In this episode, we are focusing on the Civil War and the prisoner of war experience of Frederic Augustus James and others like him. Elaine Heavey, the Director of the Library at the MHS, introduces us to James' diary and letters held by the MHS. Historian Evan Kutzler, author of Living By Inches: The Smells, Sounds, Tastes, and Feeling of Captivity in Civil War Prisons, tells us more about the prisoner of war experience. And the MHS Curator of Art & Artifacts Emerita, Anne Bentley, describes a few objects in our collection created by prisoners of war or taken from prisons during the Civil War.

Learn more about episode objects here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/season-3-episode-8-frederic-augustus-james

Email us at [email protected].

Episode Special Guests:

Elaine Heavey, Director of the Library, joined the Library Readers Services team at the MHS 2006. She previously worked as a high school history teacher at Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School. Elaine holds a BA in History and Religious Studies from Stonehill College, and an Masters in Library Science from Simmons College.

Evan Kutzler is an associate professor of U.S. and public history at Western Michigan University. He is the author of Living by Inches: The Smells, Sounds, Tastes, and Feeling of Captivity in CIvil War Prisons (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019) and a former park ranger at Andersonville National Historic Site.

This episode uses materials from:

Bald Eagle by Chad Crouch (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International) Psychic by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk) Curious Nature by Dominic Giam of Ketsa Music (licensed under a commercial non-exclusive license by the Massachusetts Historical Society through Ketsa.uk)