Catherine Clinton | University of Texas at San Antonio (original) (raw)

Catherine Clinton

Catherine Clinton holds the Denman Chair in American History at the University of Texas in San Antonio and an international research professorship at Queen’s University Belfast.

Clinton has written and edited over 30 books, from children’s fiction about Phillis Wheatley to the Columbia Guide to American Women in the Nineteenth Century–from booklets for the National Park Service to poetry anthologies.

Her first book, The Plantation Mistress: Woman’s World in the Old South, appeared in 1982 & was as a selection of the History Book Club, and her 2004 biography of Harriet Tubman, was named as one of the best non-fiction books of 2004 by the Christian Science Monitor and the Chicago Tribune. Mrs. Lincoln: A Life was published by Harper Collins in 2009 and she served as a consultant for Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film Lincoln.

She has served on the executive council of the Society of American Historians and on the Advisory Committee of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Bicentennial Commission, and remains on advisory boards for Civil War History , The President’s Cottage and Soldier’s Home and Ford’s Theatre.

In 2016, she served as President of the Southern Historical Association and the Louisiana State University Press published her Fleming Lectures: Stepdaughters Of History: Southern Women and The American Civil War.

She co-edits a series with Jim Downs: HISTORY IN THE HEADLINES (UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS)
CONFEDERATE STATUES AND MEMORIALIZATION (2019), VOTER SUPPRESSION IN THE U.S. (2020),
JANUARY 6 AND THE POLITICS OF HISTORY (2024) & ROE V. WADE: FIFTY YEARS AFTER (2024).
Address: Department of History- McKinney BLDG
One UTSA Circle
San Antonio, Tx 78249

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Papers by Catherine Clinton

Reviews in American History, Dec 1, 1983

The Journal of American History, Dec 1, 1992

Page 1. PORTRAITS OF WOMEN FROM SETTLEMENT TO THE PRESENT GJ Barfer-Benfield & Catherine Clin... more Page 1. PORTRAITS OF WOMEN FROM SETTLEMENT TO THE PRESENT GJ Barfer-Benfield & Catherine Clinton Page 2. Page 3. PORTRAITS OF AMERICAN WOMEN This One HJ7C-BRK-8YZ6 Page 4. Page 5. PORTRAITS ...

Enlace de documentos de ProQuest RESUMEN [...]contrary to the claims of certain champions of Conf... more Enlace de documentos de ProQuest RESUMEN [...]contrary to the claims of certain champions of Confederate heritage, the abolition of slavery is now firmly regarded as a central aim of the Union cause in the American Civil War. Particularly prominent were writers who have devoted their careers to countering the image of enslaved African Americans as people denied any agency, robbed of their culture by the transatlantic voyage, whose lack of organised resistance reflected a passive or cooperative response to their subhuman status. TEXTO COMPLETO A director's powerful meditation upon one slave's story forces Catherine Clinton to reflect on history's intolerable cruelties.

The biopic Harriet, directed by Kasi Lemmons with Cynthia Erivo in the title role, was a box offi... more The biopic Harriet, directed by Kasi Lemmons with Cynthia Erivo in the title role, was a box office hit in 2019 and earned 35 award nominations, including two in the Oscar categories: best song and best actress. The story of the life of Harriet Tubman, an American hero and legendary conductor on the Underground Railroad, did not become the focus of a feature film well into the twenty-first century. Kellie Carter Jackson, writing in 2014 about the state of black actors and filmmaking, critiqued the film Glory (1989), commenting, "there is hardly a black woman present in the film-an omission that is all the more peculiar when one considers that Harriet Tubman served as a spy during the war and witnessed the assault on Fort Wagner that is portrayed in the film." 1 She goes on to complain: 'How is it possible to have one of the most famous black women abolitionists in American history operating in the same space as black soldiers with no mention of her, let alone a cameo? Furthermore, how is it possible that there is no biographical film on Harriet Tubman?" 2 Five years later, whether scholars and biographers agree with the liberties taken by this film, a virtuoso cinematic performance has appeared to meet this challenge. Film projects as well as reflects transformative values. The visual representations of black women have been shaped by diverse dynamics, with racism and sexism as overpowering influences. Thus, the impact of media, and particularly film, seems a significant opportunity to reconfigure unidimensional perspectives on black womanhood within mainstream U.S. culture. Historical epics with black women as lead actors in commercial features are a relatively recent development. The highest-profile movie with the most potential for meaningful impact continues to be the "biopic," as screen portraits/biographical films are affectionately called. Many of us have worked long and hard in the archives, and in classrooms, to try to convey a sense of time and place for our readers, for our students-for our own selves. We seek portraits by filmmakers to create compelling visions

The paucity of women presidents is no longer a valid complaint within the organization, as seven ... more The paucity of women presidents is no longer a valid complaint within the organization, as seven women have been elected since the tum of the twenty-first century, most recently to serve in 2015 and 2016. A list of past SHA presidents is kept on the organization's website, http://thesha.org/officers-and-committees/past-presidents. I wish to thank the many scholars who took time from their valuable schedules to provide me with feedback on earlier drafts, but particularly Stephen Berry, Jim Downs, and Sandy Treadway, whose contributions were critical to completion of this essay.

