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New Bedford's Civil War / Earl F. Mulderink III.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: The North's Civil WarPublisher: New York, NY : Fordham University Press, [2022]Copyright date: ©2012Description: 1 online resource (318 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780823243341
  • 9780823292202
Subject(s): Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 ‘‘A Burning and Shining Light’’: Prosperity and Enlightened Governance in Antebellum New Bedford -- 2 ‘‘The Nearest Approach to Freedom and Equality’’: African Americans in Antebellum New Bedford -- 3 ‘‘Suppression of an Unholy Rebellion’’: Wartime Mobilization on the Home Front -- 4 ‘‘Citizen-Soldiers of Massachusetts’’: New Bedford’s Volunteers in the Civil War -- 5 ‘‘Boys, I Only Did My Duty’’: New Bedford’s Black Soldiers in the Fifty- Fourth Massachusetts -- 6 ‘‘Worthy Recipients’’: New Bedford’s Black Veterans and the Web of Social Welfare -- 7 ‘‘Business Is Extremely Dull’’: Whaling and Manufacturing in Wartime New Bedford -- 8 ‘‘The Position of Our City Has Materially Changed’’: Public Costs and Municipal Governance during the Civil War -- 9 ‘‘The Great Hope for the Future’’: New Bedford in the Postbellum Era -- 10 ‘‘On the Altar of Our Common Country’’: Contested Commemorations of the Civil War -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Index
Summary: New Bedford’s Civil War examines the social, political, economic, and military history of New Bedford, Massachusetts, in the nineteenth century, with a focus on the Civil War homefront from 1861 to 1865 and on the city’s black community, soldiers, and veterans. Earl Mulderink’s engaging work contributes to the growing body of Civil War studies that analyzes the “war at home” by focusing on the bustling center of the world’s whaling industry in the nineteenth century. Using a broad chronological framework of the 1840s through the 1890s, this book contextualizes the rise and fall of New Bedford’s whaling enterprise and details the war’s multifaceted impacts between 1861 and 1865. A major goal of this book is to explore the war’s social history by examining how the conflict touched the city’s residents—both white and black. Known before the war for both its wealth and its antislavery fervor, New Bedford offered a congenial home for a sizeable black community that experienced a “different Civil War” than did native-born whites. Drawing upon military pension files, published accounts, and welfare records, this book pays particular attention to soldiers and families connected with the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the “brave black regiment” (made famous by the Academy Award–winning 1989 film Glory) that helped shape national debates over black military enlistment, equal pay, and notions of citizenship. New Bedford’s enlightened white leaders, many of them wealthy whaling merchants with Quaker roots, actively promoted military enlistment that pulled 2,000 local citizen-soldiers (about 10 percent of the city’s total population) into the Union ranks. As the Whaling City gave way to a postwar landscape marked by textile manufacturing and heavy foreign immigration, the black community fought to keep alive the meaning and history of the Civil War. Joining their one-time neighbor Frederick Douglass, New Bedford’s black veterans used the memory of the war and their participation in it to push for full equality—a losing battle by the turn of the twentieth century.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780823292202

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 ‘‘A Burning and Shining Light’’: Prosperity and Enlightened Governance in Antebellum New Bedford -- 2 ‘‘The Nearest Approach to Freedom and Equality’’: African Americans in Antebellum New Bedford -- 3 ‘‘Suppression of an Unholy Rebellion’’: Wartime Mobilization on the Home Front -- 4 ‘‘Citizen-Soldiers of Massachusetts’’: New Bedford’s Volunteers in the Civil War -- 5 ‘‘Boys, I Only Did My Duty’’: New Bedford’s Black Soldiers in the Fifty- Fourth Massachusetts -- 6 ‘‘Worthy Recipients’’: New Bedford’s Black Veterans and the Web of Social Welfare -- 7 ‘‘Business Is Extremely Dull’’: Whaling and Manufacturing in Wartime New Bedford -- 8 ‘‘The Position of Our City Has Materially Changed’’: Public Costs and Municipal Governance during the Civil War -- 9 ‘‘The Great Hope for the Future’’: New Bedford in the Postbellum Era -- 10 ‘‘On the Altar of Our Common Country’’: Contested Commemorations of the Civil War -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

New Bedford’s Civil War examines the social, political, economic, and military history of New Bedford, Massachusetts, in the nineteenth century, with a focus on the Civil War homefront from 1861 to 1865 and on the city’s black community, soldiers, and veterans. Earl Mulderink’s engaging work contributes to the growing body of Civil War studies that analyzes the “war at home” by focusing on the bustling center of the world’s whaling industry in the nineteenth century. Using a broad chronological framework of the 1840s through the 1890s, this book contextualizes the rise and fall of New Bedford’s whaling enterprise and details the war’s multifaceted impacts between 1861 and 1865. A major goal of this book is to explore the war’s social history by examining how the conflict touched the city’s residents—both white and black. Known before the war for both its wealth and its antislavery fervor, New Bedford offered a congenial home for a sizeable black community that experienced a “different Civil War” than did native-born whites. Drawing upon military pension files, published accounts, and welfare records, this book pays particular attention to soldiers and families connected with the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the “brave black regiment” (made famous by the Academy Award–winning 1989 film Glory) that helped shape national debates over black military enlistment, equal pay, and notions of citizenship. New Bedford’s enlightened white leaders, many of them wealthy whaling merchants with Quaker roots, actively promoted military enlistment that pulled 2,000 local citizen-soldiers (about 10 percent of the city’s total population) into the Union ranks. As the Whaling City gave way to a postwar landscape marked by textile manufacturing and heavy foreign immigration, the black community fought to keep alive the meaning and history of the Civil War. Joining their one-time neighbor Frederick Douglass, New Bedford’s black veterans used the memory of the war and their participation in it to push for full equality—a losing battle by the turn of the twentieth century.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 03. Jan 2023)