books

[rgr44]

I am looking for books about everyday life during the war but not military. Does anyone have any good suggestions?

Thank you,
Nathan Collins

[mmescher]

Can you be a bit more specific, e.g., urban or rural? North or south? Economic level? Any particular occupation?

[Spinster]

A Blockaded Family , Life in South Alabama During the Civil War, P Hague


And, not a book, but free to read on the glowing screen, Vicki Betts newspaper files
http://www.uttyler.edu/vbetts/newspaper_intro.htm

[rgr44]

Any book. I just want to read more about civilian life.

Nathan Collins

[Calprest]

If you want details of everyday material items and how they were used, try An Encyclopaedia of Domestic Economy on Google Books. Other books on housekeeping or farming practices are easily found there as well.

[hanktrent]

Any book. I just want to read more about civilian life.

Here's a thought, not so much on book recommendations, but on how to narrow it down. Pick a random period newspaper or magazine, like Harper's Weekly, Vicki Betts' newspapers, or another period magazine.

Skim through it until something catches your eye. Maybe it'll be an article about an ice cream parlor, or importing sugar from Cuba, or abolitionists, or a report on a state fair, or anything that seems interesting, odd, inexplicable, etc.

Search for other period references on that particular topic, either at the site where you found it, or at Google Books or one of the other sites above, and secondary sources too, until you begin to understand more about the topic and its general context. As you run across more interesting things, branch out into learning about them too.

Pretty soon, this winds up covering a lot of ground. Like for example, ice cream parlors--how did they freeze the ice cream, the ice trade, the restaurant business, the social classes who visited them, male and female roles, foodways, etc. Or the sugar trade with Cuba--steamboats, politics, international trade, per-capita sugar consumption, Louisiana sugar cane production, etc. Follow whatever seems interesting, ignoring what doesn't.

Not only does this give you something unique and interesting that you can immediately incorporate at reenactments ("My brother's going to open an ice cream parlor. He said..." or "My cousin who's an overseer in Louisiana said sugar prices..."), it also breaks such a broad topic down into bite-size pieces, while always keeping the research on topics that are personally interesting. At first, it may be difficult to figure out what people in the period were talking about, due to a lack of context, but the further you go, the more you'll start to recognize trends and larger relationships between economics, social history, material culture, etc.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Slowfoot]

Take a look at this:

"The Standard of Living in 1860: American Consumption Levels on the Eve of the Civil War" by Edgar W. Martin.

http://books.google.com/books?id=2U4...ed=0CDAQ6AEwAA

It breaks down information based on different geographic and social areas, which is rarely done in a lot of books. One problem with the book though, is that it appears that pages of the book are missing, and the printer substituted page from an unrelated paper, something about China. A little disconcerting.

[Carolann Schmitt]

I have a 30+ page list of books on civilian life, material culture, etiquette, clothing, textiles, dyes, household management and a host of othe subjects. Contact me off-list and I'll be happy to send you a copy.

Regards,
Carolann

[maillemaker]

I highly recommend Craig L. Barry's new teatise The Unfinished Fight: Essays on Confederate Material Culture

It is geared towards the military reenactor but much of the book covers, obviously, "material culture" that would apply to everyone.

It appears to be currently unavailable through Amazon.

Steve

[Craig L Barry]

Every copy in print of the 1st Edition of The Unfinished Fight has sold. There will be a 2nd Edition with a revised set up: Part One for CS Military subjects and Part Two on The Home Front. Also a few of the mistakes (typos) edited. It should be back from the printer in a couple weeks. Research is ongoing for The Unfinished Fight: Volume Two of about the same length (200 or so pages). Same format, Military and Civilian. That one should be published late in 2013 or early 2014.

So there's a 2nd edition of the first book due out soon, and a 2nd Volume (a new book) due out in about a year.