ASHP Podcast

Making Queer History Public is a new podcast series by the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning that explores LGBTQ+ public history. We will be looking at archives, museums, public art, and education initiatives, all to investigate how queer and trans histories are being told, how LGBTQ+ people are pushing public history narratives forward, and where you can go to learn more about queer and trans-led projects and experiences.This is a preview of our first episode, which is centered on queer archives. Here, we talk to Steven Fullwood, the founder of the In The Life Archive at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.Making Queer History Public is made possible with funding from Humanities New York.

This episode features Kubi Ackerman, then-Director of the Future City Lab at the Museum of the City of New York. Ackerman is not interested in monuments for the past, but instead asks how we might memorialize the present and the future, as well as send warnings or messages to future generations. Encompassing topics like socio-economic inequality and the climate crisis, Ackerman and the Future City Lab help us challenge conventional notions of monuments and develop participatory exhibitions about urban futures.This episode features audio from the program “Monuments of the Future: Alternative Approaches," held on February 6, 2019, in the Martin E. Segal Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center. This program was sponsored by the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, The Gotham Center for New York City History, and the CUNY Public History Collective.  The series is supported by a grant from Humanities New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

This episode features Marisa Williamson, a multimedia artist based in Newark, New Jersey whose site-specific works, videos, and performances focus on the body, authority, freedom, and memory. Speaking during the third and final event in our public seminar series, “Difficult Histories/Public Spaces: The Challenge of Monuments in New York City and the Nation,” Williamson details her work on “Sweet Chariot,” a smartphone-based, augmented-reality tour of Philadelphia’s spaces of black freedom struggle. By inviting the viewer to interact and engage with this history, Williamson opens new doors for alternative approaches to monuments and memorialization. This episode features audio from the program “Monuments of the Future: Alternative Approaches," held on February 6, 2019, in the Martin E. Segal Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center. This program was sponsored by the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, The Gotham Center for New York City History, and the CUNY Public History Collective.  The series is supported by a grant from Humanities New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

“Lots of hard work, lots of collaboration, and a long horizon.” These, according to Mary Anne Trasciatti, Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at Hofstra University, are the keys to erecting a public art memorial from the ground up in New York City. In this episode, Trasciatti speaks about the Reframing the Skymemorial for the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911. As president of the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, Trasciatti and her colleagues—all volunteers—dialogued with government and outside organizations to secure grants, donations, and permits.  Her detailed and comprehensive summary offers a window into the public memorial creation process in New York City.  This episode features audio from the program "Who Decides? The History and Future of Monument Creation in New York City," held on October 9, 2018, in the Segal Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center. This program was the second event in the series “Difficult Histories/Public Spaces: The Challenge of Monuments in New York City and the Nation,” sponsored by the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, The Gotham Center for New York City History, and the CUNY Public History Collective.  The series is supported by a grant from Humanities New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

How do we think about history? Whose history is it? And how is history constructed, both in academic terms and in a public way?These questions were made apparent in discussions of the NYC Mayor’s Commission on Monuments, where Jack Tchen, Professor of Public History and the Humanities at Rutgers University, served as a panelist. In this episode, Tchen walks us through the ways the city’s public history has been organized, the processes and findings of the Commission, and a vision to re-establish Lenape life, history, and culture into historical discourse of the region.This episode features audio from the public program "Who Decides? The History and Future of Monument Creation in New York City," held on October 9, 2018, in the Segal Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center. This program was the second event in the series “Difficult Histories/Public Spaces: The Challenge of Monuments in New York City and the Nation,” sponsored by the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, The Gotham Center for New York City History, and the CUNY Public History Collective.  The series is supported by a grant from Humanities New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

