ASHP Podcast

Cynthia Mills, The Smithsonian American Art MuseumCUNY Graduate CenterJuly 19, 2012In this forty-five minute talk, Cynthia Mills (1947-2014) the former executive editor of American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and co-editor of Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscape of Southern Memory traces the arc of Civil War commemorative public sculptures, describes the simila...

Martha A. Sandweiss, Princeton UniversityCivil War @ 150: Is There Anything More to See? CUNY Graduate CenterNovember 3, 2011In this thirteen minute presentation, historian Martha Sandweiss challenges assumptions and some of the uses of Civil War photographs as historical documents. Although biased, unreliable, and unrepresentative, the images are mostly used as illustrations of events. While we r...

Anthony Lee, Mount Holyoke  CollegeCivil War @ 150: Is There Anything More to See? CUNY Graduate CenterNovember 3, 2011In this 15 minute talk, art historian, curator, and photographer Anthony Lee provocatively examines Civil War era photography by way of one case study. The discovery, in June 2010, of a supposedly rare carte-de-visite depicting two African-American boys began a contentious ordeal...

Mary Niall Mitchell, University of New OrleansCivil War @ 150: Is There Anything More to See? CUNY Graduate CenterNovember 3, 2011In this seventeen minute talk, historian Mary Niall Mitchell uses less known and difficult to understand photographs to discuss the use of photography as propaganda during the Civil War. Abolitionists knew that they needed to “shrink the distance between the enslaved an...

In this hour-long presentation, Anthony Lee, professor of art history at Mount Holyoke College, talks about the broad range and types of photographs taken during the American Civil War and ponders why some have received so much more attention than others. This talk was part of The Visual Culture of the American Civil War, a 2012 NEH Summer Institute for College and University Teachers.

Ellen Noonan, American Social History ProjectInterviewed by Andrea Ades VásquezApril 16, 2012Created by George Gershwin and Du Bose Heyward and sung by generations of black performers, the opera Porgy and Bess has been both embraced and reviled in its long life. In this 22 minute interview, historian Ellen Noonan describes how the show played a role in African-American debates about cultural repre...

Laura Lovett, University of MassachusettsHugh D. Hindman, Appalachia State UniversityKriste Lindenmeyer, Rutger’s UniversitySally Greenberg, National Consumers LeagueMarch 24, 2011To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in March 2011, the Gotham Center (Graduate Center, CUNY) sponsored Remembering the Triangle Fire. In this 55 minute podcast, Laura Lovett (Universit...

Craig Steven Wilder, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyUFT Headquarters, Bronx, NYMay 24, 2011Craig Steven Wilder, professor of history at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, speaks to New York City teachers about the influence of school districting on the racial segregation of Brooklyn neighborhoods.  Building on data from his book A Covenant with Color: Race and Social Power in Brooklyn (2...

Frank Deale, CUNY School of LawCUNY and Race Forum (Professional Staff Congress)New York City College of Technology, CUNYDecember 9, 2011Professor Frank Deale (CUNY School of Law) gave opening keynote remarks at the CUNY and Race Forum sponsored by the Professional Staff Congress. Providing social, political, and legal historical context for affirmative action, he broached two themes. First, the d...

Vincent DiGirolamo, Baruch College, CUNYCUNY Graduate CenterHistorian Vincent DiGirolamo discusses the historiography of early 20th-century immigration through Ellis Island. The Ellis Island paradigm he describes is the traditional immigrant narrative: push and pull factors lead poor Europeans to sail to the United States in search of better opportunities, they come through Ellis Island and over a...

Deborah Willis, Tisch School of the Arts, New York UniversityCivil War @ 150: Is There Anything More to See? CUNY Graduate CenterNovember 3, 2011In this seventeen minute talk, Professor Willis discusses how as Civil War photographs were widely circulated, they became a story telling moment for those who posed. Looking at numerous images, she contemplates the “standard of pose” and what may have ha...

Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Colgate UniversityNew York Public LibraryHistorian Graham Russell Gao Hodges leads a discussion of the life of David Ruggles, black abolitionist of the 1830s, conductor of the Underground Railroad in New York City, author of numerous, ground-breaking pamphlets, editor of the nation’s first black magazine, and later, a doctor of hydrotherapy. This 50 minute podcast places...

