Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Social Egalitarianism: How Does Marginalization Affect An Individual’S Support For Welfare Recipients?, Brodie W. Edgerton

Student Publications

This work examines how identification in a historically marginalized group in the United States affects individuals' opinions towards welfare recipients. Using three marginalized groups: African Americans, Hispanic/Latinos, and Women, this study compares how each group views welfare recipients while discussing how people in general view welfare recipients. This study finds that there are some statistical differences between the opinions of welfare recipients between certain groups, but not amongst other groups, indicating the importance of society on American politics in the present day.

Learning From The Dead: How Burial Practices In Roman Britain Reflect Changes In Belief And Society, Samuel F. Engel

Student Publications

This paper begins by examining the burial traditions of the Iron age Britons and Classical Romans to see how these practices reflect their societal values and belief systems. The funerary methods of both the Britons and Romans are then analyzed following the Roman occupation of Britain in 43 AD to see how these practices changed once the two groups came into contact with each other. The findings show that rather than Romanization, there is a hybridization of burial practices which incorporated and reflect both Roman and British beliefs and values.

Drinks, Hijinks, And Policy Change: Fraternities At Gettysburg College In The Haaland Years (1990-2004), Lindsay R. Richwine, Lindsay K. Waller

Student Publications

This paper establishes what the fraternity structure was like at Gettysburg College during Gordon Haaland's presidency. Between 1990 and 2004, we explore the roaring party dynamic that was continually threatened by the administration and examine how the switch to sophomore rush tried to tame it. With testimonies from fraternity brothers during this era we try to capture the good, bad, and ugly of fraternity life. While Haaland's administration did not get ride of the fraternity system, it certainly made it safer and reigned it in significantly.

Violence And Restraint: An Interview With Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Civil War Institute

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Today we are speaking with Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Fred C. Frey Professor of Southern Studies at Louisiana State University and the Chair of LSU’s History Department. He teaches courses on nineteenth-century U.S. history, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and southern History. He is the author of Why Confederates Fought: Family and Nation in Civil War Virginia (UNC Press, 2007), Concise Historical Atlas of the U.S. Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2008), and is the editor of several other volumes. His most recent book, The Calculus of Violence: How Americans Fought the Civil War, was released by Harvard University Press in Fall, …

Getting In Touch With The Civil War: An Interview With Jason Phillips, Ashley Whitehead Luskey

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Today we are speaking with Jason Phillips, Eberly Family Professor of Civil War Studies at West Virginia University. He is the author of Looming Civil War: How Nineteenth-Century Americans Imagined the Future (Oxford University Press, 2018), Diehard Rebels: The Confederate Culture of Invincibility (University of Georgia Press, 2007), and the editor of Storytelling, History, and the Postmodern South (Louisiana State University Press, 2013). His current research explores the material culture of Civil War America. [excerpt]

When The Hurlyburly's Done / When The Battle's Lost And Won: Service, Suffering, And Survival Of Civil War And Great War Veterans, Ian A. Isherwood

Interdisciplinary Studies Faculty Publications

Marching in the Gettysburg Liberty Parade in May 1918 was a drum corps consisting entirely of Civil War veterans. As local citizens demonstrated their patriotism—notably with the Kaiser hanging in effigy—the old soldiers helped keep the pace for two thousand citizens who turned out to vigorously support the Great War. It was no doubt a moving moment, the nation's largest veteran demographic encouraging and supporting the next generation of soldiers to fight for cause and country in a very different war waged on a very different continent. Though fifty years separated the trenches of Petersburg from those of the western …

Soldiers And Sailors Memorial Hall: A Place For Quiet Reflection, Carol Reardon

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Much has been written about place and Civil War memory, but how do we personally remember and commemorate this part of our collective past? How do battlefields and other historic places help us understand our own history? What kinds of places are worth remembering and why? In this collection of essays, some of the most esteemed historians of the Civil War select a single meaningful place related to the war and narrate its significance. Included here are meditations on a wide assortment of places--Devil's Den at Gettysburg, Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, the statue of William T. Sherman in New York's …

Review: Calculus Of Violence, Cameron T. Sauers

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

It seems counterintuitive to imagine the bloodiest conflict in American history being worse, but Sheehan-Dean argues that the death toll could have been dramatically higher without both sides’ emphasis on restraint, as dictated by the laws of war. Most of the book is spent examining “how people on both sides justified the lethal violence of conflict and when, how, and why they balanced cruelty and destruction.” Despite the rules of war, however, Civil War participants, like all humans, were contradictory. Sometimes they acted instinctively and spontaneously, while at other times, their actions were the result of deeply seated ideology. The …

“Youth Of The World, Unite So That You May Live": The World Youth Congress Movement, 1936-1939, Kevin Lavery