In this episode, Michele Bogart, professor and author of the recently published Sculpture in Gotham: Art and Urban Renewal In New York City, untangles the bureaucracy of monument creation in New York City. Delving into decision-making processes behind the City's monuments and memorials, Bogart looks to the past and the present in discussing whose voice is heard and valued in constructing urban spaces of meaning and rememberance. This episode features audio from the program "Who Decides? The History and Future of Monument Creation in New York City," held on October 9, 2018, in the Segal Theatre at the CUNY Graduate Center. This program was the second event in the series “Difficult Histories/Public Spaces: The Challenge of Monuments in New York City and the Nation,” sponsored by the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, The Gotham Center for New York City History, and the CUNY Public History Collective.  The series is supported by a grant from Humanities New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

In this four-speaker panel, professors, artists, and activists delve into the ongoing re-evaluation of public monuments and memorials, particularly those in New York City (NYC). Dr. Harriet Senie, professor of art history at The Graduate Center CUNY, offers insights into the decision making process of the 2017 Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers, an initiative convened to advise NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio about controversial monuments and markers on city-owned land.  Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens, professor of history at Queens College CUNY, details the work of J. Marion Sims, who developed gynecological procedures by practicing on the bodies of enslaved black women.  Marina Ortiz, activist and founder of East Harlem Preservation, discusses the decades-long fight to remove an East Harlem statue of Sims.  Francheska Alcantara, artist and activist, explores the ways in which art can and should engage social protest.  This panel took place on June 13, 2018, as the first program in the series “Difficult Histories/Public Spaces: The Challenge of Monuments in New York City and the Nation,” sponsored by the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, The Gotham Center for New York City History, and the CUNY Public History Collective.  The series is supported by a grant from Humanities New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Lori A. Flores,  Stony Brook UniversityCUNY Graduate Center, January 18, 2017Lori Flores, History Professor at Stony Brook University, contextualizes Mexican immigration and identity and examines how shifting borders complicate Mexican American identities. Flores covers the tumultuous relationship between Mexican immigrants and the United States Government from World War 1 into the present describing how during economic booms immigrants were welcomed and then quickly turned away during economic declines. Flores analyzes how the varied names associated with Mexican American immigrants illuminate the deep-rooted history of Mexicans in this country. This talk took place on January 18, 2017, as part of Reading Area Community College’s Conexiones Project in partnership with ASHP. ​

Joshua Freeman, ASHPThe Graduate Center, CUNYFebruary 26, 2018Joshua Freeman, professor of history at CUNY Graduate Center and Queens College and Steven Greenhouse, former labor reporter for the New York Times, discuss Freeman's recent book,  Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World. From the origins of factories in the 1720s England through the current state of mega-factories like Foxconn, the conversation covers the rise and fall of factories across the world and the societal consequences that came with each transition.  This conversation took place on February 26, 2018, at the CUNY Graduate Center sponsored by the Ph.D. Program in History and the Advanced Research Collaborative. 

Deirdre Cooper Owens, Queens College CUNY Graduate Center, February 14, 2018Deirdre Cooper Owens reads a section from her recent work, Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology, which explores the intersections of slavery, capitalism, and medicine and discusses the work with Jennifer Morgan, Professor of History New York University  and Sasha Turner Bryson, Professor of History at Quinnipiac University. Owen’s study draws from the journals of doctors like James Marion Sims and examines the labor enslaved women performed as they endured medical experimentation and assisted doctors in developing careers in gynecology. This talk took place on February 14, 2018, sponsored by Center for the Study of Women and Society and co-sponsored with the Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean (IRADAC), the CUNY Graduate Center Ph.D. Program in History, and the Feminist Press.

Gregory Downs, UC DavisCUNY Graduate Center, July 19, 2016In this talk, Gregory Down provides historical context for viewing U.S. slavery in a global context and presents the complexities of reconstruction efforts to create a unified United States after the Civil War. Down focuses on the passage of new constitutional amendments, General Grant’s presidency, and the transition of political power in 1877. This talk took place on July 19, 2016, as part of ASHP’s Visual Culture of the Civil War Summer Institute, an NEH professional development program for college and university faculty.  