Gregory Downs, City College of New York, CUNY“Ballots and Blood: The Grassroots Struggle for the Future of Reconstruction”The Graduate Center, CUNYJuly 19, 2010The Reconstruction era was marked by both triumph and defeat as the newly emancipated slaves and their allies attempted to establish full political and economic freedoms in the face of violent opposition. While planters were initially succe...

Scott Reynolds Nelson, William and Mary CollegeCivil War @ 150: Civil War Myths and MisinformationCUNY Graduate CenterApril 5, 2011In his 18 minute talk, Scott Reynolds Nelson contrasts three common images or notions from the Civil War with lesser known aspects that prevailed in the nineteenth century. While Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party are generally perceived as do-gooders, Nelson des...

Gary W. Gallagher, University of VirginiaCivil War @150: Civil War Myths and MisinformationCUNY Graduate CenterApril 5, 2011In this 16 minute talk, Gary W. Gallagher describes the ways that northerners viewed the war and their commitment to the nation as a union. While not downplaying the importance of emancipation, Gallagher argues that the concept of union was paramount for most northerners. The...

Gregory Downs, City College of New York, City University of New YorkCivil War @ 150: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books? CUNY Graduate CenterFebruary 3, 2011Introduced by Joshua Brown of ASHP/CML, Professor Downs presents the range of approaches taken by scholars over the last twenty-five years to discuss the American Civil War.  From debates on slavery and the slave South, to sectional confli...

Stephanie McCurry, University of PennsylvaniaCivil War @ 150: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books? CUNY Graduate CenterFebruary 3, 2011Introduced by Joshua Brown of ASHP/CML, Professor McCurry describes how she wrote her latest book, Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South, to bring the social history of the Confederacy into a historiography that has up until now focuse...

James Oakes, CUNY Graduate CenterCivil War @ 150: Did the Real War Ever Get in the Books? CUNY Graduate CenterFebruary 3, 2011In his twenty minute presentation, historian James Oakes counters revisionist interpretations that claim the North did not go to war to end slavery. Historians have often viewed the Emancipation Proclamation as the point in the Civil War when it changed from being a war for...

Frank Bidart, Wellesley CollegeVijay Seshadri, Sarah Lawrence CollegeKevin Young, Emory UniversitySally Dawidoff (moderator), American Social History ProjectThe Association of Writers and Writing Programs ConferenceWashington, DC, February 5, 2011In the first part of this two-part panel discussion, held at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, distinguished contemporary Ameri...

Herbert Sloan, Barnard CollegeA Living ConstitutionDecember 13, 2010Legal historian Herbert Sloan argues against the theory of originalism in making the case for a “Living Constitution.” Sloan cites the lack of evidence from the Constitutional framers themselves to explain the difficulty of determining with any certainty their “original intent.”  He also documents the belief of at least some frame...

Mae Ngai, Columbia UniversityRemembering the Triangle Fire – Labor and Immigration PolicyThe Graduate Center, CUNYMarch 24, 2011Historian Mae Ngai spoke on a panel as part of the 100th anniversary remembrance of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. She provides a historical perspective on the often contentious relationship between organized labor and immigrant activism. This fifteen-minute talk spans U.S...

Janice R. Fine, Rutgers UniversityRemembering the Triangle Fire – Immigrant Workers Then and NowThe Graduate Center, CUNYMarch 24, 2011Political scientist and labor studies professor Janice Fine spoke on a panel as part of the 100th anniversary remembrance of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. She contrasts the situation of immigrant workers in at the turn of the twentieth century with low-wage immigra...

Frank Bidart, Wellesley CollegeVijay Seshadri, Sarah Lawrence CollegeKevin Young, Emory UniversitySally Dawidoff (moderator), American Social History ProjectThe Association of Writers and Writing Programs ConferenceWashington, DC, February 5, 2011In the second part of this two-part panel discussion, held at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, distinguished contemporary Amer...

Stan Deaton, Georgia Historical SocietyCivil War @ 150: Civil War Myths and MisinformationCUNY Graduate CenterApril 5, 2011In this 12 minute talk, Stan Deaton (Senior Historian at the Georgia Historical Society) discusses the challenges his institution faces when discussing and commemorating the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. With many people unconvinced that the Civil War was fo...

Annelise Orleck, Dartmouth CollegeCUNY, Graduate CenterIn the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, poor mothers in New York City and across the United States took charge of their lives and their communities, using federal anti-poverty dollars to build health clinics, serve free meals to poor children, publish community newspapers and even open free public swimming pools. Many of these programs were so success...