Civil War @ 150

November 20, 2020

This July, the American Social History Project will once again host an NEH Summer Institute for college and university faculty on the Visual Culture of the American Civil War and Its Aftermath. The institute will be a ten-day remote program taking place between June 28 and July 14, 2021.

Postponed this year due to Covid-19, the fifth iteration of our institute will focus on the Civil War and Reconstruction era’s array of visual media–including prints, photographs, cartoons, illustrated newspapers and magazines, maps, ephemera, monuments, and the fine arts. The institute will examine how information and opinion about the war and its aftermath was recorded and disseminated, and the ways visual media expressed and shaped Americans’ understanding, North and South, free and enslaved. Due to continuing restrictions regarding face-to-face meetings, this will be a remote institute in which participants will view lectures by and interact with noted historians, art historians, and archivists. In addition, they will participate in new “behind the scenes” virtual sessions with curators and staff in major museums and archives. A team of three institute faculty that represents the range of work in the field will introduce participants to the rich body of new scholarship that addresses or incorporates Civil War and postwar visual culture, prompt them via individual remote conferences to do further research, and help them to use visual evidence to enhance their scholarship and teaching. Reading assignments preceding and during the institute will prepare participants for full engagement in discussions and activities.

The institute will meet over ten days between June 28 and July 14, 2021. Faculty and visiting speakers include: Jermaine Archer, Amanda Bellows, Louise Bernard, Joshua Brown, Sarah Burns, Gregory Downs, Matthew Fox-Amato, Amanda Frisken, Lauren Hewes, Dominique Jean-Louis, Barbara Krauthamer, Allison Lange, Turkiya Lowe, Maurie McInnis, Susan Schulten, Scott Manning Stevens, and Dell Upton.

While scholars and teachers specializing in U.S. history, American studies, and art history will find the institute especially attractive, we encourage applicants from any field who are interested in the Civil War and Reconstruction era and its visual culture, regardless of your disciplinary interests. Independent scholars, scholars engaged in museum work or full-time graduate studies are also urged to apply. You need not have extensive prior knowledge of the Civil War, Reconstruction or visual culture or have previously incorporated their study in any of your courses or research. However, your application essay should identify specific ways in which a ten day concentration on the topics will enhance your teaching and/or research. In addition, please describe a research or teaching project you will develop during the institute. The ideal institute participant will bring to the group a fresh understanding of the relevance of the topic to their teaching and research.

Completed applications must be submitted via our online application system or e-mail no later than March 1, 2021. Applications sent via postal mail will not be accepted.

Full details and application information are available on the ASHP/CML Institute website. For further information, please contact Institute Director Donna Thompson Ray at dthompson@gc.cuny.edu.

Thanks to a supplementary NEH grant, many of the institute’s resources and activities are available online on The Visual Culture of the American Civil War website. The site, which currently includes sessions from our past institutes, features video lectures and related picture galleries, primary documents, and print and multimedia bibliographies.

Image: Currier & Ives. The first colored senator and representatives – in the 41st and 42nd Congress of the United States. United States, 1872. New York: Published by Currier & Ives. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/98501907/.

The American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning at The Graduate Center, CUNY, will host a National Endowment for the Humanities institute in Summer 2021 for 25 college and university teachers to study the visual culture of the American Civil War and its aftermath. Postponed this year due to Covid-19, this fifth iteration of the institute will focus on the era’s array of visual media—including the fine arts, ephemera, photography, cartoons, maps, and monuments—to examine how information and opinion about the war and its impact were recorded and disseminated, and the ways visual media expressed and shaped views before, during, and after the conflict.

Due to continuing restrictions regarding face-to-face meetings, the institute will be entirely online, giving participants the opportunity to view lectures and interact with noted historians, art historians, and archivists. In addition, they will participate in new “behind the scenes” virtual sessions with curators and staff in major museums and archives. A core team of three institute faculty will introduce participants to the rich body of new scholarship that addresses or incorporates Civil War and postwar visual culture, meet them via individual remote conferences to guide their research, and help them to use visual evidence to enhance their scholarship and teaching. The 2021 institute faculty includes: Jermaine Archer, Amanda Bellows, Louise Bernard, Joshua Brown, Sarah Burns, Gregory Downs, Matthew Fox-Amato, Amanda Frisken, Dominique Jean-Louis, Barbara Krauthamer, Turkiya Lowe, Maurie McInnis, Susan Schulten, Scott Manning Stevens, and Dell Upton.

Information about applying as well as the institute’s program of activities will be available in November at: https://ashp.cuny.edu/nehinstitute.