Richard Samuel West, founder of New England's PeriodysseyCUNY Graduate Center, July 20, 2016In this presentation, Richard Samuel West analyzes political cartoons of the reconstruction era utilizing Thomas Nast’s Harper Weekly pieces as a timeline. West focuses on Southern Sentiment and Nast’s sharp criticism of it, presenting cartoons on Johnson’s presidency, Grant’s oppositional stance, and images of the KKK and White League. This talk took place on July 19, 2016, as part of ASHP’s Visual Culture of the Civil War Summer Institute, an NEH professional development program for college and university faculty.  

Sarah Burns, Indiana UniversityCUNY Graduate Center, July 19, 2016In this discussion, Sarah Burns examines common Civil War narratives in fine arts in this period by examining the work of artists such as William Walker, Thomas Waterman, and Winslow Homer. Burns asks who created the pieces and for what audience and further questioning the works by examining portraits showing a different narrative of African Americans. Ultimately concluding that these works are a contention between white construction and black agency. This talk took place on July 19, 2016, as part of ASHP’s Visual Culture of the Civil War Summer Institute, an NEH professional development program for college and university faculty.  

Megan Kate Nelson, Author of Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War CUNY Graduate Center, July 15, 2016In this talk, Megan Kate Nelson discusses the proliferation of photographs that focus on ruins and war-torn bodies in 1864/1865, at the end of the civil war. Nelson looks at photos taken by union photographers and the narratives created with these photos. By examining the historical context of the photographs, Nelson argues that photography can be as ambiguous as other forms of wartime narratives. This talk took place on July 15, 2016, as part of ASHP’s Visual Culture of the Civil War Summer Institute, an NEH professional development program for college and university faculty.

Maurie Mcinnis, University of Virginia CUNY Graduate Center, July 12, 2016In this presentation, Maurie Mcinnis discusses the development of anti-slavery art in England and walks through American anti/pro-slavery imagery. Mcinnis presents art created at various stages of the anti-slavery movement on both sides of the Atlantic weaving a narrative highlighting the important role women’s societies played in ending British slavery, the variety in illustrations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and how even fine art entered into the debates on slavery. This talk took place on July 12, 2016, as part of ASHP’s Visual Culture of the Civil War Summer Institute, an NEH professional development program for college and university faculty. 

Kirk Savage, University of PittsburghCUNY Graduate Center, July 20, 2016In this highly relevant presentation, Kirk Savage speaks on the legacy of the Civil War and its continued impact on shaping American identity. Savage examines counter legacies by critiquing a Confederate statue in St. Louis, a monument to a Confederate Cherokee Legion in North Carolina, and the concept of “remembering those who have fallen for your freedom.” He closes by exemplifying the fact that there are stories we choose to forget and how that in itself is also a form of counter legacy.This talk took place on July 20, 2016, as part of ASHP’s Visual Culture of the Civil War Summer Institute, an NEH professional development program for college and university faculty.  

Gregory Downs, UC Davis The Graduate Center, CUNY July 12, 2016In this talk, Gregory Downs discusses the development of slavery and anti-slavery in the United States. He positions the U.S. slave trade in a global context and examines the intricacies of the Second Middle Passage.  Downs analyzes rhetoric framing the North as a symbol of bourgeois modernity, and how it led to the development of the North v. South narratives.  He concludes with the question of why the Civil War occurred in a context where slavery was seen as embedded in the economies of both the North and the South. This talk took place on July 12, 2016, as part of ASHP’s Visual Culture of the Civil War Summer Institute, an NEH professional development program for college and university faculty.

Gregory Downs, UC Davis The Graduate Center, CUNY July 15, 2016In this talk, Gregory Downs presents the complexities of early Reconstruction in the post-bellum United States. Downs examines freedom in proximity to power by looking at the federal government’s implementation of U.S. laws and agencies in the South, specifically analyzing the tail end of Sherman’s March, the surrender at Appomattox, and the difficulties of enforcing the 13th amendment in rural southern areas. This talk took place on July 15, 2016, as part of ASHP’s Visual Culture of the Civil War Summer Institute, an NEH professional development program for college and university faculty.

