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Essays & Reviews by Daniel Kilbride

Research paper thumbnail of Cannibals gorillas and the struggle over radical reconstruction

Civil War History, 2021

Antebellum racism did not doom the Reconstruction project of black citizenship to failure. In the... more Antebellum racism did not doom the Reconstruction project of black citizenship to failure. In the 1850s, a flood of African travel accounts captivated Anglo-American readers. These appeared at an opportune time for Northerners committed to granting citizenship to 4 million newly emancipated slaves. Together with the glorious record of black military service, these books proved that people of African descent possessed the moral and intellectual qualities to participate in civic life. In the 1860s, however, a new rash of African travel accounts appeared that gave free rein to the most lurid images of African peoples. White Southerners and their Northern allies realized the potential of these accounts and weaponized them. They seized control of the terms of the debate over black citizenship. Instead of demanding that the defeated South obey the Union’s basic demands for just treatment of the freedpeople, Republicans allowed themselves to be diverted into a contest over the innate barbarity of African people. It was a wholly unnecessary debate and one that, given the ruthlessness of their opponents, Republicans were poorly positioned to win.

Research paper thumbnail of review of the British Gentry, the Southern Planter, and the Northern Family Farmer: Agriculture and Sectional Antagonism in North America, by James L. Huston, in Historian

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Louise Stevenson, Lincoln in the Atlantic World, American Historical Review

Research paper thumbnail of review of The Travel Journals of Henrietta Marchant Liston, edited by Louise V. North, in the Journal of the Early Republic

Research paper thumbnail of The Old South Confronts the Dilemma of David Livingstone

Journal of Southern History 82:4 (November 2016), 789-822. David Livingstone posed a real proble... more Journal of Southern History 82:4 (November 2016), 789-822.

David Livingstone posed a real problem for white southerners before the Civil War: he was an international hero, but also an abolitionist. Like other antislavery celebrities, such as Charles Dickens, the South could not simply pretend he did not exist. So they took up a number of strategies to recognize him without acknowledging his hostility to slavery, including shameless appropriation (claiming he vindicated reopening the slave trade), and, chiefly, selective accommodation. Southerners simply ignored, worked around, or winked at Livingstone's antislavery message. They were forced into these often shameless intellectual acrobatics because rejecting Livingstone was tantamount to rejecting western civilization, which white southerners were unwilling to do. The lesson here is that the white South did not reject modernity -- modernity was rejecting it. And white southerners blinked first.

Research paper thumbnail of Review of A Warring Nation: Honor, Race, and Humiliation in America and Abroad

This review appeared in the Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 99 no. 2, pp. 246-48.

Research paper thumbnail of Review of The US South and Europe: Transatlantic Relations in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Research paper thumbnail of Roundtable review of Tim Roberts, Distant Revolutions: 1848 and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Antislavery and Abolition in Philadelphia: Emancipation and the Long Struggle for Racial Justice in the City of Brotherly Love

Research paper thumbnail of What Did Africa Mean to Frederick Douglass?

Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies

Research paper thumbnail of Slavery & Utilitarianism: Thomas Cooper and the Mind of the Old South

Journal of Southern History

Research paper thumbnail of Cultivation, Conservatism, and the Early National Gentry: The Manigault Family and their Circle

Journal of the Early Republic

Research paper thumbnail of Southern Medical Students in Philadelphia: Science and Sociability in the Republic of Medicine

Journal of Southern History

Research paper thumbnail of Travel, Ritual, and National Identity: Planters on the European Tour, 1820-1861

Journal of Southern History

Research paper thumbnail of Elizabeth Fox–Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese . Slavery in White and Black: Class and Race in the Southern Slaveholders' New World Order

American Historical Review, 2009

Research paper thumbnail of The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861 (review

Journal of The Early Republic, 2005

Research paper thumbnail of William E. Wiethoff. Crafting the Overseer's Image .:Crafting the Overseer's Image. (Studies in Rhetoric/Communication

American Historical Review, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Class, Region, and Memory in a South Carolina-Philadelphia Marriage

Journal of Family History, 2003

Research paper thumbnail of The Dilemma of Anti-Catholicism in American Travel Writing, circa 1790-1830

