Difference between revisions of "471A3--Week 6 Questions/Comments--Tuesday"
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Blight’s chapter on the literature on reunion and its discontents in the beginning (like in every chapter) the fight about what the war was fought over. Most of Blight’s arguments center on this theme and how both sides differed. Later in the chapter he describes literature written about combat and prisons during the war. Blight discusses soldier’s romanticized version of combat and generals arguing their roles in the war. Was all literature on the war centered on these subjects? Was there not literature on the war itself instead of its causes? Were there any debates about battle outcomes, decision made during the war or political actions, like in modern scholarship? Logan T | Blight’s chapter on the literature on reunion and its discontents in the beginning (like in every chapter) the fight about what the war was fought over. Most of Blight’s arguments center on this theme and how both sides differed. Later in the chapter he describes literature written about combat and prisons during the war. Blight discusses soldier’s romanticized version of combat and generals arguing their roles in the war. Was all literature on the war centered on these subjects? Was there not literature on the war itself instead of its causes? Were there any debates about battle outcomes, decision made during the war or political actions, like in modern scholarship? Logan T | ||
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| + | On page 313 Blight explains that slave narratives rejected the plantation myth. Did ex-slaves want the institution of slavery to be remembered as it really was for reasons other than morality? Did former slaves care about an accurate account of slavery in the same way historians do today? Did they want people to remember that not every slave worked on a huge plantation? Or that slaves didn’t fight back by just running away but broke tools and reframed from working as hard as the master liked. Did former slaves want people to remember that slavery existed in many forms and slaves resisted there masters in many different ways. Logan T | ||
Do you think Blight's comparison of post-Civil War writers (Grant, Tourgee, Page, etc.) is an accurate reflection of the competing ideas of the war and the South in the public sphere during the time of their publications? And what about Tourgee's idea regarding the "forgetting" of the war? Obviously people hadn't forgotten about it, so what did he mean by this thought?- Victoria Y. | Do you think Blight's comparison of post-Civil War writers (Grant, Tourgee, Page, etc.) is an accurate reflection of the competing ideas of the war and the South in the public sphere during the time of their publications? And what about Tourgee's idea regarding the "forgetting" of the war? Obviously people hadn't forgotten about it, so what did he mean by this thought?- Victoria Y. | ||
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| + | Victoria, I wonder if this was an initial response, much like we have talked about in class. Perhaps they were merely trying to forget as a manner of initially attempting to "get over" the fact that they had lost the war. I agree, clearly no one had forgotten and no one was GOING TO forget, however, I think at least for a while, everyone needed to forget. I know I've brought this point up a couple times, but it certainly seems relevant. I think the psychological effects of losing a war are going to be incredibly prevalent in how the nation chooses to remember said war. Moving forward about 110 years, just think of how Americans viewed Vietnam... --Cash | ||
Tourgee's argument about how the American people had "gone so far that there was even a tendency to forget altogether the fact that a war could not be waged for the preservation of the union unless someone was responsible for the attempt to destroy it" brings up a big point against reconciliation, and the popular acceptance of southern literature. Should the US, specifically the union have put more effort into remembering the specific causes of the war like Touragee argued, or was it better for the nation overall to embrace the reconciliationist view like it did. -AJ L. | Tourgee's argument about how the American people had "gone so far that there was even a tendency to forget altogether the fact that a war could not be waged for the preservation of the union unless someone was responsible for the attempt to destroy it" brings up a big point against reconciliation, and the popular acceptance of southern literature. Should the US, specifically the union have put more effort into remembering the specific causes of the war like Touragee argued, or was it better for the nation overall to embrace the reconciliationist view like it did. -AJ L. | ||
When Blight talks about Siebert and his research into the underground railroad he mentions the seeming belief of the people who had been a part of the underground, or who's ancestors had, that they had "permanently destroyed slavery and its related problems". Did this belief, or similar ones among other northerners, contribute to the lack of effort in fighting against jim crow laws? or was it more because they were tired of fighting at that point? - AJ L. | When Blight talks about Siebert and his research into the underground railroad he mentions the seeming belief of the people who had been a part of the underground, or who's ancestors had, that they had "permanently destroyed slavery and its related problems". Did this belief, or similar ones among other northerners, contribute to the lack of effort in fighting against jim crow laws? or was it more because they were tired of fighting at that point? - AJ L. | ||