Ari Kelman, Penn State The Graduate Center, CUNY July 18, 2016In this presentation, Ari Kelman examines the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado and the controversial opening of The Sand Creek Memorial in 2007. Kelman explores the complicated question of how politics and violence engaged on the American borderland, and the interpretation by some unionists that “civilizing Indians” was essential to preserving the Union. This talk took place on July 18, 2016, as part of ASHP’s Visual Culture of the Civil War Summer Institute, an NEH professional development program for college and university faculty. 

Joshua Brown, ASHPThe Graduate Center, CUNYJuly 20, 2016In this presentation, Joshua Brown delves into how Gilded Age newspapers portrayed current events. He analyzes news illustrations of events including The Centennial Exposition, and The Panic of 1873, to analyze how media narratives based on physiognomies vilified African-Americans, working-class people, and immigrants.  This talk took place on July 20, 2016, as part of ASHP’s Visual Culture of the Civil War Summer Institute, an NEH professional development program for college and university faculty.

John Nieto-Phillips, Indiana University-BloomingtonCUNY Graduate Center (via Skype), December 6, 2013In this presentation, John Nieto-Phillips provides an overview of the ways that Latinos and Latinas figure into global Hispanism, or Hispanidad.  He explores the origins of a burgeoning language rights movement, focusing more particularly on New Mexico, and to a lesser extent, on New York City.  This talk was delivered via Skype, so the sound quality is less than optimal. 

Cynthia Tobar, Bronx Community CollegeCUNY Graduate Center, April 9, 2014In this panel discussion moderated by Cynthia Tobar, activists and organizers discuss campus-based movements across CUNY that resisted city and state cutbacks. Hear how self-archiving efforts can ensure a more egaltarian CUNY history. 

Stephen Brier, CUNY Graduate CenterCUNY Graduate Center, April 9, 2014In this panel discussion, moderated by Stephen Brier, former student and faculty activists who led the fight on CUNY campuses to open the University to all NYC high school graduates discuss this transformative historical moment. 

In this panel presentation, scholars Sarah Burns (emerita, Indiana University), Josh Brown (CUNY Graduate Center), and Greg Downs (UC Davis) discuss the visual culture of the post-Civil War era in the fine arts and the illustrated press. 

In this presentation, photography historian Deborah Willis, and historian Barbara Krauthamer discuss the use of portrait photography as historical evidence. Together they examine several photographs of African Americans in the era of the U.S. Civil War, before and after emancipation; and analyze the evidence in the images in terms of the fundamental influence of African Americans, particularly African-American women, in shaping our understanding of this period of American history. 

Richard Samuel West, historian of cartoons and popular publications and founder of New England's Periodyssey, discusses the range of topics in and formats of political cartoons published during the Civil War and delineates how the medium changed over the course of the conflict. This talk took place on July 16, 2012, as part of The Visual Culture of the American Civil War, an NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers.

Georgia Barnhill, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts at the American Antiquarian Society, discusses the methods, meanings, and uses of various types of printed Civil War ephemera, and how they were used to document, memorialize and shape public opinion about the war on the home front. This talk took place on July 17, 2012, as part of The Visual Culture of the American Civil War, an NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers.

Harold Holzer, chairman of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation and the author of numerous books on Lincoln and the Civil War, talks about the visual representations of the emancipation proclamation as well as the images of Abraham Lincoln as emancipator. This talk took place on July 19, 2012, as part of The Visual Culture of the American Civil War, an NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers.

Joshua Brown, Executive Director of the American Social History Project and Professor of History at the Graduate Center, CUNY, discusses the pictorial journalism of the Civil War and the ways battlefront artists covered the conflict before photography could document warfare. This talk took place on July 11, 2012, as part of The Visual Culture of the American Civil War, an NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers.