Thanks to a supplementary NEH grant, many of the institute’s resources and previous activities are available online on The Visual Culture of the American Civil War website. The site features video lectures and related picture galleries, primary documents, and print and multimedia bibliographies.

Image: Engraving. “Emancipation Day in South Carolina” – the Color-Sergeant of the 1st South Carolina Colored addressing the regiment, after having been presented with the Stars and Stripes, at Smith’s plantation, Port Royal, January 1. , 1863. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Vol. 15, No. 382 (1863 Jan. 24), p. 276.

During two steamy weeks this past July, the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning held our third National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute. “The Visual Culture of the American Civil War and its Aftermath” institute was hosted by the CUNY Graduate Center and three New York City cultural institutions (New York Public Library, New-York Historical Society, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art). Attended by thirty NEH Summer Scholars selected from colleges, universities, and museums across the country, the institute featured presentations, discussions, visits to local archives and museums, and hands-on workshops that focused on the era’s visual media to assess how information and opinion about the war were recorded and disseminated, and to consider ways visual media expressed and shaped Americans’ understanding on both sides of the conflict. For this third institute, we extended its purview to address the struggle for equality beyond the years of the war, imcluding the visualization of the extended war in the West, Reconstruction, and the Gilded Age.

The institute featured talks by eleven noted historians, art historians, and archivists representing the range of current work in the field. In addition, a team of four institute faculty (Joshua Brown, Sarah Burns, Gregory Downs, and David Jaffee) guided the participating scholars in ways to use visual evidence to enhance their research, writing, and teaching about the war and its short- and long-term effects. Topics discussed during the institute included Civil War photography, visualizing slavery and anti-slavery, the illustrated press, political cartoons, maps, textiles, Emancipation, the wartime and postwar West, and commemorative sculpture and public monuments (the full schedule of activities and speakers is available here).

Thanks to a supplementary NEH grant, many of the institute’s resources and activities will be available online on The Visual Culture of the American Civil War website. The site, which currently includes sessions from our 2012 and 2014 institutes, and soon the 2016 institute, features video lectures and related picture galleries, primary documents, and print and multimedia bibliographies.

The American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning at the City University of New York Graduate Center will host a two-week NEH Summer Institute for college and university teachers in July 2016 on the visual culture of the American Civil War and its aftermath. Applications to participate will be accepted via mail, e-mail, and our online application system until March 1, 2016.

The Institute will focus on the era’s array of visual media–including the fine arts, ephemera, and photography–to examine how information and opinion about the war were recorded and disseminated, and the ways visual media expressed and shaped Americans’ understanding on both sides of the conflict. Guided by a team of four faculty that represents the range of work in the field, Institute participants will hear daily lectures and presentations by noted historians, art historians, and archivists; take part in hands-on sessions in significant museums and collections; and attend new media lab workshops. These Institute activities will introduce participants to the rich body of scholarship that addresses or incorporates Civil War era visual culture, encourage them to explore avenues for further research in the field, and assist them in developing their own research and/or teaching projects. Reading assignments preceding and during the Institute will prepare participants for full engagement in the Institute’s discussions and activities. And time will be provided to prepare individual projects, undertake research at local archives, and meet with the four principal institute faculty members as well as guest speakers.

The institute will meet from July 11 to July 22, 2016 at the CUNY Graduate Center (34th Street and Fifth Avenue) and other archival and museum sites around the city, including the New-York Historical Society, the New York Public Library, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Faculty and visiting speakers include: Lynne Zacek Bassett, Joshua Brown, Sarah Burns, Keith Davis, Gregory Downs, Thavolia Glymph, Lauren Hewes, David Jaffee, Ari Kelman, Maurie McInnis, Megan Kate Nelson, Kirk Savage, Susan Shulten, Scott Manning Stevens, and Richard Samuel West.

While scholars and teachers specializing in U.S. history, American studies, and art history will find the Institute especially attractive, we encourage applicants from any field who are interested in the Civil War era and its visual culture, regardless of your disciplinary interests. Independent scholars, scholars engaged in museum work or full-time graduate studies are also urged to apply. You need not have extensive prior knowledge of the Civil War or visual culture or have previously incorporated their study in any of your courses or research. However, your application essay should identify concrete ways in which two weeks of concentration on the topics will enhance your teaching and/or research. In addition, please describe a research or teaching project you will develop during the institute. The ideal institute participant will bring to the group a fresh understanding of the relevance of the topic to their teaching and research.

Full details and application information are available on the ASHP/CML Institute website. For further information, please contact Institute Director Donna Thompson Ray at dthompson@gc.cuny.edu or 212-817-1963.

