History Commons^™

The Peculiar Institution On The Periphery: Slavery In Arkansas, Kelly Eileene Jones

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Slavery grew quickly on the western edge of the South. By 1860, more than one quarter of Arkansas's population was enslaved. While whites succeeded remarkably in transplanting the institution of slavery to the trans-Mississippi South, bondspeople used the land around them to achieve their own goals. Slaves capitalized on the abundance of uncultivated space, such as forest and canebrake, to temporarily escape the demanding crop routine, hold secret parties and religious meetings, meet friends, or run away for good. The Civil War created upheaval that undermined the slave regime but also required those African-Americans still in bondage to carefully navigate …

The Ideal And The Real: Southern Plantation Women Of The Civil War, Kelly H. Crosby

Student Publications

Southern plantation women experienced a shift in identity over the course of the Civil War. Through the diaries of Catherine Edmondston and Eliza Fain, historians note the discrepancy between the ideal and real roles women had while the men were off fighting. Unique perspectives and hidden voices in their writings offer valuable insight into the life of plantation women and the hybrid identity they gained despite the Confederate loss.

Engineering Victory: The Ingenuity, Proficiency, And Versatility Of Union Citizen Soldiers In Determining The Outcome Of The Civil War, Thomas F. Army Jr

Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation explores the critical advantage the Union held over the Confederacy in military engineering. The skills Union soldiers displayed during the war at bridge building, railroad repair, and road making demonstrated mechanical ability and often revealed ingenuity and imagination. These skills were developed during the antebellum period when northerners invested in educational systems that served an industrializing economy. Before the war, northern states’ attempt at implementing basic educational reforms, the spread of informal educational practices directed at mechanics and artisans, and the exponential growth in manufacturing all generated a different work related ethos than that of the South. Plantation …

Hays, Joseph Stephen, B. 1956 - Collector (Mss 510), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 510. Correspondence, business records, account books, and miscellaneous personal papers of members of the Allen, Barner, Savage and Mallory families of Edmonson, Hart and Warren counties in Kentucky.

Alexander Family Papers (Mss 505), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only Manuscripts Collection 505. Correspondence, business and estate papers, deeds and miscellaneous records of the Alexander, Fontaine, Lucas, Graham and associated families, principally of Henry County, Virginia; Cumberland, Metcalfe and Warren counties in Kentucky; and Pontotoc County, Mississippi. Includes letters of Martha (Lucas) Graham written from Bowling Green, Kentucky during the Civil War (Click on "Additional Files" below).

One Year On: New Gettysburgians, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

It's been one year since freedom was preserved on a black man's farm. It's been one year since the rebel charge of men from North Carolina and Virginia crashed against Abraham Brien's stone wall and were repelled, since men from South Carolina and Maryland found their best laid plans for independence dashed upon the rocks of Emancipation and American Liberty. [excerpt]

Slaves, Soldiers, Citizens: African American Artifacts Of The Civil War Era, Lauren H. Roedner, Angelo Scarlato, Scott Hancock, Jordan G. Cinderich, Tricia M. Runzel, Avery C. Lentz, Brian D. Johnson, Lincoln M. Fitch, Michele B. Seabrook

Other Exhibits & Events

Based on the exhibit Slaves, Soldiers, Citizens: African American Artifacts of the Civil War Era, this book provides the full experience of the exhibit, which was on display in Special Collections at Musselman Library November 2012- December 2013. It also includes several student essays based on specific artifacts that were part of the exhibit.

