A generation at war : the Civil War era in a northern community

Resource Information

The work A generation at war : the Civil War era in a northern community represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Indiana State Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

A generation at war : the Civil War era in a northern community

Title remainder

the Civil War era in a northern community

Statement of responsibility

Nicole Etcheson

Creator

• Etcheson, Nicole

Subject

• American Civil War (1861-1865)
• History
• Indiana
• Indiana -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Social aspects
• Indiana -- Putnam County
• Indiana -- Race relations
• 1800-1899
• Putnam County (Ind.) -- Race relations
• Race relations
• Social aspects
• United States
• United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Social aspects
• Putnam County (Ind.) -- History -- 19th century

Genre

• trueHistory

Language

eng

Summary

For all that has been written about the Civil War's impact on the urban northeast and southern home fronts, we have until now lacked a detailed picture of how it affected specific communities in the Union's Midwestern heartland. In this book the author offers a deeply researched micro history of one such community, Putnam County, Indiana, from the Compromise of 1850 to the end of Reconstruction, and shows how its citizens responded to and were affected by the war. Delving into the everyday life of a small town in one of the nineteenth century's bellwether states, this work considers the Civil War within a much broader chronological context than other accounts. It ranges across three decades to show how the issues of the day, particularly race and sectionalism, temporarily displaced economic and temperance concerns, how the racial attitudes of northern whites changed, and how a generation of young men and women coped with the transformative experience of war. The author interrelates a wide range of topics. Through temperance and alcohol she illustrates nativism and class consciousness, while through an account of a murder she probes ethnicity, politics, and gender. She reveals how some women wanted to maintain dependence and how the war gave independence to others, as pensions allowed them to survive without a male provider. And she chronicles the major shift in race relations as the most revolutionary change: blacks had been excluded from Indiana in the 1850s but were invited into Putnam County by 1880. She personalizes all of these issues through human stories, bringing to life people previously ignored by history, whether veterans demanding recognition of their sacrifice, women speaking out against liquor, or Copperheads parading against Republicans. The introduction of race with the North Carolina Exodusters marks a particularly effective lens for seeing how the idealism unleashed by Lincoln's war influenced the North. She also helps us understand how white Southerners tried to reunify the country on the basis of shared white racism. Drawing on personal papers, local newspapers, pension petitions, Exoduster pamphlets, and more, the author demonstrates how microhistory helps give new meaning to larger events. This book opens a new window on the impact of the Civil War on the agrarian North

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

977.2/49

Government publication

government publication of a state province territory dependency etc

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

LC call number

F532.P9

LC item number

E73 2011

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography