Civil War Archives: A New Social and Cultural History of the Civil War

FAIN: EH-281232-21

Gettysburg College (Gettysburg, PA 17325-1483)
James Downs (Project Director: March 2021 to present)

A three-week, residential institute for 36 higher education faculty to examine Civil War and Reconstruction history through the lens of the archival turn.

This two-week residential institute for higher education faculty places Civil War and Reconstruction history within the context of the “the archival turn,” a scholarly intervention that explores how ideology, politics, bias, and history itself shapes the contents of archives. While scholars from Asian to European history have examined this question in relation to their fields, few Civil War and Reconstruction historians have probed this question, despite the overwhelming abundance of Civil War archives throughout the country. This institute provides an opportunity for 36 historians to investigate how the archival turn can generate new ways of looking at old documents in an effort to breathe new life into the social and cultural history of the Civil War Era, which spans 1830-1877.

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