This Investigation seeks to explore to what extent literature impacted social disorder during the antebellum years of the Civil war? To evaluate the extent to which American literature provoked social disorder before Civil War, this investigation maintains focus on the effects of popular works such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Uncle Remus, and other famous publications on the general public. The effects of literature on certain social groups, such as political parties, are also considered throughout the investigation. The effects of literature written during the post-war years to the American Civil War will not be considered even if directly about the war, rather this investigation only assesses the effects of works written in the eve of the war that had significance in shaping the war.
Though the bookshelf of Civil War fiction is often greatly ignored, many of these titles were incredibly influential in their time (Moss 21). The literature of the Civil War was preoccupied with promise and danger, often stirring the minds of would be abolitionists and separatists into full-fledged ones (Lamb 240). One of the most influential works during pre-Civil War times was Joel Chandler Harris’ Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings. This collection of folklore was just about the first major step towards understanding of slave culture (Moss 397). As important as Uncle Remus was, likely the most significant book in influencing the oncoming Civil War was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. This was the most immediately influential work that has ever appeared in the United States, having sold over 305,000 copies in America only a year after publication in 1852 (Wilson 3). Harriet Beecher Stowe made documents such as the Compromise of...
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...lden, MA: Blackwell, 2005. Print.
Lowance, Mason I., Ellen E. Westbrook, and De Prospo R. C. The Stowe Debate: Rhetorical Strategies in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1994. Print.
Moss, Joyce and George Wilson. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” In Literature and its Times: Profiles of 300 Notable Literary Works and the Historical Events that Induced Them.” Detroit: Gale 1997
Nelson, Scott Reynolds., and Carol Sheriff. A People at War: Civilians and Soldiers in America's Civil War, 1854-1877. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. Print.
Simpson, Lewis P. "Library of Southern Literature: Civil War in Literature." Library of Southern Literature: Civil War in Literature. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.
Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore; Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War. New York: Oxford UP, 1962. Print.
In, “Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War,” Charles B. Dew analyzes the public letters and speeches of white, southern commissioners in order to successfully prove that the Civil War was fought over slavery. By analyzing the public letters and speeches, Dew offers a compelling argument proving that slavery along with the ideology of white supremacy were primary causes of the Civil War. Dew is not only the Ephraim Williams Professor of American History at Williams College, but he is also a successful author who has received various awards including the Elloit Rudwick Prize and the Fletcher Pratt Award. In fact, two of Dew’s books, Tredegar Iron Works and Apostles of Disunion and Ironmaker to
The novel showed a pivotal point prior to the Civil War and how these issues ultimately led to the fueling of quarrel between Americans. While such institutions of slavery no longer exist in the United States, the message resonates with the struggles many groups ostracized today who continue to face prejudice from those in higher
Turner, Thomas R. 101 Things You Didn’t Know about the Civil War. Avon: Adams, 2007.
University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. “The Classic Text: Harriet Beecher Stowe”. 19 Nov 2001. 5 Jan 2002. <http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Library/special/exhibits/clastext/clspg149.htm>.
Heidler, David Stephen, and Jeanne T. Heidler, eds. Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: a
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001. Student Resources in Context. Web. The Web. The Web. 6 Mar. 2014.
McPherson, James M.; The Atlas of the Civil War. Macmillan: 15 Columbus Circle New York, NY. 1994.
In James McPherson’s novel, What They Fought For, a variety of Civil War soldier documents are examined to show the diverse personal beliefs and motives for being involved in the war. McPherson’s sample, “is biased toward genuine fighting soldiers” (McPherson, 17) meaning he discusses what the ordinary soldier fought for. The Confederacy was often viewed as the favorable side because their life style relied on the war; Confederates surrounded their lives with practices like slavery and agriculture, and these practices were at stake during the war. On the other hand, Northerners fought to keep the country together. Although the Civil War was brutal, McPherson presents his research to show the dedication and patriotism of the soldiers that fought and died for a cause.
I felt like the author could clearly show the true contributing factors of the civil war. As an admirer of history, I could use utilize his book for references later on in my academic studies. The book is 127 pages chronicling the events that led to the civil war. Holt gives novices history readers a wonder firsthand look into the world of young America pre-civil war. His book brought out new ways to approach the study of pre-civil war events. The question whether the Civil War was inevitable or could have been derailed was answered in The Fate of Their Country. Holt places the spotlight on the behaviors Politicians and the many congressional compromises that unintendedly involved the actions of the residents of American. These factors at hand placed the Civil war as inevitable. Most of the politician’s views in The Fate of Their Country were egotistical and shortsighted which left gaps in American’s social future. To consider the subject of why, first we need to understand the contributing causes, America’s great expansion project, the Manifest Destiny the driving factor behind the loss of virtue and political discord.
One of the important subjects during the civil war was Religion even though it received minor attention until recent years. Historians have considered civil war an important story of war; however, religion rose as an important factor with many publications. For example “Religion and the American Civil War” is a collection of essays and poems by various writers (Harry S. Stout, George Reagan Wilson, etc.1)
(2003). The 'Secondary Eric Resources In Education. Web. The Web. The Web.
Snay, Mitchell, Randall M. Miller, Harry S. Stout, and Charles Reagan Wilson. "Religion and the American Civil War." The American Historical Review 105.1 (2000): 217. Print.
Newswire 3 Feb. 2014. Student Resources in Context. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.
In a chapter of her book Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction 1790-1860 dedicated exclusively to Harriet Beecher Stowe's best-selling sentimental novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, Jane Tompkins argues against the prevailing critical opinion that Stowe's novel is an unsophisticated, abortive attempt to write meaningfully about the "peculiar institution" which divided American culture in the mid-nineteenth century. Tompkins suggests that the novel's popularity, long considered a reason for "suspicion bordering on disgust, is [actually] a reason for paying close attention" to it (Tompkins 124). Tompkins makes a good point; perhaps Uncle Tom's Cabin makes sense outside of the bounds of the conventional critical approaches which can only view Stowe's novel as an example of "cultural deformation." In this essay, I want to discuss the ways in which Stowe's protagonist Tom manipulates and exemplifies the theory of feminine "influence" (as discussed in Ann Douglas' analysis of nineteenth century women's writings) which moderate white women advocated as means for reforming (and eventually subverting) the prevailing patriarchal social system in response to the Industrial Revolution; far from deforming its culture, Uncle Tom's Cabin actually reflects the rhetoric which the women of the nineteenth century used to redefine their position in a new, industrialist economy.
"Impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Slavery, and the Civil War." The National and International Impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2013. .