Preface to a collection of essays and videos about what we can and can't learn about the Civil War from art
Dr. Kimberly Kutz Elliott
Historians today widely agree that slavery was the single most important cause of the Civil War.
“The Immediate Cause of the Civil War,” ...
What happened after the Civil War and what influences how we remember it today?
Memory and commemoration of the U.S. Civil ...
The Civil War occurred over a vast country and involved a diverse population—there were as many experiences as there were people who lived through it
Experiences of the U.S. Civil War, an ...
During the U.S. Civil War people moved across and outside the battlefield and home front, either by choice or by force
Refugees, prisoners, and displacement
The war disrupted family life across class, race, and geography.
Homes and families
What can we learn from art about the battlefield and beyond during the U.S. Civil War?
The work of war
A helpful glossary of terms related to the U.S. Civil War in art
U.S. Civil War Glossary
Art was and remains central in establishing and spreading the false narrative of the “Lost Cause.”
The Lost Cause and Confederate memory
Looking beyond an idealized image of Lincoln helps us to see the past more clearly and to confront the legacy of the Civil War in all its complexity.
Abraham Lincoln and northern memory
Not surprisingly, few, if any, images made or commissioned by enslaved people that address their lived experience survive.
The problem of picturing slavery
Westward migration and the establishment of American settlements with and without slavery pushed Native and Hispanic peoples off of their lands, and fueled the flames that would erupt in the Civil War.
Imagining the West, territorial expansion, and the ...
Images played a central role in the debates over slavery and Black citizenship that consumed the United States in the years leading up to the Civil War.
Images in a divided world
Homer wrote that the sharpshooter's role was "as near to murder as anything I can think of."
The U.S. Civil War, sharpshooters and Winslow ...
The Midway Plaisance featured carnival rides, food stalls, and inhabited “villages” purporting to display architecture and customs from around the world.
The World’s Columbian Exposition: The Midway
The white, Beaux-Arts buildings declared that the center of the world's innovation had moved to the U.S., and was under the exclusive control of white men.
The World’s Columbian Exposition: The White City ...
The World’s Columbian Exposition cast other races and cultures as the living relatives of white people’s distant ancestors.
The World’s Columbian Exposition: Introduction
Home wrote that the sharpshooter's role was "as near to murder as anything I can think of."
The U.S. Civil War, sharpshooters and Winslow ...
One of the most famous landscape photographs showing the horrible aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Photographing the Battle of Gettysburg: Timothy O’Sullivan’s ...
Thomas Nast's cartoon urges its viewers to confront white supremacy.
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