Blog 2- Shelby Setzer

So last week I was having trouble finding credible primary sources. Finally I had a breakthrough. The two sources I found are diaries. One diary is from one Samuel Cooper, a pastor who was involved in the Revolution, by preaching as well as being a part of the deliberations about the future of this country. The second source is from General George Washington. This source has been most revealing and helpful.

The diary of Samuel Cooper, written in 1775-1776, contains a lot of information that does not pertain to the Revolution, such as "I slept at ___, din'd with ___." But among all of this information that does not particularly matter, there are a few nuggets of information that can confirm the idea that important meetings took place in taverns. For example, Samuel Cooper says, "They din'd by Invitation of the Congress at Coolidg's Tavern... They formed a Convention immediately after dinner..." (Cooper 309). Samuel goes on to explain the role that these pastors played in the Revolution. He notes that this Convention voted to supply the Army (the Continental Army) with Chaplains. What is really interesting is that this pastor meet up with George Washington, at a tavern. There they had a meeting with George Washington, the Committee of Continental Congress (Cooper 337).

The diary of George Washington has been a lot more revealing than Samuel Cooper. This is probably because this main was at the center of all of this. This part of his diary is important to my paper because it shows the significance of taverns after the revolution was won. It shows the ground work of the nation. As an interesting side note, there was a benefit concert held at the City Tavern. The concert included classical music to be performed for the delegates of the Convention (Washington 299). I suppose it was naive of me to think that benefit concerts were a modern day thing, but it is so interesting to find out that there were benefit concerts in 1787!

The Fort Pillow Massacre: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence

The Battle of Fort Pillow was undisputedly a gruesome battle. However, accounts vary widely whether the Confederate forces went beyond the conventions of war to brutally murder Union soldiers who were attempting to surrender. The varying accounts of what happened in the battle create tensions on either side of the debate and skew much of the attempts at historical evaluation of the "massacre". "The Fort Pillow Massacre: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence" is truly what the title says, a fresh examination of the evidence attempted without bias. The author, Albert Castel, is a few generations removed from the debate and uses comparative testimony to evaluate the claim that the Confederate's overstepped conventional war. Since the debate is so charged with bias, he is forced to confront what his personal views are before he can even begin weighing in on the debate. (Castel, p 38). 

Castel concludes that the South was guilty of breaking the conventions of war by killing those who had attempted to surrender. (Castel, p 50) However, he challenges some of the findings by the Congressional investigation, such as the finding that the Confederates used the period of seize fire to strategically advance their soldiers and gain and advantage of position that they otherwise would have never achieved. (Castel, p 41) This analysis is based on testimony that Commander Forrest of the Confederate Army thought that during the seize fire was a delay by the Union forces to bring in support from the river Fort Pillow was stationed on as a gunship looked like it was moving in to provide men and cover fire for the fort. 

Castel's review of the claims by the Congressional investigation at the time were the paramount historical work on Fort Pillow. His work also fueled more historians to jump in on the analysis. However, Castel's findings are from 1958. It will be important for me to find more recent historical analysis on Fort Pillow. This article was a corner stone of historical evaluation on the Battle of Fort Pillow since Castel was a few generations removed from the event, unlike the author's before him, who lived through the event, or grew up in the more immediate wake of the event. My hope is that I will find more works like Castel's and less sources that are examples of sensational history.

Castel, Albert "The Fort Pillow Massacre: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence" Civil War History 4 (March 1958): 37-50.

Blog Post #2 - Primary Source by Sylvia Pankhurst

     This week for my blog post I received one of my sources through MOBIUS, it is a primary source written by Sylvia Pankhurst. It is her memoir of the women’s movement her mother and sister led. The name of the source is The Suffragette Movement an Intimate Account of the Persons and Ideals. This source is especially important to my work on my thesis because it not only offers specific accounts of what happened to these women, but it also offers information from Sylvia’s perspective on the more militant actions of her sister Christabel. Another helpful aspect of this source is how Sylvia quotes newspaper articles from the period as well, directly, thereby giving a fuller picture of the different protests and events going on. The source itself is divided into nine books within the larger text, within each book there are about five to seven chapters devoted to the topic. Some of the chapters I have begun to analyze include those written on their militant tactics, forced feedings, the flight of Christabel Pankhurst, and arson.

