Cities of the Dead: Contesting the Memory of the Civil War in the South, 1865-1914
264
Cities of the Dead: Contesting the Memory of the Civil War in the South, 1865-1914
264eBook
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Overview
Commemorations by ex-Confederates were intended at first to maintain a separate identity from the U.S. government, Blair argues, not as a vehicle for promoting sectional healing. The burial grounds of fallen heroes, known as Cities of the Dead, often became contested ground, especially for Confederate women who were opposed to Reconstruction. And until the turn of the century, African Americans used freedom celebrations to lobby for greater political power and tried to create a national holiday to recognize emancipation.
Blair's analysis shows that some festive occasions that we celebrate even today have a divisive and sometimes violent past as various groups with conflicting political agendas attempted to define the meaning of the Civil War.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780807876237 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The University of North Carolina Press |
| Publication date: | 01/20/2011 |
| Series: | Civil War America |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 264 |
| File size: | 705 KB |
About the Author
William Blair is associate professor of history and director of the Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University. He is author of Virginia's Private War: Feeding Body and Soul in the Confederacy and editor of the journal Civil War History.
What People are Saying About This
[An] excellent study. . . . [Blair] effectively highlights African American political struggle through the creation and use of public commemorative events.—Journal of African American History
Cities of the Dead ranks Blair among a growing group of scholars studying memory and the Civil War. [His] genius lies in his carefully reasoned explanations, of how and why these celebrations carried political meaning in particular historical moments.—Civil War Book Review
Commemoration in the postwar South is an intriguing topic that has been neglected until now.—Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
Blair does an excellent job of tracing the subtleties of political discourse. . . . [Cities of the Dead: Contesting the Memory of the Civil War in the South, 1865-1914] reminds us that politics cannot be extricated from the tangle of memory, commemoration, and reunion in the post-Civil War South.—Civil War History
The more clearly we understand how commemorative activities have functioned in the past to influence political outcomes, the more effective we can be in the present. William Blair deserves credit for a fine effort in this direction.—H-South
Readers who want to think about the broader aspects of the 1860s and those interested in current controversies over such Civil War-related matters as 'Dixie' and the Confederate flag will profit greatly from Blair's book.—Civil War News
Blair has produced a worthy exploration of the evolution of Emancipation Day and Memorial Day celebrations in post-Civil War Virginia.—Virginia Libraries
That southerners would feel compelled to commemorate the Civil War was inevitable, but the form and content of their commemorations was not. Blair has written a fascinating and deeply researched account of the commemorative impulse in the postbellum South when the first 'culture wars' flared up. He reveals the grief, pride, and pluck that southerners, black and white, displayed as they tried to impose order on their region's recent past.—W. Fitzhugh Brundage, author of Where These Memories Grow