Books by Catherine Clinton
When Harriet Met Sojourner
The life stories of two pivotal figures in American history—Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth—are explored in this powerful text paired with spectacular artwork. "A beautiful, uplifting book that is sure to inspire interest in these strong, amazing women." (School Library Journal)
This powerful picture book relates the lives of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth on alternating pages, leading up to the day they likely met in Boston in 1864. Share this book in the classroom or at home as an introduction to these two American heroes. A strong companion to such books as Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom and Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad.
"Compellingly told with a sure storyteller’s cadence. Both women renamed themselves, taking ownership of their lives and leading and inspiring others on the road to freedom." (School Library Journal)
Shane W. Evans's art in When Harriet Met Sojourner was praised as having a "strength of line and eloquence of expression that would suit a mural and that will carry well in a group showing." (Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books) His books include We March and 28 Days: Moments in Black History that Changed the World.
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Hold the Flag High
The true story of the first Black Medal of Freedom winner—a remarkable account of one of the most memorable battles in Civil War history.
Sergeant William H. Carney was one of the few Black officers of the newly formed Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Regiment—composed entirely of Black soldiers. In an important Civil War battle, Carney led his men over the ramparts of Fort Wagner, where Union soldiers charged the Confederates. As they fought, they gained strength from the stars and stripes of the American flag, Old Glory.
It was Carney’s vow to never let Old Glory touch the ground, and despite several gunshot wounds, he was able to rescue the flag from the fallen bearer.
Carney held the flag high as a symbol that his regiment would never submit to the Confederacy. The battle of Fort Wagner decimated the Fifty-fourth Regiment, but Carney’s heroism that night inspired all who survived.
This nonfiction picture book is authored by Catherine Clinton, the Denman Chair of American History at the University of Texas in San Antonio, and beautifully illustrated by Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award winner Shane W. Evans.
“Captures the fear and horror of battle as well as the bravery of the soldiers.”—Booklist
“An excellent resource to humanize textbook studies of the Civil War.” —School Library Journal
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Mrs. Lincoln: A Life
“This engaging, wonderfully written narrative provides fresh insight into this complex woman. It is a triumph.” —Doris Kearns Goodwin
Catherine Clinton, author of the award-winning Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom, returns with Mrs. Lincoln, the first new biography in almost 20 years of Mary Todd Lincoln, one of the most enigmatic First Ladies in American history. Called “fascinating” by Ken Burns and “spirited and fast-paced” by the Boston Globe, Mrs. Lincoln is a meticulously researched and long overdue addition to the historical record. In the words of Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Joseph Ellis, Mrs. Lincoln “is distinctive for its abiding sanity, its deft and in-depth handling of the White House years, and for the consistent quality of its prose.”
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Mrs. Lincoln: A Life
Abraham Lincoln is the most revered president in American history, but the woman at the center of his lifehis wife, Maryhas remained a historical enigma. One of the most tragic and mysterious of nineteenth-century figures, Mary Lincoln and her story symbolize the pain and loss of Civil War America. Authoritative and utterly engrossing, Mrs. Lincoln is the long-awaited portrait of the woman who so richly contributed to Lincoln's life and legacy.
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Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom
A definitive full-scale biography of the legendary fugitive slave turned "conductor" on the Underground Railroad describes Tubman's youth in the antebellum South, her escape to Philadelphia, her successful efforts to liberate slaves, and her work as a scout, spy, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War. 25,000 first printing.
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Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom
The definitive biography of one of the most courageous women in American history "reveals Harriet Tubman to be even more remarkable than her legend" (Newsday).
Celebrated for her exploits as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman has entered history as one of nineteenth-century America's most enduring and important figures. But just who was this remarkable woman? To John Brown, leader of the Harper's Ferry slave uprising, she was General Tubman. For the many slaves she led north to freedom, she was Moses. To the slaveholders who sought her capture, she was a thief and a trickster. To abolitionists, she was a prophet.
Now, in a biography widely praised for its impeccable research and its compelling narrative, Harriet Tubman is revealed for the first time as a singular and complex character, a woman who defied simple categorization.
"A thrilling reading experience. It expands outward from Tubman's individual story to give a sweeping, historical vision of slavery." --NPR's Fresh Air
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The Plantation Mistress: Woman's World in the Old South
This pioneering study of the much-mythologized Southern belle offers the first serious look at the lives of white women and their harsh and restricted place in the slave society before the Civil War. Drawing on the diaries, letters, and memoirs of hundreds of planter wives and daughters, Clinton sets before us in vivid detail the daily life of the plantation mistress and her ambiguous intermediary position in the hierarchy between slave and master.
"The Plantation Mistress challenges and reinterprets a host of issues related to the Old South. The result is a book that forces us to rethink some of our basic assumptions about two peculiar institutions -- the slave plantation and the nineteenth-century family. It approaches a familiar subject from a new angle, and as a result, permanently alters our understanding of the Old South and women's place in it.
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The Civil War: An Illustrated History
by Catherine Clinton, Ken Burns, Geoffrey C. Ward, Ric Burns
This new paperback edition of the successful "Scholastic Encyclopedia of the Civil War" gives a highly visual and chronological account of our nation's bloodiest war. It features a striking new cover.