     Sylvia’s chapter on the militant tactics of the Suffragettes begins rather early in her memoir, before the fracturing of the WSPU [Women’s Social and Political Union]. Christabel and Sylvia had a fractured relationship later during the movement due to Christabel’s desire for more militant tactics. Her desire came in response to the lack of accomplishments done by the mere protests and rallies. Christabel first responded more actively during a meeting where Annie Kenney asked when women would receive the vote. The men moved to remove Annie from the meeting, so Christabel stood and attempted to defend Annie. She told the officials, “I shall assault you! I shall spit at you,” (Pankhurst 189). Christabel responded exactly how she said she would, by spitting in the face of the police superintendent and hitting others. Sylvia also refers to Annie Kenney regularly in her writings. Annie Kenney became the first working class woman to join the WSPU and fell into an easy friendship with Christabel. The other important aspect about these militant women that one must remember is the pain they endured, especially during their imprisonments and forced feedings.

     The forced feedings of women imprisoned during the movement represent a much darker side of this time. Yes, women acted more violently and destroyed buildings and mail, but they never intentionally harmed people. Yet when they were imprisoned instead of letting them die as martyrs for their cause via a hunger strike the government forced the wardens and nurses to feed these women. Eventually doctors came out to stand against such traumatic experiences stating how much damage this actually caused to the women physically to endure. Sylvia quotes Dr. Forbes Winslow on the results of forced feeding, “seriously to injure the constitution, to lacerate the parts surrounding the mouth, to break and ruin the teeth…to cause dangerous chronic symptoms,” (Pankhurst 317). As evidence from this one quote and the rest of the chapter, I will certainly be exploring the impact of forced feedings on the militancy of the movement. I hope that I will receive other sources from inter-library loan soon. I also plan to begin looking at JSTOR and other databases for newspaper articles and journals discussing these topics.

Here is the Chicago citation for the source:

Pankhurst, Sylvia. The Suffragette Movement an Intimate Account of Persons and Ideals. London: Virago Limited, 1977. 

Primary Sources- Blog 1 Shelby Setzer

So at first I had trouble locating primary sources that would be beneficial to my topic. I knew that they were out there, but finding them was a little more difficult than I had originally had thought. I searched key words like: taverns, colonial, beer, ale, secret meeting, founding fathers, etc. I really had nothing but air to stand on. I was struggling. But then I found a breakthrough, in the form of Paul Revere. Then I found another breakthrough, and another. This really started happening during our class last Thursday in the computer lab. That work day was extremely beneficial to me and my research.

Paul Revere's ride is nothing short of famous. It is most commonly told in song, which I think is an interesting and fantastic way to spread lore, as well as, facts. Songs are catchy, and easily remembered. The song itself hasn't been the most useful primary source because it does not directly talk about the taverns, but I recently watched a History channel episode which detailed Revere's ride being a secret event and not the screaming "The British are coming!" as so commonly believed. I am still in search for the History Channel's citation in this episode, but I know it is there.

What I have found, however, is conclusive proof that revolutionary meetings were indeed held in taverns. Paul Revere stated, "We held our meetings at the Green-Dragon tavern. We were so careful that our meetings should be kept secret, that every time we met, every person swore upon the Bible, that they would not discover any of our transactions, but to Messrs. Hancock, Adams, Doctors Warren, Cisuacim, and one or two more" (Revere, 310). I have not really dug into all of Revere's diary entries (there are many), but here is conclusive proof that these meetings, meant to spark rebellion, we held in the safety of town taverns.

Ashley Blog #1: Dina Porat and the Uniqueness of Lithuania

I’ve actually been quite fortunate this week to discover that two sources I ordered on a whim are actually primary sources in the form of memoirs from Holocaust survivors. Talk about happy accidents! I haven’t had a chance to start digging into them yet, but I have recently finished reading a very intriguing work by Dina Porat. I’ve included the Chicago Manual of Style citation and analysis below.

Porat, Dina. “The Holocaust in Lithuania: Some Unique Aspects.” In The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation, edited by David Cesarani, 151-174. London: Routledge, 1994.

In this chapter, Porat seeks to outline some of the disturbing and interesting trends within Nazi occupied Lithuania that separated it from the surrounding areas for its treatment of the Jewish population. Most scholars agree that the Holocaust started in Lithuania, as the full force of the killings began in that country and spread outward. However, the uniqueness of the Lithuanian Holocaust stems not from its beginning, but rather from the specific details of how it was carried out.

