ASHP Podcast

Vincent DiGirolamo, Baruch College, CUNYCUNY Graduate CenterHistorian Vincent DiGirolamo discusses the historiography of early 20th-century immigration through Ellis Island. The Ellis Island paradigm he describes is the traditional immigrant narrative: push and pull factors lead poor Europeans to sail to the United States in search of better opportunities, they come through Ellis Island and over a generation or two, through a process of assimilation, they eventually “become American.” This is problematic because many immigration stories do not fall neatly into this paradigm. The traditional narrative leaves no room for the many migrants who returned to their home countries; it ignores issues of race that affect the kinds of opportunities people have access to when they get here; and it does not acknowledge people who entered the United States through other ports. In this 30-minute podcast professor DiGirolamo places the subject of Ellis Island immigration during this period into historiographical perspective.

Deborah Willis, Tisch School of the Arts, New York UniversityCivil War @ 150: Is There Anything More to See?CUNY Graduate CenterNovember 3, 2011In this seventeen minute talk, Professor Willis discusses how as Civil War photographs were widely circulated, they became a story telling moment for those who posed. Looking at numerous images, she contemplates the “standard of pose” and what may have happened in front of the camera as well as the ways that these photos document the jobs, lives, aspirations, and beliefs of the soldiers. This talk was part of the public seminar: Is There Anything More to See?

Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Colgate UniversityNew York Public LibraryHistorian Graham Russell Gao Hodges leads a discussion of the life of David Ruggles, black abolitionist of the 1830s, conductor of the Underground Railroad in New York City, author of numerous, ground-breaking pamphlets, editor of the nation’s first black magazine, and later, a doctor of hydrotherapy. This 50 minute podcast places Ruggles in the context of abolitionism and the Underground Railroad in New York City and in the nation generally. Professor Hodges’s talk draws upon his book David Ruggles: A Radical Black Abolitionist and the Underground Railroad in New York City (UNC Press, 2010.).Professor Hodges delivered this talk to a group of New York City public school teachers at the New York Public Library.

Gregory Downs, City College of New York, CUNY“Ballots and Blood: The Grassroots Struggle for the Future of Reconstruction”The Graduate Center, CUNYJuly 19, 2010The Reconstruction era was marked by both triumph and defeat as the newly emancipated slaves and their allies attempted to establish full political and economic freedoms in the face of violent opposition. While planters were initially successful in limiting the rights that accompanied emancipation, by the late 1860s freedpeople responded by asserting their claims to land, voting, and equal access. In the 1870s, former Confederates mobilized their own local political movements, using violent intimidation to quell gains in black voting and economic advancement.In Part 1 of this podcast, Downs explores the main themes of Reconstruction through the story of Henry Adams, a remarkable former slave, Union army veteran, and successful businessman who organized freedpeople in the South to emigrate to Kansas. In Part 2, beginning at 42:28, he describes the twists and turns in the Reconstruction struggle over what rights and protections would come with emancipation. He also discusses two primary documents (see below).Wood engraving, Harper’s Weekly, 26 September 1874Southern Democrats Declare “a Dead Radical Is Very Harmless” document

Scott Reynolds Nelson, William and Mary CollegeCivil War @ 150: Civil War Myths and MisinformationCUNY Graduate CenterApril 5, 2011In his 18 minute talk, Scott Reynolds Nelson contrasts three common images or notions from the Civil War with lesser known aspects that prevailed in the nineteenth century. While Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party are generally perceived as do-gooders, Nelson describes the paramilitary Wide Awake Clubs within the Party that Southerners feared as a potentially invading army. Battle scenes are common in popular culture representations of the war, but how the Civil War changed the food industry with the rise of modern canned, branded-name foods sold in the military camps is little explored.  Finally, Nelson discusses the importance of California and the transcontinental railroad to both sides of the war. This talk was part of the public seminar: Civil War Myths and Misinformation.

