Muster

Interview with Brandon Byrd on JCWE’s Black Internationalism Special Issue

In today's Muster, JCWE associate editor Robert Bland interviews Dr. Brandon R. Byrd, editor and organizer of the journal's December 2024 special issue on Black Internationalism. Dr. Byrd is an associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University and the author of The Black Republic: African Americans and the Fate of ...
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Teaching the Civil War: Disrupting the Conventional Antislavery Narrative and Engaging Students in Visual Analysis

Teaching the Civil War: Disrupting the Conventional Antislavery Narrative and Engaging Students in Visual Analysis

This post is the first in a new Muster series that will highlight innovative ways that classroom instructors have approached teaching the Civil War era. Today's post is written by Professor Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz and offers a creative approach for introducing students to a more expansive vision of the antislavery movement ...
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Conversation with George Rable

In today's Muster, JCWE Book Review Editor Megan Bever chats with Professor George Rable about his latest book, Conflict of Command (LSU Press, 2023). From the press: The fraught relationship between Abraham Lincoln and George McClellan is well known, so much so that many scholars rarely question the standard narrative ...
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Conversation with Justene Hill Edwards

In today's Muster, Dr. Justene Hill Edwards, associate professor of history at the University of Virginia, discusses her new book Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman's Bank with the JCWE's digital editor Robert Bland. Savings and Trust was released October 22, 2024 by W. W. Norton ...
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Call for Entries: Teaching Experience and Pedagogy

Call for Entries: Teaching Experience and Pedagogy

The SCWH Outreach & Membership Committee and Muster Blog are soliciting pedagogy focused entries for the Muster Blog. Have an innovative lesson plan, an engaging student activity, or even just a unique primary source that you want to share with fellow SCWH members? We want to see them! We are ...
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The Past That Persists: The Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument Designation

The Past That Persists: The Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument Designation

On August 16, 2024, in the presence of civil rights leaders, community members, and elected officials, President Biden used his authority under the Antiquities Act to designate the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument. The designation was made during the 116th anniversary of the racist riots in Springfield, IL that resulted in ...
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Congratulations to the Winner of The Journal of the Civil War Era’s 2024 George and Ann Richards Prize

Congratulations to the Winner of The Journal of the Civil War Era’s 2024 George and Ann Richards Prize

Tian Xu has won the $1,000 George and Ann Richards Prize for the best article published in The Journal of the Civil War Era in 2023. The article, “Chinese Women and Habeas Corpus Hearings in California, 1857–1882 appeared in the December 2023 special issue, Transpacific Connections in the Civil War Era, ...
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Joining Forces: Seven Take-Aways from a Biennial Meeting Roundtable

Joining Forces: Seven Take-Aways from a Biennial Meeting Roundtable

Many of us love the idea of close cooperation with the National Park Service (NPS), and of forging ties between academics and public-facing historians more generally, but we are not always sure how to put those ideas and intentions into tangible, sustainable practice. At the Society of Civil War History’s ...
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Editor's Note for September 2024 JCWE

Editor’s Note for September 2024 JCWE

The September 2024 issue continues to demonstrate the vitality and creativity of the fields that touch on the Civil War era and the vibrant discussion of methods, sources, and arguments that shape its future. There are reasons for concern—or even gloom—about aspects of the broader culture, including attacks on teaching ...
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Civil War Bluejackets: Citizen Science, Machine Learning, and the US Navy Common Sailor

Civil War Bluejackets: Citizen Science, Machine Learning, and the US Navy Common Sailor

The “digital turn” in Civil War era history has now reached the age of artificial intelligence (AI). ).  In 2022 Cameron Blevins and Christy Hyman challenged historians “even self-professed Luddites—to approach today’s shifting technological landscape with the same intellectual curiosity and rigor that they bring to their studies of the ...
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Pete

Pete

We grieve the sudden death of our dear friend and distinguished historian, Peter S. Carmichael.  As nearly everyone in the SCWH knows, Pete brought a rare invigorating spark to everything he touched.  Those lucky enough to interact with him encountered historical insights, probing questions, and his profane and hilarious sense ...
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“Acts of Lawless Violence”: The Office of Indian Affairs, and the Coming of the Civil War in Kansas

“Acts of Lawless Violence”: The Office of Indian Affairs, and the Coming of the Civil War in Kansas

On November 26, 1855, Indian Agent John Montgomery hand delivered a notice to the wife of George W. Gray, warning the squatters that they were now “required to abandon your ‘claim’ or ‘location’ on the Half Breed and Kansas Indian Reserve on the Grasshopper Creek.”  If they ignored this official ...
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Greetings from the New Editor

Greetings from the New Editor

Greetings JCWE community, I am Robert Bland and I am excited to be joining this robust online community around Muster as the Journal’s incoming associate editor for digital content. As a prior contributor and longtime reader of Muster, I deeply value the digital world that has been curated by the ...
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Editors’s Note for June 2024 JCWE

Editors’s Note for June 2024 JCWE

This issue demonstrates the ongoing methodological breadth of the Civil War Era, as scholars bring numerous different ways of approaching history to reckon with the turbulent mid-nineteenth century in all its facets. This issue includes one research article, a book award talk, a roundtable, and a historiographic review essay, along ...
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Exit Interview with Hilary Green

What has been the most rewarding part of your time with Muster? It has been rewarding to introduce the amazing work of more diverse Civil War era scholars to more diverse audiences of academic, K-12, and non-academic audiences. As such, I have been able to see more people engage with their ...
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Production by Enslaved Workers and the US GNP

Production by Enslaved Workers and the US GNP

  Sad to say, the gulf between economic history and mainstream history is as wide today as ever.  Undoubtedly many forces have contributed to this state of affairs, but one historical breakpoint was the controversy over slavery during the 1970s, prompted by publication of Time on the Cross, by Robert ...
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