Sarah Burns, the Ruth N. Halls Professor of the History of Art (emerita) at Indiana University, provides an in-depth analysis of Lilly Martin Spencer's "Home of the Red, White, and Blue." She places the painting within the broader visual context of women, veterans, and the flag during the U.S. Civil War. This talk took place on July 12, 2012, as part of The Visual Culture of the American Civil War, an NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers.

Jeanie Attie, professor of history at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, provides a sweeping overview of the roles and images of women during the Civil War. She discusses northern and southern women and the ways the war shifted notions of domesticity and women's public space. This talk took place on July 17, 2012, as part of The Visual Culture of the American Civil War, an NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers.

Joshua Brown, Executive Director of the American Social History Project and Professor of History at the Graduate Center, CUNY, presents a case study of interpreting a historical event through images. He examines images of the 1863 New York City draft riots from a range of pictorial newspapers in order to piece together the changing nature of the event as well as varying perspectives on the rioters' class and ethnicity. This talk took place on July 12, 2012, as part of The Visual Culture of the American Civil War, an NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers.

Alice Fahs, professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, presents a broad range of images that made up the visual landscape of the 1860s and explores how the Civil War did and did not transform the dominant images especially for African Americans and women. This talk took place on July 9, 2012, as part of The Visual Culture of the American Civil War, an NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers.

María Montoya, New York UniversityCity University of New York, April 25, 2014In this talk, Professor Montoya examines the history of the U.S.-Mexican border, and its role in shaping the national memory and identity of both countries.  Notions of Mexican American citizenship and property rights are entwined with this history, and have shifted over time.  To understand these transformations, Montoya chronicles the history, perception, and significance of the U.S.-Mexican border from 1848 to 1941 to explore its transition from a shared, fluid site to a symbol of exclusion and militarization.

Isabel Martinez, John Jay CollegeCUNY Graduate Center, October 24, 2014In this presentation, Isabel Martinez places the recent experiences of unaccompanied minors migrating from Central America to the United States in a historical context, describing her family’s own youth migration story which begins in Mexico, 1902. She goes on to explore some of the reasons for the recent surge in Latin American youth migration, including increased poverty, violence, and economic instability associated with the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement, the United States’ “crimigration” policies, and the kinds of media attention these groups of young people receive. Professor Martinez discusses the many dangers they confront, detailing the experiences of unaccompanied children as young as seven years old, as well as the challenges of being apprehended and the risks of going undetected. She then presents several strategies for teaching this material to students.

Maria Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, New York UniversityCUNY Graduate Center, October 24, 2014In this lecture, Professor Saldaña-Portillo addresses the multiple ways in which the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has affected the price of labor, increased narco-terrorism, and facilitated the transfer of drugs from Latin America to the United States, as well as the laundering of funds by drug traffickers in the United States and Mexico.  She situates these processes within the parallel language used to describe Islamic terrorism and the vilified image of the "Indio-barbaro del Norte," a term used in the 19th century to refer to Apache enemies of the United States and Mexico.

Lori Flores, State University of New York, StonybrookCUNY Graduate Center, April 25, 2014In this lecture Professor Flores traces the peaks and valleys of undocumented immigration, as well as the political and economic aspects of the influxes. She examines the U.S. Bracero labor program, the relationships between citizens, Bracero workers, and undocumented immigrants, and  conflicts between moral laws and legal laws. Flores covers the impact of the Hart-Celler Act on Mexican legal and undocumented immigration, the role of the U.S. in Central American civil wars and the subsequent rise of Central American immigrants, and current immigration issues including the Dream Act.