Research paper thumbnail of The Material Culture of Colonial Travel

Research paper thumbnail of Cannibals gorillas and the struggle over radical reconstruction

Civil War History, 2021

Antebellum racism did not doom the Reconstruction project of black citizenship to failure. In the... more Antebellum racism did not doom the Reconstruction project of black citizenship to failure. In the 1850s, a flood of African travel accounts captivated Anglo-American readers. These appeared at an opportune time for Northerners committed to granting citizenship to 4 million newly emancipated slaves. Together with the glorious record of black military service, these books proved that people of African descent possessed the moral and intellectual qualities to participate in civic life. In the 1860s, however, a new rash of African travel accounts appeared that gave free rein to the most lurid images of African peoples. White Southerners and their Northern allies realized the potential of these accounts and weaponized them. They seized control of the terms of the debate over black citizenship. Instead of demanding that the defeated South obey the Union’s basic demands for just treatment of the freedpeople, Republicans allowed themselves to be diverted into a contest over the innate barbarity of African people. It was a wholly unnecessary debate and one that, given the ruthlessness of their opponents, Republicans were poorly positioned to win.

Research paper thumbnail of review of the British Gentry, the Southern Planter, and the Northern Family Farmer: Agriculture and Sectional Antagonism in North America, by James L. Huston, in Historian

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Louise Stevenson, Lincoln in the Atlantic World, American Historical Review

Research paper thumbnail of review of The Travel Journals of Henrietta Marchant Liston, edited by Louise V. North, in the Journal of the Early Republic

Research paper thumbnail of The Old South Confronts the Dilemma of David Livingstone

Journal of Southern History 82:4 (November 2016), 789-822. David Livingstone posed a real proble... more Journal of Southern History 82:4 (November 2016), 789-822.

David Livingstone posed a real problem for white southerners before the Civil War: he was an international hero, but also an abolitionist. Like other antislavery celebrities, such as Charles Dickens, the South could not simply pretend he did not exist. So they took up a number of strategies to recognize him without acknowledging his hostility to slavery, including shameless appropriation (claiming he vindicated reopening the slave trade), and, chiefly, selective accommodation. Southerners simply ignored, worked around, or winked at Livingstone's antislavery message. They were forced into these often shameless intellectual acrobatics because rejecting Livingstone was tantamount to rejecting western civilization, which white southerners were unwilling to do. The lesson here is that the white South did not reject modernity -- modernity was rejecting it. And white southerners blinked first.

Research paper thumbnail of Review of A Warring Nation: Honor, Race, and Humiliation in America and Abroad

This review appeared in the Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 99 no. 2, pp. 246-48.

Research paper thumbnail of Review of The US South and Europe: Transatlantic Relations in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Research paper thumbnail of Roundtable review of Tim Roberts, Distant Revolutions: 1848 and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Antislavery and Abolition in Philadelphia: Emancipation and the Long Struggle for Racial Justice in the City of Brotherly Love

Research paper thumbnail of What Did Africa Mean to Frederick Douglass?

Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies

Research paper thumbnail of Slavery & Utilitarianism: Thomas Cooper and the Mind of the Old South

Journal of Southern History

Research paper thumbnail of Cultivation, Conservatism, and the Early National Gentry: The Manigault Family and their Circle

Journal of the Early Republic

Research paper thumbnail of Southern Medical Students in Philadelphia: Science and Sociability in the Republic of Medicine

Journal of Southern History

Research paper thumbnail of Travel, Ritual, and National Identity: Planters on the European Tour, 1820-1861

Journal of Southern History

Research paper thumbnail of Elizabeth Fox–Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese . Slavery in White and Black: Class and Race in the Southern Slaveholders' New World Order

American Historical Review, 2009

Research paper thumbnail of The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861 (review

Journal of The Early Republic, 2005

Research paper thumbnail of William E. Wiethoff. Crafting the Overseer's Image .:Crafting the Overseer's Image. (Studies in Rhetoric/Communication

American Historical Review, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Class, Region, and Memory in a South Carolina-Philadelphia Marriage

Journal of Family History, 2003

Research paper thumbnail of The Dilemma of Anti-Catholicism in American Travel Writing, circa 1790-1830