She begins by describing the utter devastation of the Lithuanian Jewry. While the overall number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust was high, the percentage of the Lithuanian Jewry decimated by the killing actions was, most sources agree, around 95% (160). The murders were also unusually quick. From the invasion of Lithuania by the Germans in June of 1941 to December of the same year, 80% of the Jewish population had already been killed (161). Furthermore, Lithuania became the last stop for many foreign Jews transported to Lithuanian ghettos from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia (162).

Porat also describes the “intense involvement of the local population, in large numbers, in the murder of the Jews,” and the “eagerness the Lithuanians demonstrated” when asked to participate in Einsatzgruppe killing sprees (162). She theorizes that this readiness to volunteer for the Nazis stemmed from the intense anti-Soviet propaganda within Lithuania, and intrinsically aided the annihilation of the Lithuanian Jewish population. She states, “According to Jewish sources, there was hardly any need for the presence of Germans in the small places” as the Jews were almost completely wiped out not by Nazi forces, but by their own fellow Lithuanian citizens (163). Descriptions by survivors “make it quite clear that Lithuanians perpetrated most of the torture and killing, generally without any German officials on the spot” (162). She also states that research by Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm indicates that “possibly half or two-thirds of Lithuanian Jews were killed by local units” and not by Germans (162).

The reason for this volunteerism attitude, Porat theorizes, originates from several factors. Though her chapter does not delve into these reasons with very much detail, she nevertheless states that “it was a combination of... national traditions and values, religion, severe economic problems and tragically opposed political orientations” (166). The common Nazi ideology of “Jewish Bolshevism” was rampant in Lithuania, as those involved in the killings saw the Jews as pawns of the Soviet regime they had supported in 1940-41. This regime had stripped Lithuania of its independence, and the subsequent German invasion, coupled with Hitler’s strong anti-Soviet stance, “provided the framework and the legitimation for the killing of Lithuania’s Jews” (166). Porat also takes care to stress that “not all Lithuanians took part in the killings,” but the situation in Lithuania was nevertheless unique from those of other Eastern European countries in its scope and speed (166). 

The Troubles of Northern Ireland

For my first reading over The Troubles, I chose to go with a source that would provide a brief, but fairly accurate analysis of the conflict that occurred in Ireland during the twentieth century. Marc Mullholland's Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction gives a concise summary over this subject. Mullholland is a modern historian who has other publications relating to twentieth century Ireland, particularly Northern Ireland and unionism, which will be useful for future research. I am also interested in Mulllholland's work for the fact that he seems to analyze the loyalists/unionists side more thoroughly than the republicans/nationalists. The republican/nationalist party has taken the forefront in many of my secondary sources, so it is refreshing to read on a historian's research over the other party.

From the first chapter, it becomes apparent that divisions within Ireland have been around for many centuries. Dating back to the Reformation, hostility has occurred between the generally more prosperous Protestants and the less well-off Catholics. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, reasons behind this hostility were mainly caused by who controlled and profited from the Irish plantation plots (Mullholland 2). During the seventeenth century, religion was the primary cause of tension, especially during the civil war of the 1790s (Mullholland 5). And, as Mullholland points out, while Ireland would modernize in some aspects during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as in industry, in other aspects, it remained archaic; religious differences peppered with social and economic consequences continued to divide the Irish community and promote hostility between the Catholics and the Protestants (14).

While Mullholland's historical perspective may not be ingenious or original, it does provide important information about Ireland's past conflicts and the reasons behind them. Therefore, it is not so surprising that conflict occurred on this island in the mid-twentieth century. I don't believe Mullholland is trying to suggest that The Troubles were inevitable in his first chapter, but I do think he wants to prove to the reader that The Troubles might have historical precedents. And I believe he also wants to convey the message that yes, it is tragic that the "Catholics in Northern Ireland feel Irish and the Protestants associate themselves with Britain, and thus each group sanctions violence to substantiate their identities" (Preface). But that is not the only thing that is tragic about Ireland, and, in fact it is not even that peculiar or original to Ireland itself. The real tragedy, as Mullholland eloquently states, is that Ireland's "people have not been able to agree upon a common identity. Rather than stand by each other, they compete. Being so alike - in language, appearance, and broad culture, they cling tenaciously to that which marks them out. The successful consolidation of either British unionism or Irish nationalism, it is feared, will submerge the other" (Preface). I feel that this is this issue that Mullholland will try and further stress and embellish as I read more into his work: the conundrum over how religion and politics can divide a modern country so much that it forces them to enact on deadly violence in attempt to come to a resolution or union.

