Your Questions Answered

From: Richard Slutzky

Question: I have a casual but strong interest in US history and, like many of my friends and relatives, find myself looking for expert opinions on finding the best books in American History. We are all in mid-career with law or business and thrive on books during our commuting via train to NYC.

Those of us in my circle have read the top, popular biographies of American leaders like Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, etc. and have read 1776 or 1865 but are hungering for a list of very good history books that may not be the most current books being peddled by the publishing houses, but are classics that every well-read American adult should read. Our interests are not limited to Revolutionary or Civil War periods--we are open to reading about any part of American history.

My question is, are there such lists or bibliographies that are on the web that we could circulate? I am not sure where to look.

Answer: Dear Mr. Slutsky:

I’ll operate on the assumption that someone among your circle of friends and relatives can visit a library with the following resource:

The American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature / general editor, Mary Beth Norton ; associate editor, Pamela Gerardi. New York : Oxford University Press, 1995.

This is a continuing series of the AHA, and the 1995 volume focuses on post 1965 publications – you’ll have to work your way back for older materials. Find the volumes, and you’ll see they’re arranged by subject (you want U.S. history, of course) and then by chronological era and/or topic. The entries give you not only author, title, etc., but enough information to let you know why each book is recommended.

Another good source for "recommended" readings on a given topic in American history is the syllabus in a good college/university course in that topic. All major (and some minor) American colleges and universities have course syllabi and reading lists on their websites – this is a great resource for articles as well as books.

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From: Nicole Brown

Question: I am a university student. I am currently enrolled in a class that addresses the Civil War and Reconstruction specifically. My question is where are the African American women who influenced their own emancipation during the the period of 1861-1865? I am reading a lot of information about men who influenced their own freedom by joining the Union military and I am having a hard time believing women were silent performers. I would really enjoy if you could direct me to any web pages, journals or books that would address this issue.

Answer:You are absolutely right. African American women who’d spent the decades before the Civil War fleeing slavery, fighting for jobs, battling local authorities to get schools for their children didn’t suddenly take to their beds during the Civil War.

You should be able to get these books at the university library or through interlibrary loan:

African American Women during the Civil War / Ella Forbes. New York : Garland, 1998.

African American Southerners in Slavery, Civil War, and Reconstruction / by Claude H. Nolen. Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland, c2001.

A Black woman's Civil War memoirs : reminiscences of my life in camp with the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops, late 1st South Carolina Volunteers / Susie King Taylor ; edited by Patricia W. Romero ; with a new introduction by Willie Lee Rose. New York : M. Wiener Pub. : Distributed by the Talman Co., c1988.

Black Americans and Their Contributions Toward Union Victory in the American Civil War, 1861-1865 / Joe H. Mays. Lanham, MD : University Press of America, c1984.

Dear Ones at Home; Letters from Contraband Camps/ Selected and edited by Henry L. Swint. Nashville, Vanderbilt University Press, 1966.

Freedom's Women : Black Women and Families in Civil War Era Mississippi / Noralee Frankel. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1999.

Freedom's Journey: African American Voices of the Civil War/ edited by Donald Yacovone. Chicago : Lawrence Hill Books, c2004.

From Contraband to Freedman: Federal Policy Toward Southern Blacks, 1861-1865/ Louis S. Gerteis. Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press [1973]

The Negro's Civil War : How American Negroes Felt and Acted During the War for the Union / James M. McPherson. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 1982.

Time Full of Trial : the Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony, 1862- 1867 / Patricia C. Click. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c2001.

We Are Your Sisters : Black Women in the Nineteenth Century / edited by Dorothy Sterling. New York : W.W. Norton, c1984.

The Pen Is Ours -- a listing of writings by and about African- American women before 1910 with secondary bibliography to the present / compiled by Jean Fagan Yellin and Cynthia D. Bond. New York : Oxford University Press, 1991.

Daughters of the Union : Northern Women Fight the Civil War/ Nina Silber. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005.

Families and Freedom : A Documentary History of African-American Kinship in the Civil War Era / edited by Ira Berlin and Leslie S. Rowland. New York : New Press, 1997.

Freedom, a Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] ; New York : Cambridge University, 1982 to date. Editors: Ira Berlin and Leslie Rowland. 4 vols. So far. This is a wonderful series – based on the records of the Freedmen’s Bureau, 1861-1867.

I did a quick search of American Memory’s materials on African American history and got a lot of hits – most of them irrelevant. You can try your luck as well. Go to this Website and type "women Civil War" in the box for a search:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/ListSome.php?category= African%20American%20History

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I don’t know what library you can get to, but try to find this reference work. The entry for Floyd will summarize the most recent writings on the man:

American National Biography/ general editors, John A. Garraty, Mark C. Carnes.: New York : Oxford University Press, 1999. Description: 24 v.

You may want to take a look at this article, although I suspect it doesn’t say much about Floyd that’s new:

"Presbyterian Signers of the Declaration of Independence." Miller, William B. in Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society 1958 36(3): 139-180. ISSN: 0147-3735

Abstract: Demonstrates that 12 of the 56 signers of the Declaration were either members of the Presbyterian Church or related to the Presbyterian Church to a significant degree. Brief biographical sketches giving the evidence underlying this claim as well as the record of their political activites are given of Benjamin Rush, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, Abraham Clark, Richard Stockton, John Hart, John Witherspoon, Philip Livingston, William Floyd, Mathew Thornton and Thomas McKean.

And take a look at these books for analyses of the creation of the Declaration and brief lives of its Signers:

1) Honorable Treason: The Declaration of Independence and the Men Who Signed It / David Freeman Hawke. New York : Viking Press, 1976.

2)A Transaction of Free Men; the Birth and Course of the Declaration of Independence. Hawke, David Freeman. New York, Scribner, 1964.

3) The Declaration of Independence : The Evolution of the Text / by Julian P. Boyd ; edited by Gerard W. Gawalt. Washington : Library of Congress in association with the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation ; Hanover, NH : Distributed by University Press of New England, 1999.

And, if you want to get into serious original research on the subject, go to these sources:

1) Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789 / Paul H. Smith, editor; Gerard W. Gawalt, Rosemary Fry Plakas, Eugene R. Sheridan, assistant editors. Washington: Library of Congress : for sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1976-2000.

2) Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. Edited from the original records in the Library of Congress. Washington, U.S. Govt. print off., 1904-1937.