Gender and Sexuality in the American Civil War may be a collection of essays more likely to appea... more Gender and Sexuality in the American Civil War may be a collection of essays more likely to appeal to the American Civil War scholar than the gender studies scholar, it being essentially one in a line of very welcome historical scholarship that breaks with the tradition of knowing the war only from the perspective of its celebrated male participants, the household names of Lincoln, Lee, Chamberlain and Jackson. However, knowledge of the war is far from essential and so the curious mind of anyone open to new perspectives on gender in an American historical context will find this volume stimulating, shocking and enlightening. Clinton and Silber's previous collaboration, Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1992), was a groundbreaking collection of new scholarship that placed gender at the very core of political processes and social experiences during the war, including sexist antagonism between cultures, feminist activity in the abolitionist movement and new expectations of masculinity brought by the military conflict. This more recent publication continues in this vein with more original insights into the crises, the suffering and the triumphs of men and women caught up in a bloody and traumatic war. Both clear and accessible, Virginia Gould's essay on the Catholic nuns of the South reveals that the women of this religious order enjoyed a relative freedom from the control of patriarchy in contrast with their secular sisters. The nuns' bravery in their aid to the starving and the destitute, their resourcefulness and autonomy, even in comparison to male clergy, was such that, Gould claims, 'a habit went further than a robe and collar' (p. 50). At the very least their actions were in service to their God; politically speaking it was a form of 'social activism within the language and behavior of piety and fervour' (p. 55). Clinton's own chapter on 'public women' presents evidence of the dramatic rise in prostitution amongst women, held responsible for spreading fear, disease and prejudice in urban environments such as Richmond and New Orleans. More revealing is the treatment of starving, working-class women after the Richmond Bread Riot of 1863, in which women driven to steal food and clothes were reported in the press as being already very familiar with courtrooms, not starving but greedy and, it was insinuated, women of the street. Essays such as these, as diverse as their topics of study, help the reader to view the American Civil

The nation looked back on its Civil War, in the midst of a whirlwind of domestic debates, while i... more The nation looked back on its Civil War, in the midst of a whirlwind of domestic debates, while impending foreign crises loomed-but with a new young President in the White House, with his charismatic wife and children, the country seemed on the brink of momentous change. On the cusp of a new era, it seemed an appropriate time, if not overdue, to reflect on the legacy of an epic historical era that tore the nation in two. Whether referring to the centenary in 1961 with John F. Kennedy in office, or the sesquicentennial in 2011 with Barack Obama, backward glances at the legacy of the American Civil War offered challenges as well as possibilities. Race was at the center of visceral debates in both of these historical moments. By the time of the Civil War sesquicentennial, a vast body of scholarship had endorsed slavery as well as states' rights, white supremacy as well as patriotism, as centerpieces for our understanding of the war's causes. Emancipation and constitutional amendments have proven equally compelling to appreciating the era's key outcomes. The fact that American women, black and white, North and South, confronted daunting obstacles to equality-during the Civil War era and during its centennial-was no mere coincidence. The struggle for women to overthrow male restraints was, just as the struggle to seize equal opportunity remains, an intricate challenge. Anti-slavery and equality battles were intertwined: as antebellum activist Angelina Grimké Weld (1805-1879) noted, slaves might be emancipated at the same time that women were still being denied equal status-and women could never be free until slavery was abolished. Grimké recognized interlocking systems of oppression, and proposed a domino effect to destroy these destructive constrictions.

Powerful and diverse, this unique collection of African American poetry spans three centuries of ... more Powerful and diverse, this unique collection of African American poetry spans three centuries of writing in America. Poets bare their souls, speak their minds, trace their roots, and proclaim their dreams in the thirtysix poems compiled here. From lamentations to celebrations, the poems of Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Gwendolyn Brooks, among others, reveal the ironies of black America, juxtaposing themes of resistance and reconciliation, hope and despair. Eminent scholar Catherine Clinton further illuminates these poems through brief biographies of the poets and notes on the text. The result is an authoritative introduction to twenty-five of America's best poets. Prizewinning artist Stephen Alcorn lends his own artistic vision and passion to the collection, providing stunning visual interpretations of each poem. Together they create a stirring tribute to these great poets.