McKenzie Morrow

Forging a New Identity: The Costs and Benefits of Diversity in Civil War Combat Units for Black Slaves and Freemen.

This article is one focused on the experiences of black soldiers in the Civil War and how being in the regiments gave soldiers new life experiences that they would have never otherwise had, and how that changed soldier's lives. The authors Dora L. Costa and Matthew E. Kahn jump in on the ongoing debate as to whether or not having diverse regiments in the Civil War was beneficial to not only the unit, but also to the soldiers. While this evaluation is important, my focus on the article is based more on two sections titled "The Black Military Experience" and "Black Company Formation and Diversity".

The first section provides me with a wealth of background knowledge of the scope and experience of black soldiers. By the end of the Civil War 186,017 black soldiers served in the war effort. (Costa and Kahn, 938) The scale of soldiers that participated in the north was entirely different from the south as 78% of eligible black men from the north served, where as only 11% of eligible black men served in the Confederacy. (Costa and Kahn, 938) This section serves as a great secondary source in providing a summary of what blacks experienced in the war that I would have otherwise not know. Like the fact that black soldiers early in the war were not likely to be sent into war because they were not trusted as soldiers. (Costa and Kahn, 939).

The next section also relates to my research because it directly addresses types of black regiments and the levels of diversity. Although there might not have been racial diversity in all units, there was a hierarchy of blacks within black units. (Costa and Kahn, 940.) According to the authors, white officers of black regiments were either abolitionists or opportunist who saw the opportunity to improve their ranking. (Costa and Kahn, 940). While the rest of the article is useful, these two sections give me the big picture of what black regiments were like, and helps create background knowledge that will allow me to dig deeper into the subject of what was the Civil War like for black soldiers. With this information I am also able to hone in more on time frames such as early in the war, the experience of black soldiers will be completely different from the experiences of a black soldier late in the war.


Costa, Dora L. and Kahn, Matthew E. "Forging a New Identity: The Costs and Benefits of Diversity in Civil War Combat Units for Black Slaves and Freemen."The Journal of Economic History December 2006: 936-962.

Blog Post #1 - Sources I've Located

     As I have mentioned in class I plan to do an analysis over the very militaristic Women’s Social and Political Union, referred to WSPU from this point on. So far, I have ordered several books from inter-library loan specifically through World Cat. These books include both primary sources and secondary sources. The first of these books is Speeches and Trials of the Militant Suffragettes: The Women's Social and Political Union, 1903-1918. This book written in 1999 is a secondary source, but includes primary sources within it. I hope to get general information from different women’s voices during this time. It will be extremely beneficial if I can find speeches from the specific women I am looking to analyze in more detail.

     The next source that I have located is a primary source from Christabel Pankhurst. It is her memoir named Unshackled: The Story of How We Won the Vote. Christabel Pankhurst came from the younger generation of Pankhursts and led the militaristic wing of the WSPU, especially when it heightened to its strongest right before World War I. Christabel offered a more violent and focused plan for the younger women to demand rights, instead of merely protesting for them. So for her to write a source it offers the younger generations’ view of the women’s movement, especially with the escalation in violence. Therefore, any information that I can gain from her thoughts, speeches and ideas will be the backbone of my paper. 

     There are a few other sources that I am waiting to receive from inter-library loan, these I do not know how well will relate to my topic specifically but I plan to search through them for information. Some of the titles of these works are The Suffragettes: Towards Emancipation, The Militants: Suffragette Activism, and Suffrage and the Pankhursts. The final source I ordered from inter-library loan is Extracts from the Speeches of Mrs. Pankhurst, George Lansbury, Annie Kenney & Sylvia Pankhurst, the Suffragette Prisoners who Were Convicted of Incitement to Violence. This sources sounds extremely promising because it offers speeches from multiple individuals, two of whom I am looking to study in depth. I am currently looking for more sources, especially any memoirs or other primary sources to give strong back story. I have a few in mind, and am in the process of ordering them, from inter-library loan, Mobius, SWAN, or checking Olin’s shelves for them.