Ramona Hernandez, Dominican Studies Institute, City CollegeCUNY Graduate Center, February 7, 2014In this lecture, Professor Ramona Hernández closely examines both the statistics and the demographics of the increasing Dominican presence in the United States. Why is there a geographic shift in the locations that Dominicans are settling? How do Dominicans compare to other Latino groups in terms of assimilation into American society? Hernández overturns stereotypical perceptions that surround Dominican populations and contests the idea of applying a singular paradigm to all Latino immigrants, using the Dominican situation to illustrate the complexities that are left unexplained as a result of such classifications.

Lisandro Pérez, John Jay CollegeCUNY Graduate Center, February 7, 2014In this lecture, Lisandro Pérez unpacks the long, distinct, and prolific history of Cuban Americans and their history’s close correlation with U.S. foreign and domestic policy. He uses census materials, forms, archives, city directories, naturalization records, vital records, newspapers, and magazines spanning over 200 years to reconstruct the Cuban community politically and socially in New York City, and explains the reasons for the “Cuban exception.” This talk took place at the CUNY Graduate Center on February 7, 2014.

Orlando Hernandez, Hostos Community ColllegeCUNY Graduate Center, December 6, 2013In this talk, Professor Hernández interprets texts from Puerto Rican educator and sociologist Eugenio María de Hostos as well as the Cuban poet and scholar José Martí.  He describes the work of both writers as humanistic and cooperative, and situates both the writers and their work within the context of their influence on politics, history, and literature.

Andrés Reséndez, University of California – DavisCUNY Graduate Center, October 18, 2013In this talk, Professor Reséndez expands the traditional conception of America’s colonial past and paints a richer, more historically accurate picture of the Europeans who settled in the New World.  The “Spanish Conquistadores” were not all Spanish, all male, and all funded by the king, but were actually cosmopolitan, international professionals, often funded by private entrepeneurs who came as settlers rather than conquerors. Missionaries were not simply “good Padres” carrying the message of Christ, but rather had their own strategic plans rooted in self-promotion. Reséndez presents the new world in the colonial era as part of an increasingly international, interdependent environment of global commerce.

CUNY Graduate Center October 18, 2013In this panel discussion, Pablo Mitchell, Professor of History, Oberlin College; Virginia Sánchez Korrol, Professor Emerita, Brooklyn College; and Andrés Reséndez, Professor of History, University of California, Davis deliberate on ways to incorporate Latino/a histories into Anglo American history, often portrayed as distinct narratives. The scholars discuss the tools they use in the classroom to expand students’ understanding of what it means to be American. This discussion was moderated by María Montoya, New York University, and Lisandro Pérez, John Jay College.

Karl Jacoby, Columbia UniversityCUNY Graduate CenterMay 7, 2013In this 35 minute talk, historian Karl Jacoby complicates the story of the history of North America by presenting the history of the Plains Indians through the perspective of multiple revolutions in the late eighteenth century: the expansion of the Spanish empire along the west coast and resistance by native peoples; the U.S. revolution that resulted in westward expansion; the formation of the Ohio Confederacy by Midwestern Indian tribes; and the resurgence of the horse on the Great Plains.

Joshua Freeman, Murphy Institute for Labor Studies, City University of New YorkCUNY Graduate Center, March 7, 2013In this 45 minute talk, historian Josh Freeman describes how the New Deal expanded and fundamentally changed the role of government in American life, and why the Great Depression triggered such profound change when previous economic crises hadn’t. He also discusses the relationship between Labor and the New Deal, and how many New Deal programs excluded large numbers of female and non-white workers.

Peter H. Wood, Duke UniversityNewark MuseumJuly 12, 2012Peter Wood, emeritus professor of history at Duke University, discusses the career of Winslow Homer and his portrayals of African Americans during the Civil War. While many of Homer’s drawings and paintings appear nonpolitical, Wood argues that his training at Harper’s Weekly as a news illustrator prepared him for presenting current political debates in subtle ways. This fifty-minute talk took place on July 12, 2012 at the Newark Museum as part of The Visual Culture of the American Civil War, a 2012 NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers.