Table of Contents:

Introduction Angelo Scarlato, Lauren Roedner ’13 & Scott Hancock

Slave Collars & Runaways: Punishment for Rebellious Slaves Jordan Cinderich ’14

Chancery Sale Poster & Auctioneer’s Coin: The Lucrative Business of Slavery Tricia Runzel ’13

Isaac J. Winters: An African American Soldier from Pennsylvania …

Professed Values, Constructive Interpretation, And Political History: Comments On Sotirios Barber, The Fallacies Of States' Rights, David B. Lyons

Faculty Scholarship

Our barely functioning Congress seems to embody the issues that this conference on constitutional dysfunction is meant to address. At this moment, however, congressional disarray may result less from institutional design than from our lasting heritage of white supremacy. Republican control of the House owes much to the party's Southern Strategy, which has exploited widespread dissatisfaction with the Democrats' official renunciation of racial stratification. That challenge to the American Way is exacerbated by the idea, outrageous to some, of a black President. That context has some bearing on this Symposium's topic of federalism. For, as Professor Larry Yackle reminds us, …

Hines, John, 1771-1853 (Mss 496), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 496. Indentures, deeds and financial records chiefly of John Hines of Warren County, Kentucky. Includes material related to the settlement of his extensive estate that was executed by his son, Pleasant Hines. Contains many receipts from Bowling Green businesses in the 1870s and an undated plat map of the city showing owners of lots 71-122.

Slavery - Kentucky (Mss 45), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 45. Photocopy of Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves (1941), transcriptions of oral interviews which recount many aspects of being a slave in nineteenth century Kentucky. The interviews were conducted during the 1930s, part of a Federal Writers’ Project funded by the Works Progress Administration project and administered by the Library of Congress.

Richey, Nancy Carol, B. 1959 - Collector (Sc 2837), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2837. “Freedom, Kentucky Story,” a narrative of John Robert Miller primarily concerning his grandmother’s family and life in Black Walnut Barren County, Kentucky. Miller explains that the geography of the area offered hiding places for escaped slaves on their way to the North; as a consequence, the community was renamed Freedom in 1866.

Black Radicals And Marxist Internationalism: From The Iwma To The Fourth International, 1864-1948, Charles R. Holm

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This project investigates historical relationships between Black Radicalism and Marxist internationalism from the mid-nineteenth through the first half of the twentieth century. It argues that contrary to scholarly accounts that emphasize Marxist Euro-centrism, or that theorize the incompatibility of “Black” and “Western” radical projects, Black Radicals helped shape and produce Marxist theory and political movements, developing theoretical and organizational innovations that drew on both Black Radical and Marxist traditions of internationalism. These innovations were produced through experiences of struggle within international political movements ranging from the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century to the early Pan-African movements and struggles …

Slavery, Sacred Texts, And The Antebellum Confrontation With History, Jordan Tuttle Watkins

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In the first six decades of the nineteenth century, America's biblical and constitutional interpreters waged their hermeneutical battles on historical grounds. Biblical scholars across the antebellum religious spectrum, from orthodox Charles Hodge's Calvinism to heterodox Theodore Parker's Transcendentalism, began to emphasize contextual readings. This development, fueled by an exposure to German biblical criticism and its emphasis on historical exegesis, sparked debate about the pertinence of biblical texts and the permanence of their teachings. In the 1830s, the resurfacing slavery issue increased the urgency to explore the biblical past for answers, which exposed differences between ancient and American slavery. Some still …

An Academic Parable: Robert W. Fogel's Raft, Heitor Moura Filho

Heitor Moura Filho

The book Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery, by Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman achieved great fame as a revolutionary interpretation of North American slavery, even though at the time it was criticized in detail by specialists in quantitative economic history. We believe that to quote it as a pioneering quantitative study of slavery has become an academic “meme”, which does not adequately reflect the severe criticism suffered by the book during the years following its publication. This text looks back to the book’s release and the subsequent debates in the ideological and methodological …

America's Forgotten Constitutions: Defiant Visions Of Power And Community, Robert Tsai