Reviews in American History, Dec 1, 1983

The Journal of American History, Dec 1, 1992

It is a tale crying out for a Hollywood treatment: once upon a time in the 19th century, Julia Wa... more It is a tale crying out for a Hollywood treatment: once upon a time in the 19th century, Julia Ward, a Titian-haired beauty and aspiring poet who will be known to posterity as the author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, meets her match in the powerful patrician Samuel Gridley Howe. (The hapless fellow ended up committing suicide in Paris two years after their flirtation.) She detested life back at her husband's Perkins Institute ("I cannot swim about in this frozen ocean of Boston life"), and became increasingly alienated from family routines. After the Civil War, Julia sought money by delivering philosophical lectures and going on the road, a career path that elicited fury from her husband and two elder daughters. A week before her death in 1910, she was given an honorary degree at Smith College, with a chorus of 2,000 white-clad girls singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic at the ceremony.

During the pre-Civil War era, many mixed-race people who were able to pass for white used this st... more During the pre-Civil War era, many mixed-race people who were able to pass for white used this strategy to escape the bondage they were born into-by, in other words, "performing" whiteness. African Americans were ensnared by the double consciousness of which W. E. B. DuBois wrote so powerfully: "One ever feels his two-ness,-an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." From ongoing debate about Thomas Jefferson fathering children with Sally Hemings, to the mixed-race background of the late New York Times literary critic Anatole Broyard, "unmaskings" of family and racial identities continue to make headlines. [...]the practice of passing in US society resonates elsewhere. A Chosen Exile is given depth and resonance by Hobbs' excavation of a wide range of sources, and she is as adept at tracking nuance in antebellum "runaway slave" advertisements as she is at spotting

From the book Writing History with Lightning: Cinematic Representations of Nineteenth-Century Ame... more From the book Writing History with Lightning: Cinematic Representations of Nineteenth-Century America, edited by Jacob Lee et. al, Louisiana State University Press.

The hard hand of war thrashed its way through the grass, uprooting traditions and leaving a trail... more The hard hand of war thrashed its way through the grass, uprooting traditions and leaving a trail of bruised refugees and all that remained to a scattering wind. Scared combatants foraged an unfamiliar landscape, trampling flora and fauna, disturbing any natural rhythms, as all lay bare along the banks of memory: fearful of crossing to the other side-the unknown-to perhaps defeat, and to, God forbid, retribution. The formerly proud nation was laid low, littered with the debris of reckless ego and martial pride. The Confederate nation flourished longer in commemoration than its bleak survival of four memorable, martyred years, from secession in Charleston, from valleys to little round tops, into craters and trenches, from puddles of blood and to oceans of mud-spiraling toward the bleak, blank surrender at Appomattox: one thousand, four hundred, and fifty eight days, but who's counting? Who's counting on those men who went off to protect women and children from insult, then invaders? Who's counting the months and weeks and days when those left behind mopped brows, rolled bandages, darned socks, stitched sashes, and waved handkerchiefs before resorting to using them. After the years rolled by, many began to chronicle poignant accounts of countless sacrifices and the inglorious deeds of the enemy. The writing was therapy, but the rereading could not provide cure.

Book edited by Gary W. Gallagher and J. Matthew Gallman, University of North Carolina Press

Chapter from Book Exploring Lincoln: Great Historians Reappraise Our Greatest President, edited b... more Chapter from Book Exploring Lincoln: Great Historians Reappraise Our Greatest President, edited by Harold Holzer, Craig L. Symonds,
Frank J. Williams, Fordham University Press.

Book chapter from Sisterly Networks: Fifty Years of Southern Women's Histories, edited by Catheri... more Book chapter from Sisterly Networks: Fifty Years of Southern Women's Histories, edited by Catherine Clinton, University of Florida Press.

Book chapter from Half Sisters of History: Southern Women and the American Past, edited by Anne F... more Book chapter from Half Sisters of History: Southern Women and the American Past, edited by Anne Firor Scott. Duke University Press.

From the book Gettysburg Replies: The World Responds to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Glo... more From the book Gettysburg Replies: The World Responds to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Globe Pequot Press.

From the book Beyond Slavery : Overcoming Its Religious and Sexual Legacies, edited by B. Brooten.

Book Chapter from Battle Scars: Gender and Sexuality in the American Civil War, edited by Catheri... more Book Chapter from Battle Scars: Gender and Sexuality in the American Civil War, edited by Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber