One of the many memories I have of living and teaching at a boarding school in Mobile, Alabama (1998-2000) is seeing a student show up one day wearing a bright purple hoop skirt accompanied with a bonnet and umbrella.
Thanks for this resource. Of course, notions of Southern womanhood served to keep both African Americans and white women "in their places". This books sounds fascinating. I had previously learned a lot from George Rable's "Civil wars: women and the crisis of Southern nationalism". Rable contends, for example, that notions of "proper behavior" limited the effectiveness of Southern white women's volunteerism during the Civil War.
That's the only one I've read, though I wholeheartedly recommend it. I'll have to branch out and read more of his work. Among other virtues, Rable is a fine writer.
Every line of that quote (esp. your highlighted lines) takes me back to original Lost Cause literature. Makes sense. Over several generations, they're navigating blows to their identity and sense of self: defeat, emancipation, Republican power, industrialization, new monetary regimes, popular political movements, politically assertive Black people, modern technologies, challenges to theology, new continental expansion, mass immigration on both coasts, challenges to agrarianism, etc., are all things poised to destabilize the white ruling class in the 1880s and 1890s.
I completely agree. I really need to star referring to "Confederate nostalgia" or "Lost Cause nostalgia" as opposed to "Confederate memory." This understanding of nostalgia does a really good job of explaining how memory functions in our day-to-day lives and culture.
Indeed. Lots of academic frameworks to draw on, from C.R. Wilson's "civil religion" and Gaines Foster's "Confederate Tradition" to today's "Civil War Memory" and now Boyd's "nostalgia."
I used (in a very superficial fashion) Priya Satia's "historical imagination," but just encountered, in a book proposal, someone convincingly laying out "historical consciousness" in relation to Civil War memory. All are good, and all mean something slightly different. I really like this one, though, and can't wait to retrofit it into how I think about my book.
(And I shouldn't leave out John Hodgman's admonition that "nostalgia is a toxic impulse." He's not talking about Confederate memory, but he's not wrong!)
I found it useful for how she described the historical imagination, but I just did that graduate school thing where you raid a book for what you need while not deeply reading all of it. The actual content is about British imperial officials in the 19th Century, and that, itself, wasn't what I needed. If that interests you, I think it would be a very rich and satisfying read.
She describes the historical imagination as defining a "permission structure" (my words that I stole from someone else) for thinking about what is possible in the future. I particularly like her admonition that "We have to take the ethical claims of historical actors seriously to understand how ordinary people acting in particular institutional and cultural frameworks can, despite good intentions, author appalling chapters of human history." And if that doesn't describe my subjects, I don't know what does.
Thanks for this resource. Of course, notions of Southern womanhood served to keep both African Americans and white women "in their places". This books sounds fascinating. I had previously learned a lot from George Rable's "Civil wars: women and the crisis of Southern nationalism". Rable contends, for example, that notions of "proper behavior" limited the effectiveness of Southern white women's volunteerism during the Civil War.
I think that is the one book by George Rable that I have not read. One of my favorite historians.
That's the only one I've read, though I wholeheartedly recommend it. I'll have to branch out and read more of his work. Among other virtues, Rable is a fine writer.
Every line of that quote (esp. your highlighted lines) takes me back to original Lost Cause literature. Makes sense. Over several generations, they're navigating blows to their identity and sense of self: defeat, emancipation, Republican power, industrialization, new monetary regimes, popular political movements, politically assertive Black people, modern technologies, challenges to theology, new continental expansion, mass immigration on both coasts, challenges to agrarianism, etc., are all things poised to destabilize the white ruling class in the 1880s and 1890s.
I completely agree. I really need to star referring to "Confederate nostalgia" or "Lost Cause nostalgia" as opposed to "Confederate memory." This understanding of nostalgia does a really good job of explaining how memory functions in our day-to-day lives and culture.
Indeed. Lots of academic frameworks to draw on, from C.R. Wilson's "civil religion" and Gaines Foster's "Confederate Tradition" to today's "Civil War Memory" and now Boyd's "nostalgia."
I used (in a very superficial fashion) Priya Satia's "historical imagination," but just encountered, in a book proposal, someone convincingly laying out "historical consciousness" in relation to Civil War memory. All are good, and all mean something slightly different. I really like this one, though, and can't wait to retrofit it into how I think about my book.
(And I shouldn't leave out John Hodgman's admonition that "nostalgia is a toxic impulse." He's not talking about Confederate memory, but he's not wrong!)
I am not familiar with Priya Satia. Do you recommend *Time's Monster*?
I found it useful for how she described the historical imagination, but I just did that graduate school thing where you raid a book for what you need while not deeply reading all of it. The actual content is about British imperial officials in the 19th Century, and that, itself, wasn't what I needed. If that interests you, I think it would be a very rich and satisfying read.
She describes the historical imagination as defining a "permission structure" (my words that I stole from someone else) for thinking about what is possible in the future. I particularly like her admonition that "We have to take the ethical claims of historical actors seriously to understand how ordinary people acting in particular institutional and cultural frameworks can, despite good intentions, author appalling chapters of human history." And if that doesn't describe my subjects, I don't know what does.
Reading y’all is like being in class - thank you!