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Spectacle of Grief: Public Funerals and Memory in the Civil War Era

Spectacle of Grief: Public Funerals and Memory in the Civil War Era

Hardcover

Series: Civil War America

Civil War Period (1850-1877)Death & DyingGeneral World History

ISBN10: 1469668327
ISBN13: 9781469668321
Publisher: Univ Of North Carolina Pr
Published: Apr 12 2022
Pages: 352
Weight: 1.59
Height: 0.94 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
This illuminating book examines how the public funerals of major figures from the Civil War era shaped public memories of the war and allowed a diverse set of people to contribute to changing American national identities. These funerals featured lengthy processions that sometimes crossed multiple state lines, burial ceremonies open to the public, and other cultural productions of commemoration such as oration and song. As Sarah J. Purcell reveals, Americans' participation in these funeral rites led to contemplation and contestation over the political and social meanings of the war and the roles played by the honored dead. Public mourning for military heroes, reformers, and politicians distilled political and social anxieties as the country coped with the aftermath of mass death and casualties.

Purcell shows how large-scale funerals for figures such as Henry Clay and Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson set patterns for mourning culture and Civil War commemoration; after 1865, public funerals for figures such as Robert E. Lee, Charles Sumner, Frederick Douglass, and Winnie Davis elaborated on these patterns and fostered public debate about the meanings of the war, Reconstruction, race, and gender.

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Civil War Period (1850-1877)