My long-time readers know that I have taken the journal Civil War History to task for an article last year critical of historians engaged in online social media history projects. The author of the article took some flailing swipes at one particular blogger, but seemed to be unaware of most forms of social media. The failure of an article ostensively on Civil War social media to discuss anything other than blogs demonstrated the lack of familiarity the author had with the current state of history on social media.
One platform that overawes all others, blogs included, is Facebook. Three times as many Americans check out Facebook each day as use Twitter, even though Twitter gets a lot more attention from the Main Stream Media. Yet Facebook was not even mentioned in the Civil War History article. Many history professors, park rangers, and others involved in public history have thousands of Facebook “Friends” who enjoy their posts on U.S. history. And Facebook is not just a place to find links or short posts from historians. It is also a place where video is ascendant.
Facebook Live and other Facebook videos have really hit their stride during the pandemic. First, I want to look at National Park sites are using them. Go to the Facebook page for the Reconstruction Era National Park and follow it to get announcements of new videos and Facebook Lives that is is generating regularly.
Here is one Facebook program, a Ranger Chat on the “Legacy of Robert Smalls.” Included in the video is an interview with the great-great-grandson of the slave who stole a Confederate ship and turned it over to the Union.
When I viewed it, it had been out for just three days and had been played by over 1,000 viewers. I am guessing that if this had been a live pre-pandemic in-person presentation, the park would have thought having a hundred people at the chat was a good turnout. Instead it is still getting new viewers every day. Without social media, these sorts of ranger talks would have been dead for the last nine months.
The number of recorded Zoom meetings on Civil War and Reconstruction has also expanded exponentially. These are typically Zooms that were “live” on Zoom and were recorded and posted to Facebook and YouTube. Usually the person or group putting on the Zoom meeting will send out a notice a few days ahead and give you a way to join it live. These are typically recorded and posted on Facebook and YouTube.
Here is an interesting one from American Battlefield Trust called “Where the Civil War Strikes Twice: Towns and Farms that saw the War Leave and Return.” This looks at places like Fredericksburg where the Civil War returned again and again as the contesting armies kept fighting over the same territory. The panel includes Dr. Carol Reardon, Chief Historian of the American Battlefield Trust, Garry Adelman, Author and Co-Founder of Emerging Civil War, Chris Mackowski, Bryan Cheeseboro from the National Archives, and Senior Education Manager of the American Battlefield Trust, Kristopher White.
Here, three forms of social media were deployed, the live Zoom, and the posting of the recording on Facebook and YouTube. (YouTube is itself one of the largest social media platforms and one that was, of course, completely ignored by the article in Civil War History on social media.)
In my day job, I put on a lot of in-person educational programs for legal professionals. Since March I have had to shift to Zoom seminars and meetings. Let me tell you, it is a lot easier to put together a panel of experts on Zoom than it was in-person. That is one big plus of the Pandemic-inspired shift to Zoom and Facebook live. You are seeing historians and archivists together whom you might never see on one in-person stage in “real life.” A lot of historical sites, colleges, and organizations were forced to learn how to use these virtual tools nine months ago because of the impossibility of doing in-person meetings. Now they will become part of the regular toolkit of these entities in doing public history. And you can watch for free.
An added benefit of the Zooms is that viewers of the live events can submit questions and comments to the experts and some of the panelists actively engage with the comments.
The queen of the live video is Heather Cox Richardson. She is a historian of the 19th Century in the United States and she has written books on the Civil War and Reconstruction, as well as a history of the Republican Party. Every Tuesday she does a Facebook Live talk on modern politics in an historical context. On Thursdays she talks about different topics in American history. You should really try to see at least one of these Thursday history talks live. She gets 5,000 to 10,000 viewers while it is live, and there is a lively conversation in the chat. Richardon also will sometimes answer questions posed in the chat box. Just join her Facebook page to get notices of her talks.
Richardson shares the recorded talks on Facebook. These archived talks sometimes get a quarter-of-a-million views! Please STOP telling me “no one is interested in history anymore.” This month she is focusing on the Reconstruction Era on her Thursday sessions. This is the first in the Reconstruction series. It looks at Reconstruction issues that arose during the Civil War, the efforts of the Republican Party to cope with the challenges of war and reconstruction, as well as the first few months of peace.
This second video is of her December 10, 2020 discussion of Presidential Reconstruction during the presidency of Andrew Johnson.
Here is another approach to the Zoom seminar. The Grant Monument Association held a Zoom discussion of the relationship between Ulysses S. Grant and William Sherman. The colloquy is between Grant scholar John Marszalek and retired General David Petraeus.
Our last history Zoom is a December 4, 2020 meeting of the Thaddeus Stevens Society at which Fergus Bordewich talks about his new book: Congress at War, How Republican Reformers Fought the Civil War, Defied Lincoln, Ended Slavery, and Remade America. The meeting opens with a brief video clip on the book and then a very involved discussion of the book by the knowledgeable and passionate members of the society. Bordewich is very adept at answering their questions and explaining why Stevens and others in Congress deserved some of the credit for winning the Civil War. The members are used to the over focusing of casual history buffs on Lincoln as the sole author of Union victory, and so the author has a sympathetic audience. The audience is almost as entertaining as Bordewich. Added benefit, since the members appear on-screen you get a glimpse into their living rooms!
Blogs
Now back to the blogosphere.
Our friend Damian Shiels has started a new project at his Irish in the American Civil War blog. He is trying to identify the Irish immigrants in Andersonville National Cemetery. According to Shiels, there were more Irish who died at Andersonville than on any Civil War battlefield. This is a project that you can help with!
The blog of the Civil War Monitor has a long piece in which historians list their favorite new books on the Civil War Era. The historians include people like Brian Matthew Jordan, Jenn Murray, and Kevin Levin. If you are a reader, you will love this article.
Finally, Emerging Civil War has an article by Chris Mackowski on the limitations of using statues to learn about history. He points to a statue of Robert E. Lee at Antietam as an example. BONUS: If you were wondering if The Lost Cause was still alive, go to the bottom of Mackowski’s article to read the more than 150 comments. You will find an appalling mix of ill-informed opinion masquerading as history coupled with predictions that if the plaque on the statue is altered, the long march of Leninism will finally triumph! Wacky stuff.
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