Completed applications must be submitted via our online application system or e-mail or postal mail no later than March 1, 2016 (postal mail must be postmarked by March 1).

During two weeks in July, the American Social History Project-Center for Media and Learning hosted a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute on “The Visual Culture of the American Civil War” at the CUNY Graduate Center and cultural institutions in the New York area. The 2014 institute built on the work established in our 2012 NEH Civil War Summer Institute.

Attended by thirty NEH Summer Scholars from colleges and universities across the country, the institute featured presentations, discussions, visits to local archives and museums, and hands-on workshops that focused on the era’s visual media to assess how information and opinion about the war were recorded and disseminated, and to consider ways visual media expressed and shaped Americans’ understanding on both sides of the conflict.

The institute featured talks by fourteen noted historians, art historians, and archivists representing the range of current work in the field. The topics included Civil War photography of the home front and war front, interdisciplinary methods for researching and teaching the Civil War, the illustrated press, images of slavery and antislavery, political cartoons, the paintings of Winslow Homer, the vision of total war, and public monuments (the full schedule of activities and speakers is available here). Building on the information and resources discussed and viewed at the institute, the participants also worked independently on their own research and teaching projects utilizing visual evidence to enhance understanding of the history of the war.

ASHP/CML is currently accepting applications for our 2014 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for College and University Teachers on the Visual Culture of the American Civil War. The two-week institute, which will take place at the City University of New York Graduate Center and local archives and museums from July 7th to 18th, will study the ways the war was recorded, reported, represented, and remembered via an unprecedented array of visual media that included the fine arts, photography, cartoons, and a range of “ephemeral”pictorial items and publications.

Information about the institute−including an informational video, schedule of activities, roster of leading scholars in the field, and application instructions−is now available in a special section of the ASHP/CML website. We welcome inquiries about participating and invite college and university faculty, independent scholars, scholars engaged in museum work, and full-time graduate students to apply. If you plan to apply, be sure to review NEH’s Application Information and Instructions to determine your eligibility. The deadline for applications is Tuesday, March 4, 2014.

With the support of a supplementary grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, ASHP/CML just launched Visual Culture of the American Civil War. The new website provides broad public and educational access to the resources of our 2012 NEH summer institute for college and university teachers. The website features videocast presentations by historians, art historians, and archivists focusing on the war’s different visual media as well as major themes of the conflict. In addition, each presentation is accompanied by a selection of archival images, primary documents, and a bibliography. Additional presentations and resources will be posted on the website over the course of the coming fall.

Visual Culture of the American Civil War is a special feature of ASHP/CML’s Picturing U.S. History, an interactive resource for teaching with visual evidence.

During two weeks last July, the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning hosted a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute on “The Visual Culture of the American Civil War” at the CUNY Graduate Center and cultural institutions in the New York area. Attended by thirty NEH Summer Scholars from colleges and universities across the country, the institute featured presentations, discussions, visits to local archives and museums, and hands-on workshops that focused on the era’s visual media to assess how information and opinion about the war were recorded and disseminated, and to consider ways visual media expressed and shaped Americans’ understanding on both sides of the conflict.

The institute featured talks by seventeen noted historians, art historians, and archivists representing the range of current work in the field. The topics included Civil War photography and images of African Americans, the illustrated press, political cartoons, Emancipation and prints, the paintings of Winslow Homer, scrapbooks, and public monuments (the full schedule of activities and speakers is available here). Building on the information and resources discussed and viewed at the institute, the participants also worked independently on their own research and teaching projects utilizing visual evidence to enhance understanding of the history of the war.

Thanks to a supplementary NEH grant, many of the institute’s resources and activities will be available online in a special section of our Picturing U.S. History website. The Visual Culture of the American Civil War site will feature the institute’s illustrated lectures, complemented by contextual presentations, and related picture galleries, primary documents, bibliographies, and webographies. Watch for the announcement of the launching of this site later this fall on the ASHP/CML website.

“Is There Anything More to See? Civil War Photography and History,” the third in a series of public programs sponsored by ASHP/CML marking the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War, is now available online. The event took place at the City University Graduate Center last November and featured leading scholars of the war and photography, including Anthony Lee (Mount Holyoke College), Mary Niall Mitchell (University of New Orleans), Martha Sandweiss (Princeton University), and Deborah Willis (Tisch School of the Arts, New York University). The speakers discussed the persistence of photography’s influence over the vision of the Civil War, and some of the critical historical questions the medium’s record of the war addresses, distorts, and ignores. The program is can be downloaded as podcasts.