Research paper thumbnail of The Material Culture of Colonial Travel

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Being American in Europe (and also Passage to America) by Stephen Tuffnell, Reviews in American History

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Being American in Europe (and two other books, but who cares) by Lawrence Peskin, in History: Reviews of New Books

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Being American in Europe by William L. Coleman, Journal of Transatlantic Studies

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Being American in Europe by Will B. Mackintosh, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Being American in Europe by Thomas Bender, Journal of Southern History

Journal of Southern History

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Being American in Europe by Philipp Ziesche, Journal of American Studies

Journal of American Studies

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Being American in Europe by Andrew White, Rocky Mountain Review

Rocky Mountain Review, Jun 21, 2014

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Being American in Europe by Eileen Ka-May Cheng, American Historical Review

Research paper thumbnail of review of Being American in Europe by Tim Roberts, Journal of American History

Research paper thumbnail of review of Being American in Europe by Charlene Boyer Lewis, Journal of the Early Republic

Research paper thumbnail of How the Gorilla Helped Defeat Radical Reconstruction

African exploration accounts of the 1850s had the potential to soften racial attitudes in the Nor... more African exploration accounts of the 1850s had the potential to soften racial attitudes in the North. During Reconstruction, Republicans used them -- along with the record of black military service -- to argue that African Americans possessed the capacity for civic equality. But a new raft of race-obsessed exploration accounts in the 1860s repudiated that message, allowing conservatives to weaponize African travel to defeat Racial policies. They set the terms of the debate, forcing Republicans to argue for black capacity on increasingly unfavorable ground. The debate reveals that racial attitudes did not doom Reconstruction to failure. The evidence shows that northern attitudes were open to challenge.

Research paper thumbnail of Catholic Envy of Southern Travelers.docx

My essay for the St. George Tucker Society meeting, July 2016

Research paper thumbnail of Missions, Colonies, and Empire In Anglo-American Travel Writing about Africa

Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, July 2016

Research paper thumbnail of Don't Know Much about Africa: The Critical Reception of Three Mid-19th Century African Travel Accounts in the United States

Research paper thumbnail of How the Old South Confronted the Dilemma of David Livingstone

Note: this is a shortened version of a much longer piece, and I haven't straightened out the note... more Note: this is a shortened version of a much longer piece, and I haven't straightened out the notes from the long essay to the conference paper. Chill out, in other words.

David Livingstone was the greatest African explorer of the middle-nineteenth century -- a missionary, a humanitarian, a visionary for the integration of Africa into western civilization. He was an international hero. He was also an abolitionist. How did white southerners deal with that? I will be presenting this essay to the Southern Historical Association as part of the panel "What Does Africa Mean to Me? Africa and Antebellum African-American Identity" at 9:30 am, Friday, November 14 (session #3). http://sha.uga.edu/2014%20Program%20for%20Web.pdf

Research paper thumbnail of dueling 2018 sec. 51.pdf

dueling specs, 2018

It's the end of the semester, so that means it's time to duel!

Research paper thumbnail of HS 235: African American History Fall 2016 Essay specs on the Moynihan Report and responses to it

This is a project in my African American history survey focusing on the contemporary and modern r... more This is a project in my African American history survey focusing on the contemporary and modern responses to the Moynihan Report. I welcome any feedback, but no trolls, please.

Research paper thumbnail of What the Abolitionists Were Up Against, Revisited

What the Abolitionists Were Up Against, Revisited, 2020

Antislavery activists in the 19th century United States faced a set of formidable obstacles in mo... more Antislavery activists in the 19th century United States faced a set of formidable obstacles in moving the needle of northern popular opinion from apathy (at best) to engagement. This essay explores the hostile landscape of American social, political, and cultural life within which antislavery writers operated. They could not ignore these conditions if they were going to appeal to their largely northern, middle class audience: they had to assuage their concerns, prompt them to question assumptions, and force them to question conventional wisdom. But northern middle-class culture also provided antislavery activists with opportunities. Pushing the right buttons had the potential to transform hostility and apathy into interest and, maybe, enthusiasm in the fight against slavery. This essay does not show how antislavery women and wen pushed those buttons, but it does identify them and explores their potential to turn a culture of indifference into a culture of antislavery.