-Jenn Kervian

Allison Morris Blog #1: Titanic

Hello everyone,
      None of my books have come in yet this week, so this blog is going to be an analysis of a secondary source, a journal article which I found on JSTOR. The source is: The Night the Good Ship Went Down, Three Fateful Dinners Aboard the Titanic by Andrea Broomfield. It was written in 2009, so it is a fairly recent source.
     The focus of Broomfield's article is looking at social classes aboard the Titanic by analyzing the food that they ate. Broomfield argued that the planners of the Titanic reflected social classes especially at dinnertime by reflecting their "sense of their own needs and identities" (Broomfield 32). According to Broomfield, the meals aboard the Titanic were designed very carefully because the American owned ship was one of the first that catered to all social classes, not only the very wealthy as the industry had once tried to attract. Her thesis is "The three different dinners served to the various classes of passengers the night the Titanic went down reveal a rich, nuanced story about the intersections of class, nationalism, and mass consumerism on the eve of World War One" (Broomfield 32).
     This article will be helpful to my research because I am interested in the social aspects of the Titanic. Before reading this article I really had only thought about how the wealthy were catered to aboard the Titanic because I had read about how the lower class a person belonged to, the more likely they were to have died in the sinking of the Titanic. Broomfield however, discussed how the ship industry was completely changing and trying to accept all classes of people and they were very careful in their planning to make second and third class passengers feel comfortable. Something Broomfield also discussed is how these social groups were able to mingle in this unique situation aboard the Titanic, something they most likely would not have done outside the boat.
     The Titanic meant different things to different social groups. For the wealthy, it was an exciting trip with great food, activities, and chances to socialize with others like themselves. For many of the third class passengers, the ship represented a way to new opportunities in America. I appreciated the details that Broomfield included in her article including the last meal that third class passengers ate on the Titanic which included roast beef, potatoes, corn, rice soup, biscuits, and plum pudding. The types of food in addition to how many and when the courses were served were meant to reflect what the different social classes would have ate at home. Broomfield argued that the roast beef in this last meal was symbolic of prosperous people, because the third class passengers would have ate it only on special occasions. The plum pudding was usually only served by lower classes on celebrations such as Christmas. Broomfield went on to analyze all three final menus' served aboard the Titanic to prove her thesis. I am not going to go into detail about these because it would be way to much information to include on here, but hopefully this will show the direction of where I am going with this project. I am mostly interested in the social classes and how they interacted before and during the sinking of the ship. This article gives good insight and has made me think of new questions and ways to approach my topic.

Ashlie's work on Vaudeville

Hey everyone, below is a small example of what I have been working on. Only a few of my books are here, so I am just beginning to piece together what I am wanting to look at. 

I have been messing with where I wanted to start on my project, and spent a few hours this past week and weekend gathering sources and working on my research. I have acquired a few books,  one focusing on biographical profiles such as ones on Eva Tanguay, a famous Vaudevillian performer originally from Canada titled Queen of Vaudeville: The Story of Eva Tanguay by Andrew L. Erdman. I also have a small book titled Women Vaudeville Stars: Eighty Biographical Profiles by Armond Fields, with biographical profiles of other women who were involved in Vaudeville, such as Florence Mills, the first Black performer to be a headliner and have her own show on Broadway.

Some of the work I am looking at in a book titled A Pictorial History of Vaudeville by Bernard Sobel involves Blackface, such as looking at the famous Vaudevillian Al Johnson, also known as the Minstrel Man. He worked on the stage as an imitator, and is well known as the main character in The Jazz Singer, the first “talkie” film which was released in 1927.

Through these books, I have began to notice that almost half of the main lead performances, the ones that were at the top of the Bill, were women. From these, about half of them were immigrant or Yiddish performers. Many of these women were also some of the top-paid performers, with a few of them bringing in $500 a night.

Alongside the women, a few performers were “Negro”, although most of the Black performers were White males dressed in Blackface for imitation. Some of them, such as Florence Mills, Adelaide Hill, and Aunt Jemima ( Yes she was a real performer), were extremely well paid and loved, but most have never received any coverage since the end of the Vaudeville era. 

I am hoping to have a bit more soon once the rest of my books come in. 

Ashlie