The imagined Civil War
Subtitle: popular literature of the North & South, 1861-1865
By: Alice Fahs.
Series: Civil War America
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Chapel Hill
Language: eng
Number of pages: 410
Subjects: War and literature -- Southern States -- History -- 19th century; American literature -- Southern States -- History and criticism; Popular literature -- Southern States -- History and criticism; War and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century; American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Popular literature -- United States -- History and criticism; War stories, American -- History and criticism; War poetry, American -- History and criticism; War in literature; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Literature and the war; Southern States -- In literature
Description: "Alice Fahs explores a little-known and fascinating side of the Civil War - the outpouring of popular literature inspired by the conflict. From 1861 to 1865, authors and publishers in both the North and the South produced a remarkable variety of war-related compositions, including poems, songs, children's stories, romances, novels, histories, and even humorous pieces. Fahs mines these rich but long-neglected resources to recover the diversity of the war's political and social meanings.".

"Instead of narrowly portraying the Civil War as a clash between two great, white armies, popular literature offered a wide range of representations through which to consider the conflict, as Fahs demonstrates.

Works that explored the war's devastating impact on white women's lives, for example, proclaimed the importance of their experiences on the home front, while popular writings that celebrated black manhood and heroism in the wake of emancipation helped readers begin to imagine new roles for blacks in American life.

By providing subjects and characters with which a broad spectrum of people could identify, popular literature invited ordinary Americans to envision themselves as active participants in the war and helped shape new modes of imagining the relationships of diverse individuals to the nation."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [365]-391) and index.
Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--New York University.