Alice Fahs

In this groundbreaking work of cultural history, Alice Fahs explores a little-known and fascinating side of the Civil War — the outpouring of popular literature inspired by the conflict. From 1861 to 1865, authors and publishers in both the North and the South produced a remarkable variety of war-related compositions, including poems, songs, children’s stories, romances, novels, histories, and even humorous pieces. Fahs mines these rich but long-neglected resources to recover the diversity of the war’s political and social meanings. Instead of narrowly portraying the Civil War as a clash between two great, white armies, popular literature offered a wide range of representations of the conflict and helped shape new modes of imagining the relationships of diverse individuals to the nation. Works that explored the war’s devastating impact on white women’s lives, for example, proclaimed the importance of their experiences on the home front, while popular writings that celebrated black manhood and heroism in the wake of emancipation helped readers begin to envision new roles for blacks in American life. Recovering a lost world of popular literature, The Imagined Civil War adds immeasurably to our understanding of American life and letters at a pivotal point in our history.

Popular Literature of the North and South, 1861-1865

The Imagined Civil War

Joan Waugh

The Civil War retains a powerful hold on the American imagination, with each generation since 1865 reassessing its meaning and importance in American life. This volume collects twelve essays by leading Civil War scholars who demonstrate how the meanings o

The Memory of the Civil War in American Culture

James M. McPherson

Gary Gerstle

Paul E. Johnson

John M. Murrin

A highly respected, balanced, and thoroughly modern approach to US History, LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER, uses these three themes to show how the United States was transformed from hunter-gatherer and agricultural Native American societies into the most powerful industrial nation on earth. This approach helps students understand the impact of the notions of liberty and equality, which are often associated with the American story, and also how dominant and subordinate groups have affected and been affected by the ever-shifting balance of power. The text integrates the best of recent social and cultural scholarship -- including fun material on music and movies -- into a political story, offering students the most comprehensive and complete understanding of American history available. Available in the following split options: LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER, Sixth Edition (Chapters 1-32), ISBN: 978-0-495-90499-1; Volume 1: To 1877 (Chapters 1-17), ISBN: 978-0-495-91587-4; Volume 2: Since 1863 (Chapters 17-32), ISBN: 978-0-495-91588-1. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.

Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People, Volume 1: To 1877

The Civil War retains a powerful hold on the American imagination, with each generation since 1865 reassessing its meaning and importance in American life. This volume collects twelve essays by leading Civil War scholars who demonstrate how the meanings of the Civil War have changed over time. The essays move among a variety of cultural and political arenas--from public monuments to parades to political campaigns; from soldiers' memoirs to textbook publishing to children's literature--in order to reveal important changes in how the memory of the Civil War has been employed in American life. Setting the politics of Civil War memory within a wide social and cultural landscape, this volume recovers not only the meanings of the war in various eras, but also the specific processes by which those meanings have been created. By recounting the battles over the memory of the war during the last 140 years, the contributors offer important insights about our identities as individuals and as a nation. Contributors: David W. Blight, Yale University Thomas J. Brown, University of South Carolina Alice Fahs, University of California, Irvine Gary W. Gallagher, University of Virginia J. Matthew Gallman, University of Florida Patrick J. Kelly, University of Texas, San Antonio Stuart McConnell, Pitzer College James M. McPherson, Princeton University Joan Waugh, University of California, Los Angeles LeeAnn Whites, University of Missouri Jon Wiener, University of California, Irvine

Out on Assignment illuminates the lives and writings of a lost world of women who wrote for major metropolitan newspapers at the start of the twentieth century. Using extraordinary archival research, Alice Fahs unearths a richly networked community of female journalists drawn by the hundreds to major cities--especially New York--from all parts of the United States. Newspaper women were part of a wave of women seeking new, independent, urban lives, but they struggled to obtain the newspaper work of their dreams. Although some female journalists embraced more adventurous reporting, including stunt work and undercover assignments, many were relegated to the women's page. However, these intrepid female journalists made the women's page their own. Fahs reveals how their writings--including celebrity interviews, witty sketches of urban life, celebrations of being "bachelor girls," advice columns, and a campaign in support of suffrage--had far-reaching implications for the creation of new, modern public spaces for American women at the turn of the century. As observers and actors in a new drama of independent urban life, newspaper women used the simultaneously liberating and exploitative nature of their work, Fahs argues, to demonstrate the power of a public voice, both individually and collectively.

Alice Fahs

Books

Your next favorite book is out there