MHR Volume 11 Available

The 2009 volume of the Massachusetts Historical Review is now available. You can order a copy here.

The volume's contents:

Essays
- Jason M. Colby, Race, Empire, and New England Capital in the Caribbean, 1890-1930
- J. Patrick Mullins, "A Kind of War, Tho' Hitherto an Un-Bloody One": Jonathan Mayhew, Francis Bernard, and the Indian Affair
- Neil Longley York, Rival Truths, Political Accommodation, and the Boston "Massacre"
- Stephen Kantrowitz, A Place for "Colored Patriots": Crispus Attucks among the Abolitionists, 1842-1863
- Robert J. Robertson, Louisa Catherine Adams Kuhn: Florentine Adventures, 1859-1860

Notes & Documents
- M. X. Lesser, A Transcendentalist Conversion Narrative

Review Essay
- Elizabeth R. Varon, The Afterlife of Abolition

"Sexual Warfare": Lunch Talk Recap

Last Wednesday (9 October) current NEH-MHS long-term fellow Crystal Feimster gave a brown bag lunch talk titled "Sexual Warfare: Rape and the American Civil War." Crystal described for us the research project that brought her to the MHS, which builds upon the material in her first book (newly-released through Harvard University Press), Southern Horrors: Women and the Politics of Rape and Lynching.  In Southern Horrors, Crystal explored the fears about sexual violence in the postwar South; her current research moves back in time from Reconstruction to the war itself. 

As a way of sharing the early findings of her research with us, Crystal described some of the materials she has been using to piece together the story of sexual violence in wartime and posed some of the questions that these documents leave her pondering. For example, elite white women’s diaries kept prior to and during the war express coded fears about sexual violence at the hands of Union troops, but rarely talk directly about being raped – at the same time, they use the language of invasion, and talk about Union troops entering their bedrooms. They also describe sexual violence witnessed against other women (often female slaves).  Another source of information has been the approximately two hundred court marshals against Unions for sexual assault, a small percentage when compared to other conflicts that has left some historians to conclude the Civil War was a “low rape” war.  However, Crystal raises questions about how accurately the court marshals reveal the situation on the ground: What rapes are being reported? When reported, which are likely to be entered into the record and brought to trial?  Correspondence from officers in MHS collections suggests that there was an expectation within the military hierarchy that certain behaviors among the troops not enter into the official record. 

During the discussion period, questions were raised about change over time during the course of the war.  Crystal described General Butler’s occupation of New Orleans during which local women openly resisted Union troops.  In response to the women’s disrespectful behavior toward Northern soldiers, Butler enacted General Order No. 28, or “the women’s order,” that sanctioned the use of sexual violence – or at least the threat of sexual violence, as a way of controlling women’s behavior.  She sees Butler’s occupation as one of a series of moments during the war during which the discourse – and possibly the practice – of sexual violence shifts.  Through tracking certain individuals for the duration of the war – Southern women, men in the military – Crystal hopes to chart out when and how these shifts took place. 

We are excited to have Crystal here as one of our research fellows, awed by her diligence in making sense of nineteenth-century military culture (not to mention nineteenth-century handwriting!) and look forward to future updates on the project, and eventually the book that will no doubt result.

Recent MHS Grant Announcements

Among the stories in the September/October MHS e-newsletter is a short piece highlighting some recent and very exciting grants we've received. They include:

- $15,000 from the Library of Congress for its "The End of Slavery: Documents and Dilemmas" program. MHS staff will take 20 documents from the LOC From Slavery to Freedom digitized collections and 20 documents from the MHS African Americans and the End of Slavery and Images of the Antislavery Movement in Massachusetts digitized collections to develop educational materials for teachers based on both institutions' resources.

- a $22,100 matching grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which will help the Society create and promote exceptional public programs and exhibitions to the community. As an investment in the MHS, the grant signifies that the Society provides a high level of quality in its programs, services, and administrative ability.  The staff of the MHS would especially like to recognize MHS Fellow Gov. Deval Patrick and the state legislators who supported the MCC, and in turn the MHS, particularly Sen. Steven A. Tolman and MHS Fellow Rep. Byron Rushing.

- a grant from the Ruby W. and LaVon P. Linn Foundation to replace a traditional microfilm reader with a microfilm scanner. The new equipment produces high resolution digital scans of microfilmed manuscripts, allowing researchers and staff to print, e-mail, or save the relevant pages to a CD, USB drive, or hard drive. We library folks are very excited about this one; we're getting a demo of a possible scanner today, and please stay tuned for more information.

You can read more about each of these grants here, and sign up to receive the e-newsletter here.

MHS Unveils New Homepage

This just in from our web developer, Bill Beck:

"After months of planning, consulting, designing, and general tweaking, we are very excited to present a new look for the MHS homepage! Our main goal is to help visitors get at the content they need with fewer clicks. We believe we've created a much-improved entry to our vast online offerings, one that's at once more streamlined and yet highlights our content in an eye-catching, contemporary way."

We all hope you like it!