Robert L Tsai

The U.S. Constitution opens by proclaiming the sovereignty of all citizens: "We the People." Robert Tsai's gripping history of alternative constitutions invites readers into the circle of those who have rejected this ringing assertion--the defiant groups that refused to accept the Constitution's definition of who "the people" are and how their authority should be exercised. America's Forgotten Constitutions is the story of America as told by dissenters: squatters, Native Americans, abolitionists, socialists, internationalists, and racial nationalists. Beginning in the nineteenth century, Tsai chronicles eight episodes in which discontented citizens took the extraordinary step of drafting a new constitution. He examines …

Lanier Collection (Mss 488), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and full text of post-World War II pen pal letters and selected images from ciphering book of Collins Lanier from Manuscripts Collection 488. Collection consists chiefly of letters written to Deanna June (Linville) Lanier by friends and her family, particularly her mother Lena (Harris) Linville. Includes some interesting pen pal letters with a German child, 1948 to 1950. Includes genealogical material about the Lanier and Linville families. Also includes early Warren County, Kentucky material from brothers, Byrd Lanier and Collins Lanier, including a little correspondence, bills and notes, receipts, and property records.

Shelby County, Kentucky - Letters (Sc 2807), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2807. Letter, 4 March 1839, from Mary Louisa Hall, Shelbyville, Kentucky, to her brother Winchester Hall, Natchez, Mississippi. She mentions a Presbyterian revival in Shelbyville, gives news of family and of acquaintances in Louisville, asks about his marriage prospects, reports the making of a rag carpet, and conveys greetings from two slaves. Includes a postscript in another hand. Also letter, 24 February 1857, from J.E. Hewlett, Shelbyville, Kentucky, to M.L. Hallowell, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, explaining the delay in payment of a debt.

All Things Were Working Together For My Deliverance: The Life And Times Of Twelve Years A Slave, Mary Niall Mitchell

Mary Niall Mitchell

No abstract provided.

The Young White Faces Of Slavery, Mary Niall Mitchell

Mary Niall Mitchell

No abstract provided.

Glenn Ligon: Narratives, Shannon Egan, Kimberly Rae Connor

Schmucker Art Catalogs

The exhibition on display at Schmucker Art Gallery, a suite of nine prints entitled Narratives by prominent contemporary artist Glenn Ligon, has been made possible by a generous gift to Gettysburg College by Dr. Kimberly Rae Connor ’79. Ligon’s works have been exhibited widely at major museums, and Gettysburg College is fortunate to have the opportunity to engage with work that examines issues of race, sexuality, history and representation. The artist is well known for his use of quotations and texts from a variety of literary writers and cultural critics such as James Baldwin, Frantz Fanon, bell hooks and Ralph …

Mammoth Cave, Slavery, And Kentucky: Overcoming The Chains That Bind, Susan Farmer

The Student Researcher: A Phi Alpha Theta Publication

No abstract provided.

Carving Canaan From Egypt’S Land: Free People Of Color In Kentucky’S Ohio River Valley, 1795-1860, Brandon Wilson

Theses and Dissertations--History

Over the course of the nineteenth century, Southerners of color flocked to northern free soil by the droves. Seeking refuge from a slaveholding society intent on subordinating those of African descent, many established new homes in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and places north. Many others, however, carved their own lands of freedom within the slaveholding South. This study explores the free Southerners of color who maintained communities in Kentucky’s borderland, occupying a purgatorial position between freedom and slavery. Maneuvering the anti-black laws and sentiments of their society, the individuals in this study remained rooted in a slaveholding society, despite relative proximity …

"For Divers Good Causes And Considerations" : Manumission Practices Of Albany, Ny Slaveholders, 1799-1824, William Angelo Meredith

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

On March 29, 1799, the New York State Legislature received notice that the state's Council of Revision had approved, "an Act for the gradual abolition of Slavery." The bill changed slavery in such a way that children born to slaves after July 4, 1799, became free upon reaching the age of twenty-five for females and twenty-eight for males. Given the monumental change produced by this legislation, historians have linked passage of the gradual abolition bill to an increase in slave manumissions. While the gradual abolition bill may have prompted slaveholders to consider manumission, it was not the overall motivating force …