Cynthia Mills, The Smithsonian American Art MuseumCUNY Graduate CenterJuly 19, 2012In this forty-five minute talk, Cynthia Mills (1947-2014) the former executive editor of American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and co-editor of Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscape of Southern Memory traces the arc of Civil War commemorative public sculptures, describes the similarities and differences between Northern and Southern monuments, and discusses the continued interest in and uses of these public monuments. This talk was part of The Visual Culture of the American Civil War, a 2012 NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers.

Martha A. Sandweiss, Princeton UniversityCivil War @ 150: Is There Anything More to See?CUNY Graduate CenterNovember 3, 2011In this thirteen minute presentation, historian Martha Sandweiss challenges assumptions and some of the uses of Civil War photographs as historical documents. Although biased, unreliable, and unrepresentative, the images are mostly used as illustrations of events. While we remain fascinated with Civil War images, there is insufficient knowledge of how they were created and how they circulated in their own time. Research remains if we are to understand how these photographs shaped public opinion while simultaneously competing with other forms of imagery of the period. Today, we are left with the challenge of “how the limited and biased photographic record has shaped both public memory of a complex event and the writing of scholars, making us more likely to narrate some stories at the expense of others.” This talk was part of the public seminar: Is There Anything More to See?

Anthony Lee, Mount Holyoke  CollegeCivil War @ 150: Is There Anything More to See?CUNY Graduate CenterNovember 3, 2011In this 15 minute talk, art historian, curator, and photographer Anthony Lee provocatively examines Civil War era photography by way of one case study. The discovery, in June 2010, of a supposedly rare carte-de-visite depicting two African-American boys began a contentious ordeal over the monetary and historic value of the artifact. Lee examines the process involved in the creation of photographs during Civil War and their possible meanings and uses in the historical moment. In his unfolding of the recent events after the discovery of the image, which is in fact either a carte-de-visite or part of a stereograph, Lee shows how the meaning of the image went from “abuse + mistreatment” to “patronizing and possibly ironical” to “resilience and defiance” depending on the interpretations of each of the image’s owners. He concludes that “Civil War photographers often anticipated that their work would become the key elements of historical recall and fashioned pictures to match those needs…it’s up to us to recognize their strategies.” This talk was part of the public seminar: Is There Anything More to See?

Mary Niall Mitchell, University of New OrleansCivil War @ 150: Is There Anything More to See?CUNY Graduate CenterNovember 3, 2011In this seventeen minute talk, historian Mary Niall Mitchell uses less known and difficult to understand photographs to discuss the use of photography as propaganda during the Civil War. Abolitionists knew that they needed to “shrink the distance between the enslaved and the free” in order to reach their target audience, the white middle class. They harnessed an early form of documentary photography as the ideal medium with which to reach this broad public. Anti-slavery activists used staged studio portraits of white-looking children dressed not as ragged but rather Victorian. Before-and-after photos showed the move from rags to respectability. Mitchell says that these images represent “the Civil War we don’t remember”—a set of ideas about children, race, and photography that have not been part of the narrative. This talk was part of the public seminar: Is There Anything More to See?

In this hour-long presentation, Anthony Lee, professor of art history at Mount Holyoke College, talks about the broad range and types of photographs taken during the American Civil War and ponders why some have received so much more attention than others. This talk was part of The Visual Culture of the American Civil War, a 2012 NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers.

Ellen Noonan, American Social History ProjectInterviewed by Andrea Ades VásquezApril 16, 2012Created by George Gershwin and Du Bose Heyward and sung by generations of black performers, the opera Porgy and Bess has been both embraced and reviled in its long life. In this 22 minute interview, historian Ellen Noonan describes how the show played a role in African-American debates about cultural representation and racial uplift, and how staging and script changes in the current Broadway revival have added depth and nuance to the show’s portrayal of its African-American characters. She also explains how her forthcoming book, The Strange Career of Porgy and Bess (University of North Carolina, fall 2012), explores the local history of black Charleston and the impact of the show’s fame on its native city.