Gary W. Gallagher, University of VirginiaCivil War @150: Civil War Myths and MisinformationCUNY Graduate CenterApril 5, 2011In this 16 minute talk, Gary W. Gallagher describes the ways that northerners viewed the war and their commitment to the nation as a union. While not downplaying the importance of emancipation, Gallagher argues that the concept of union was paramount for most northerners. They viewed southern slave owners as oligarchs who threatened the nation’s founding principles and the very notion of democracy. Both popular culture and recent scholarship have ignored the importance of union and most Americans today have a little understanding of its significance to Civil War era citizens. This talk was part of the public seminar: Civil War Myths and Misinformation.

Gregory Downs, City College of New York, City University of New YorkCivil War @ 150: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books?CUNY Graduate CenterFebruary 3, 2011Introduced by Joshua Brown of ASHP/CML, Professor Downs presents the range of approaches taken by scholars over the last twenty-five years to discuss the American Civil War.  From debates on slavery and the slave South, to sectional conflict and Indian history, there existed pockets of energy on the conflict that decidedly changed, but remained fragmented.  While applauding the vast methodological openness of scholarship on the war, Downs argues that the scholarship suffered from a lack of engagement and analytical clarity. Today, scholars have chosen to take on new and interesting approaches to studying the war itself, and the world the war made.  Professor Downs is the author of the recently released publication, Declarations of Dependence: The Long Reconstruction of Popular Politics in the South, 1861-1908. This talk was part of the public seminar: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books?

Stephanie McCurry, University of PennsylvaniaCivil War @ 150: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books?CUNY Graduate CenterFebruary 3, 2011Introduced by Joshua Brown of ASHP/CML, Professor McCurry describes how she wrote her latest book, Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South, to bring the social history of the Confederacy into a historiography that has up until now focused mainly on the Union and viewed the Confederacy primarily in military and political terms. She reminds listeners that while the service of black soldiers in the Union Army was significant, the majority of slaves shaped the outcome of the war from within the Confederacy, where they remained enslaved. Confederate secession is an extraordinary example of the nineteenth century’s conservative impulses, a failed attempt that still has a great deal to tell us about nationalism and conservatism in the twentieth century as well. Finally, she calls for new histories that more fully account for the war’s international context and interrogate how gendered ideas shaped the era’s politics. This talk was part of the public seminar: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books?

James Oakes, CUNY Graduate CenterCivil War @ 150: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books?CUNY Graduate CenterFebruary 3, 2011In his twenty minute presentation, historian James Oakes counters revisionist interpretations that claim the North did not go to war to end slavery. Historians have often viewed the Emancipation Proclamation as the point in the Civil War when it changed from being a war for union to a war for emancipation, but Professor Oakes argues for the need to examine the pre-war origins of the proclamation. This talk was part of the public seminar: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books?

Frank Bidart, Wellesley CollegeVijay Seshadri, Sarah Lawrence CollegeKevin Young, Emory UniversitySally Dawidoff (moderator), American Social History ProjectThe Association of Writers and Writing Programs ConferenceWashington, DC, February 5, 2011In the first part of this two-part panel discussion, held at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, distinguished contemporary American writers Frank Bidart, Vijay Seshadri, and Kevin Young talk about writing about the Civil War 150 years after it began. Seshadri grew up an immigrant child of an immigrant father obsessed with the war; Young comes to the subject as a twenty-first-century African-American poet living in the South; and Bidart was spurred to write about Gettysburg by “the world created by the Bush administration.” Allen Tate and Robert Lowell’s seminal odes are also read and discussed. For all these writers, the war has become part of their Americanness.Part 1: Introduction by Sally DawidoffReadings:Ode to the Confederate Dead by Allen Tate (recording), read by the authorFor the Union Dead by Robert Lowell, read by Frank BidartThe Nature of the Chemical Bond (excerpt) by Vijay Seshadri, read by the authorFor the Confederate Dead by Kevin Young, read by the authorFor the Republic by Frank Bidart, read by the authorPart 2: DiscussionCreditsPermission to broadcast Frank Bidart’s reading of Robert Lowell’s poem “The Union Dead” granted by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.Permission to broadcast the recording of Allen Tate reading his poem “Ode to the Confederate Dead” granted by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC and by Universal Music Enterprises, a division of Universal Music Group Recordings, Inc.Permission to post Vijay Seshadri’s “The Nature of the Chemical Bond” granted by Graywolf Press.