Friday Forum

Although the World Youth Congress Movement (1936-1939) was established by liberal internationalists as an umbrella movement for youth organizations interested in advancing peace and international cooperation, it drew suspicion from conservatives, Catholics, and fascists over its inclusion of avowed communists and because of allegations—later verified—of covert communist influence among the movement’s youth leadership. Despite this, treating the WYCM exclusively as a communist front organization ignores the significance of the ideological accommodation that took place within the WYCM as both liberals and communists sought new allies and opportunities to bolster their causes at a turbulent time. Mutual accommodation was above all …

Gettysburg Heartthrobs: The 10 Most Attractive Officers, Cameron T. Sauers

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

While the author received many names that deserved to be on this list, he regrettably had to choose only ten. That being said, please sit back, relax, and prepare to fall in love with the officers of Gettysburg this Valentine’s Day.

Digital-Lee Archived: An Interview With Colin Woodward, Ashley Whitehead Luskey

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Today we are speaking with Colin Woodward, historian and editor of the Lee Family Digital Archive at Stratford Hall. He holds a Ph.D. in History and is the author of Marching Masters: Slavery, Race, and the Confederate Army During the Civil War, which was published by the University of Virginia Press in 2014. He also maintains an active history and pop culture podcast entitled “Amerikan Rambler,” which is available at www.amerikanrambler.libsyn.com and on iTunes. Dr. Woodward is presently working a book called Country Boy: The Roots of Johnny Cash. [excerpt]

“Borne Back Ceaselessly Into The Past”: Fitzgerald’S Forgotten Civil War Literature, Cameron T. Sauers

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

“So, we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” These are the brilliant last lines of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, lines that speak to the fallibility of Gatsby’s American Dream and his inescapable, yet simultaneously unreachable, past. The legendary ending sentence in The Great Gatsby has captured me since I first read the book as a freshman in high school and made me want to read every Fitzgerald book I could find. The more I read, the more I realized the unique implications this famous last line had for Fitzgerald’s own …

Interview With Erica Uszak: Scholarship Recipient For 2018 Cwi Summer Conference, Civil War Institute

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Recently, the CWI reached out to Erica Uszak ’22 to reflect on her experience at the 2018 CWI Summer Conference. Uszak, currently a freshman at Gettysburg College studying History and the Civil War, was one of ten high school students to receive a scholarship to attend the conference. Any high school student with an interest in history is eligible to apply for the High School Scholarship. [excerpt]

Overpriced Stamps And Mystery Pies: The Complicated Legacy Of Civil War Sutlers, Savannah Labbe

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

In every story, including ones about historical events, there are people who inevitably end up in the background. These people are ever-present but deemed unimportant to the story, like the Union Army sutler depicted next to his makeshift store above. Sutlers were merchants who would follow the Army around, selling the soldiers things they were not issued but might have wanted, such as paper and envelopes for writing home. The reason why the sutler is often left out of history is not just because they were only indirectly related to the fighting, but also because they were greatly disliked by …

A Complete Transformation Of Medicine: John Letterman’S Ambulance Corps, Savannah Labbe

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Looking back on the practices of Civil War Americans, many people tend to believe the Civil War was a particularly dark time in medical history, a time when doctors sawed off limbs to solve any problems and often did it with dirty instruments and no anesthesia. This idea of Civil War medicine is a misconception because most amputations were, in fact, done with anesthesia and the Civil War did introduce many improvements in the medical field. In fact, the Civil War can be seen as a turning point from more ancient practices of medicine to more modern practices. [excerpt …

25 Years Of Gettysburg, Olivia Ortman

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

Amongst the Civil War community here at Gettysburg College, the movie Gettysburg is very much a part of our daily lives. Quotes are thrown back and forth in witty banter, the music is played for dramatic effect, and history professors are badgered to show clips in class. Since the movie fits so seamlessly into our experience here in Gettysburg, we often take it for granted. However, Gettysburg recently celebrated its 25th anniversary with a special showing at the Majestic Theater, with remarks from the director preceding the viewing. Although none of the Fellows attended, it got a lot of us …

Review Of The War That Used Up Words: American Writers And The First World War, By Hazel Hutchison, Ian A. Isherwood

Interdisciplinary Studies Faculty Publications

There is a vast array of scholarship on the literature of the First World War, much of it concerning British authors. When American war literature is considered, it is usually the so-called “Lost Generation” writers of the 1920s and 1930s. If the war had a significant effect upon American literature, it is argued, then it served as a trope for some of the great writers of the 1920s—Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner—who wrote of living in its generational shadow in the following decades of so-called peace.

Hazel Hutchison’s book is a corrective to the many assumptions about …