In its Sept. 2014 issue, the “Journal of American History” — the flagship journal of all scholars of American History in the world — gave high praise to "The People’s Contest" website at Penn State.
The U.S. Constitution defines treason as levying war against the government and aiding and abetting its enemies. By that definition, every Confederate soldier in the Civil War -- as well as every political leader -- was a traitor, according to William A. Blair, College of the Liberal Arts Research Professor of History at Penn State. Yet no one was executed for treason, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis was not even tried for the crime.
Lincoln sought to make sense of the Battle of Gettysburg with his address, which succeeded in galvanizing the North's resolve to see the war through. Bill Blair, director of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Center and professor of history at Penn State, puts these events in perspective and shows how the effects of this battle would resonate for years to come.
For Penn State Trustee Hugh McAllister, the Battle of Gettysburg brought home the reality of war. While he was in Bellefonte awaiting the outcome of one of the bloodiest skirmishes of the Civil War, he also was concerned about his brother Robert, who served in the New Jersey Infantry as well as his nephew William, who fought with Confederate forces.
Evan Pugh, a Quaker and president of what would become Penn State, was opposed to students leaving college to fight in the Civil War. Nevertheless, 31 in all would join Union forces and at least two joined Confederate armies. Carol Reardon, George Winfree Professor of History at Penn State, talks about how the college answered the emergency call for an armed militia, placed by Andrew Curtin to defend the Commonwealth from Gen. Robert E. Lee's advancing Confederate troops.
For three days in July 1863, thousands of Gettysburg civilians and tens of thousands of soldiers were caught up in a battle that left often conflicting data and anecdotes. This makes writing about the Battle of Gettysburg both a dream and a nightmare for Civil War historians, according to a Penn State researcher.
The George T. Harrell Health Sciences Library, Penn State Hershey, will host a National Library of Medicine traveling exhibit that explores the experiences of disabled Civil War veterans. "Life and Limb: The Toll of the American Civil War" will be on display from Feb. 13 to March 21, and will feature images, Civil War ephemera and books. It is hosted in partnership with The Doctors Kienle Center for Humanistic Medicine and the Department of Humanities, and coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Two lectures will be held in conjunction with the exhibition. At noon March 8, in the Junker Auditorium, Susan Rosenvold will present "Clara Barton and Battlefield Medicine." Rosenvold is the superintendent of the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office in Washington, D.C. Her lecture will shed light on how the approach to battlefield medicine during the Civil War was challenged by advocates, including Barton, who saw a need for better and faster medical care during and after battles.
Mark Neely, McCabe-Greer Professor in the American Civil War, spoke on "Lincoln and Liberty: A Closer Look at Abraham Lincoln and the Constitution in Wartime" at last week's Research Unplugged event.
Research Unplugged, the speaker series that brings Penn State researchers into the community for lively public discussions, wraps up its fall season this Wednesday with a presentation by Bill Blair, director of the Richards Civil War Era Center and professor of American history.
How Abraham Lincoln viewed the U.S. Constitution played a more important role in preserving the Union during the Civil War than previous scholarship has indicated, according to a new book by Mark E. Neely Jr., McCabe Greer Professor of History at Penn State. In "Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American Civil War," published this month by the University of North Carolina Press, Neely goes beyond the previous focus of historians on Lincoln and First Amendment freedoms and sees the iconic president in the broader context of nationalism.
When the Civil War broke out with the bombardment of Fort Sumter April 12, 1861, Penn State had just won a prolonged legislative battle for a $50,000 appropriation to complete the construction of Old Main. The entire operation of the Farmers' High School (as Penn State was then called) was to be housed in this single structure that had been only one third completed when the first students arrived in February 1859. News of Fort Sumter's surrender changed the mood of the 88 students and five professors then on campus from satisfaction over the legislative victory to confused excitement. President Abraham Lincoln's call for volunteers to serve in the Union army and Governor Andrew Curtin's immediate response had the students in a patriotic uproar to enlist, which was aggressively quieted by College President Evan Pugh.
"Penn State during the Civil War, 1861-1865," a Penn State University Archives exhibit is on display, now through Jan. 13, 2012, in the Hintz Alumni Center, Robb Hall, on Penn State's University Park campus.
The University Libraries will host a "Gallery Walk and Talk" at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 1, in conjunction with the current exhibition "Home Front to Battlefront: Celebrating the Civil War Legacy." The event will be held in the Special Collections Library's Exhibition Hall, 104 Paterno Library.
Popular media of television and movies shape many perceptions about the Civil War. A new exhibit in the University Libraries, "The Civil War from the Stacks," presents recent scholarship that gives a more robust view of the war and society and corrects some common misperceptions. Too often popular portrayals overlook many of the very ideas that motivated the generation that fought the war. According to renowned Civil War historian Gary Gallagher, "The most influential perspective for the Civil War generation is almost entirely absent from the Civil War stories being told today."
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and family letters, diaries, photos, lithographs, and government documents from Penn State's Historical Collections and Labor archives help us explore this defining moment in our history. Pennsylvanians played a pivotal role in the national debate over slavery's future in the republic and selected newspapers published during the pivotal years before, during, and after the U.S. Civil War played a prominent role in the conflict. Read about this and get a link to more than 500,000 Penn State photos at the Alumni Library at alumni.libraries.psu.edu
One hundred sixty years ago, 10 years before the start of the Civil War, Pennsylvanians played a pivotal role in resisting the Fugitive Slave Act, entering a national debate over slavery's future in the republic. A new project, "The People's Contest: a Civil War Era Digital Archiving Project" at http://peoplescontest.psu.edu/ online, aims to advance scholarship on the experiences of ordinary northerners during a period of extraordinary conflict, a lesser understood aspect of the Civil War era. The website chronicles Pennsylvania's history from 1851, marked by the bloody Christiana fugitive slave riot, to 1874, when the state adopted a new constitution after the Civil War.
