The Coming of the Civil War

 

Fri., Sept. 3

Introduction

Audio: Remembering Slavery

Mon., Sept. 6

Labor Day: No Class

Wed., Sept. 8

Frederick Douglass

Discussion: Slavery, Morality, and Ideology

  • Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, entire
  • William Harper, "Memoir on Slavery" in Drew Gilpin Faust, ed., The Ideology of Slavery, pp. 78-135 (on ERes)

 

 
Fri., Sept. 10 Lecture: The "Two Civilizations" Debate

Mon., Sept.13


"Weight Negro Cotton made in 1858." William Law Papers. Special Collections Library, Duke University.

Discussion: The Political Economy of the Old South (Part 1)

  • Ashworth, Slavery, Capitalism and Politics in the Antebellum Republic, ix-x, 1-15, 80-121, 192-200, 246-62, 280-85

     

Wed., Sept. 15

 

Computer Lab: "Valley of the Shadow"

 

Fri., Sept. 17

Discussion: The Political Economy of the Old South (Part 2)

  • Oakes, The Ruling Race, ix-xix,37-95, 123-50
  • Robert W. Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, 64-89 (on ERes)

Mon., Sept. 20

Yom Kippur: No Class

Wed., Sept. 22

Computer Lab: "Valley of the Shadow"

 

 

 

Fri., Sept. 24

Lecture: The Debate over Inevitability

First Position Paper due

Mon., Sept. 27

William Lloyd Garrison

Discussion: Abolitionism, Sectionalism, and the Party System

  • Ashworth, Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic, 125-91
  • Amy Dru Stanley, From Bondage to Contract, 1-35 (on ERes)
  • Holt, Political Crisis of the 1850s, ix-xii, 1-66

Wed., Sept. 29

Computer Lab: Great American History Machine

Guidelines for the Great American History Machine

Printing Maps from the Great American History Machine

Fri., Oct 1

Video: The Civil War, episode 1

Mon., Oct. 4


Abraham Lincoln

Discussion: The Rise of the Republican Party

  • Eric Foner, "Politics, Ideology, and the Origins of the American Civil War," in Foner, Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War, pp. 34-53 (on ERes)
  • Holt, Political Crisis of the 1850s, 67-217
  • Fehrenbacher, ed., Abraham Lincoln, 81-84. 94-117, 119-128, 132-143 (recommended purchase and on ERes)

 

Wed., Oct. 6

Computer Lab: Great American History Machine

Additional resource: Historical United States Census Data Browser

Fri., Oct. 8

 

Walking Tour of Oberlin's Civil War Sites

 

Electronic Oberlin Group website

 

 

Monument to Oberlin Participants in
John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry

Mon., Oct. 11


Fort Sumter after surrender

Discussion: Secession and the Outbreak of War

  • Holt, Political Crisis of the 1850s, 219-259
  • David W. Blight, "They Knew What Time It Was: African Americans and the Coming of the Civil War," in Boritt, ed., Why the Civil War Came, 51-77 (recommended purchase and on ERes)
  • William W. Freehling, "The Divided South, Democracy's Limitations, and the Causes of the Peculiarly North American Civil War," in ibid., 125-175 (recommended purchase and on ERes)
  • Fehrenbacher, ed., Abraham Lincoln, 146-162 (recommended purchase and on reserve)
    Note:     Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, part of this assignment, is available online

Wed., Oct. 13

Computer Lab: Great American History Machine

Printing Maps from the Great American History Machine

Fri., Oct. 15

Video: The Civil War, episode 2

First Research Report due

Printing Maps from the Great American History Machine