VANCOUVER, Wash. The way Americans remember the trauma and repercussions of the Civil War will be explored in a free, public presentation at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 18, in Dengerink Administration Building 110 at Washington State University Vancouver.
Hosted by the history department, “The Hold of the Civil War on the American Imagination, Past and Present” will feature a lecture, reception and book signing with David Blight, professor of American history at Yale University and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition.
Arguably no historical event has left as deep an imprint on America’s collective memory as the Civil War. The lecture will reveal the impact by entering into a conversation between erasthe immediate aftermath, the turbulent mid-20th century civil rights era and present day. The event follows shortly after the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln issued the executive order on Sept. 22, 1862, granting freedom to slaves as of Jan. 1, 1863.
While many Americans remember the abolition of slavery as the purpose of the Civil War, Blight says this meaning results from the struggle of the civil rights generation, which challenged earlier generations’ understandings of the war as tragedy, romance and/or an effort to retain the union as a whole.
Blight will examine these differences by delving into the shifting meanings of death and sacrifice, Reconstruction, the romanticized South, soldiers’ reminiscences, the idea of the “Lost Cause,” and how the unity of white America was purchased through the increasing segregation of black and white memory of the Civil War.
Blight is the author of numerous award-winning books, including “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory,” “A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom” and “American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era.” He is writing a biography of the 19th century black social reformer and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, which will be published in 2013.
Blight’s appearance is presented by the Castles Endowment Lecture and the Washington State Historical Society, in conjunction with the Washougal School District-WSU Vancouver Teaching American History Project. The lecture is funded by the James B. Castles Endowment, provided by the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust.
The lecture brings regional and national specialists in Columbia River Basin history, literature, art or politics to Portland State University, WSU Vancouver and other locations in the basin. The annual program is free to the public and is followed by questions, discussion and an informal reception.
WSU Vancouver is located at 14204 N.E. Salmon Creek Ave., east of the 134th Street exit from either I-5 or I-205, and is accessible via C-Tran bus service. Parking is free for this event.