ministry in Kentucky (particularly the C.P. church at Franklin), Kansas, and Texas. He also discusses his role as a Confederate chaplain during the Civil War.

Martin, Grace Lee 1883-1968 (Sc 2718), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2718. Paper titled “Brief History of David’s Fork Baptist Church,” dated 1876, and transcribed by Grace Lee Martin, historian of the Bryan Station Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Lexington, Kentucky.

Dewitt, Marcus Bearden, 1835-1901 (Sc 2589), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2589. Typescript copy (prepared in 1911) of Marcus Bearden DeWitt’s pocket memorandum book from March-June 1863 and May 1865. A chaplain with the 8th Tennessee Infantry (C.S.A), DeWitt chronicles conditions during the Civil War, including camp life, travel, family visits, and religion. Also includes “A Sketch of My Life," a short autobiography written by DeWitt, and a memorial written by one of his children.

Whitaker, Francis J., 1916-1994 (Mss 406), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 406. Correspondence, research notes and manuscript articles of Frances J. “Thomas” Whitaker, a Benedictine monk who lived and worked at St. Maur’s Priory, formerly the South Union Shaker Village in Logan County, Kentucky, from 1954-1988. He amassed a large collection of photocopied research material on the South Union community as well as other Shaker villages and museums in the United States. Also includes his research on various Catholic topics.

Moore, Nancy Elam, 1807-1889 (Mss 405), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 405. Journal of Nancy Elam Moore, an eldress of the Shaker colony at South Union, Kentucky, describing life in the colony during the Civil War, 1861-1863, especially visitation and exploitation by both Union and Confederate forces. Includes a diary of unknown authorship recording daily life at the colony in 1866. The original diary is owned by the Dayton [Ohio] Public Library.

Supernatural Experiences (Fa 74), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scans of two out of thirteen papers (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 74. [Supernatural Experiences] Project completed by Western Kentucky University students for a folk studies class taught by Lynwood Montell. Collection focuses on short supernatural events experienced by informants. Subjects include dreams, ghosts, Ouija boards, sleepovers, church experiences and others.

Neal, Mary Julia, 1905-1995 (Mss 4), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Correspondence, speeches, and writings of Shaker scholar and English professor, Mary Julia Neal, a native of Auburn, Kentucky. Neal served as director of the Kentucky Building at Western Kentucky University from 1964 to 1972. Includes photos and correspondence with twentieth century eastern Shakers.

Northcott Collection (Mss 40), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 40. Fifty-three diaries (1859-1918) and other writings of Henry Clay Northcott, 1822-1918, Methodist circuit preacher and farmer of northern Kentucky; correspondence (1870-1883) of his daughter, music teacher Kate N. Thomas, 1850-1889; and her husband, Bruce F. Thomas, 1853?-1882, lawyer of Vanceburg, Kentucky.

Durham, John G., 1813-1896 (Mss 9), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 9. Correspondence, diaries, receipts books, tax receipts, licenses receipts, church membership certificates, and miscellaneous receipts of John G. Durham, a Baptist minister of Warren County, Kentucky. Also legal papers of Allen County and Warren County, Kentucky. Correspondents include A. Broaddus, Samuel Howard Ford, George W. Robertson, and Orson Holland Morrow.

Thomas Collection (Mss 31), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid for Manuscripts Collection 31. Manuscripts, letters, writings, etc., of the Thomas family of Bowling Green, Kentucky, including sermons and speeches of Frank Morehead Thomas, Methodist minister (1868-1921); and poems, essays and newspaper articles written by his mother, Elizabeth (Wright) Thomas (1842-1931). Full-text scans are available (Click on "Additional Files" below) for the Spanish-American War letters that Frank Thomas sent home to his family.