Welcome
Welcome to the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center. Established in 1998, the Richards Center is an initiative of the Department of History and the College of the Liberal Arts at Penn State University. The Center has emerged as a unique resource for interpreting and reflecting on the Civil War era, which extends from the 1840s when Americans began to debate the westward expansion of slavery, to 1877, when government-supported Reconstruction ended. The Center stimulates work in the field by sponsoring graduate and faculty research, public lecture series, undergraduate internships, and workshops for schoolteachers. The Center is also home to Civil War History , the premier journal of the field.

Center Highlights:

Amy Greenberg recently spoke at the Organization of American Historians Meeting in New York on: New Perspectives on the "Forgotten War": The U.S.–Mexico War 160 Years Later. (click here to listen to talk)

William Blair reviewed This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust for the Philadelphia Inquirer. (copy of review)

Congratulations to Amy Greenberg, named Top Young Historian by History News Network of George Mason University. (full story)

The Civil War is often portrayed as the most brutal war in America's history. In Mark E. Neely, Jr.'s book, The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction (Harvard University Press/November 2007) he challenges this view and considers the war's destructiveness in a comparative context, revealing the sense of limits that guided the conduct of American soldiers and statesmen.

Professor Carol Reardon was invited to serve as a member of the Secretary of the Navy's Advisory Subcommittee on Naval History. She also continues to serve as the first female president of the Society for Military History and as a member of the board of visitors of the Marine Corps University.

Events:

The Richards Center will host a graduate student workshop by Timothy Wesley on Friday, April 18, at 4:00 p.m. in 302 Pond Lab. The title of Tim's paper is "The Politics of Faith: The Crosscurrents of Denominational Christianity and Politics during the American Civil War" . The commentators will be David Greenspoon (PSU History Dept) and Jaime Harris (PSU Sociology Dept).

Podcasts:

You can now download and listen to talks from our Fall 2007 "Breaking the Silence" lecture series on "The International Slave Trade after 1808: Abolition, Enforcement, and the Illicit Importation of Africans into the Americas" at iTunes U. Lectures available include: Karen Younger, "Liberia and the Last Slave Ships"; Paul Finkelman, "Suppressing the African Slave Trade: The Limits of Legislation, 1794–1865"; and Sean Kelley, "Blackbirders and Bozales: African-born Slaves on the Lower Brazos River of Texas in the 19th Century."

News:

The Richards Civil War Era Center reached a crucial milestone collecting $1 million to meet this year’s fundraising goal for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) We the People Challenge Grant. (full story)
The Society for the Civil War Historians has a new website: http://scwh.la.psu.edu/. Also, plans are underway for the group’s first biennial conference from June 15 through 17, 2008, at the Union League in Philadelphia, PA. The Richards Center serves as the co-sponsor of the society. (on line conference registration)