This year-by-year account of the war which tore our country apart tells the story of the Civil War through eyewitness accounts, profiles of people famous and ordinary, point-of-view sidebars which capture the essence of the many differences between north and south, and period art which shows the people, places, and landscape of the United States from 1860 to 1877. Arranged by date, each chapter highlights the controversies, conflicts, and compromises as the separation between north and south builds and explodes. Children will come to understand the many facets of this often misunderstood war.
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The Civil War: An Illustrated History
by Catherine Clinton, Ken Burns, Geoffrey C. Ward, Ric Burns
"A treasure for the eye and mind" (The New York Times) about the greatest war in American history—and a magnificent companion volume to the celebrated PBS television series by one of our most treasured filmmakers. • With more than 500 illustrations: rare Civil War photographs—many never before published—as well as paintings, lithographs, and maps reproduced in full color.
It was the greatest war in American history. It was waged in 10,000 places—from Valverde, New Mexico, and Tullahoma, Tennessee, to St. Albans, Vermont, and Fernandina on the Florida coast. More than 3 million Americans fought in it and more than 600,000 men died in it. Not only the immensity of the cataclysm but the new weapons, the new standards of generalship, and the new strategies of destruction—together with the birth of photography—were to make the Civil War an event present ever since in the American consciousness. Thousands of books have been written about it. Yet there has never been a history of the Civil War quite like this one.
A wealth of documentary illustrations and a narrative alive with original and energetic scholarship combine to present both the grand sweep of events and the minutest of human details. Here are the crucial events of the war: the firing of the first shots at Fort Sumter; the battles of Shiloh, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg; the siege of Vicksburg; Sherman’s dramatic march to the sea; the surrender at Appomattox. Here are the superb portraits of the key figures: Abraham Lincoln, claiming for the presidency almost autocratic power in order to preserve the Union; the austere Jefferson Davis, whose government disappeared almost before it could be formed; Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, seasoned generals of fierce brilliance and reckless determination. Here is the America in which the war was fought: The Civil War is not simply the story of great battles and great generals; it is also an elaborate portrait of the American people caught up in the turbulence of the times.
An additional resonance is provided by four essays by prominent Civil War historians, and Shelby Foote talks to filmmaker Ken Burns about wartime life on the battlefield and at home.
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I, Too, Sing America: Three Centuries of African American Poetry
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 thirty-six 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. Prize-winning 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.
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Stepdaughters of History: Southern Women and the American Civil War (Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History)
In Stepdaughters of History, noted scholar Catherine Clinton reflects on the roles of women as historical actors within the field of Civil War studies and examines the ways in which historians have redefined female wartime participation. Clinton contends that despite the recent attention, white and black women’s contributions remain shrouded in myth and sidelined in traditional historical narratives. Her work tackles some of these well-worn assumptions, dismantling prevailing attitudes that consign women to the footnotes of Civil War texts.
Clinton highlights some of the debates, led by emerging and established Civil War scholars, which seek to demolish demeaning and limiting stereotypes of southern women as simpering belles, stoic Mammies, Rebel spitfires, or sultry spies. Such caricatures mask the more concrete and compelling struggles within the Confederacy, and in Clinton’s telling, a far more balanced and vivid understanding of women’s roles within the wartime South emerges. New historical evidence has given rise to fresh insights, including important revisionist literature on women’s overt and covert participation in activities designed to challenge the rebellion and on white women’s roles in reshaping the war’s legacy in postwar narratives. Increasingly, Civil War scholarship integrates those women who defied gender conventions to assume men’s roles―including those few who gained notoriety as spies, scouts, or soldiers during the war.
As Clinton’s work demonstrates, the larger questions of women’s wartime contributions remain important correctives to our understanding of the war’s impact. Through a fuller appreciation of the dynamics of sex and race, Stepdaughters of History promises a broader conversation in the twenty-first century, inviting readers to continue to confront the conundrums of the American Civil War.
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Confederate Statues and Memorialization (History in the Headlines Ser.)
by Catherine Clinton, W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Nell Irvin Painter, Gary W. Gallagher, Karen L. Cox
Nine killed in Charleston church shooting. White supremacists demonstrate in Charlottesville. Monuments decommissioned in New Orleans and Chapel Hill. The headlines keep coming, and the debate rolls on. How should we contend with our troubled history as a nation? What is the best way forward?
This first book in UGA Press’s History in the Headlines series offers a rich discussion between four leading scholars who have studied the history of Confederate memory and memorialization. Through this dialogue, we see how historians explore contentious topics and provide historical context for students and the broader public. Confederate Statues and Memorialization artfully engages the past and its influence on present racial and social tensions in an accessible format for students and interested general readers.
Following the conversation, the book includes a “Top Ten” set of essays and articles that everyone should read to flesh out their understanding of this contentious, sometimes violent topic. The book closes with an extended list of recommended reading, offering readers specific suggestions for pursuing other voices and points of view.
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The American Civil War (A True Book (Relaunch))
A fascinating series that examines the causes and consequences of one of the deadliest conflicts in our country's history.
More than 3 million men, women, and-yes-children fought in the Civil War. And more than 600,000 of them died. For four bloody years, fighting raged from Georgia to Pennsylvania and as far west as the Mississippi River. The war tested the strength of our country, as well as the fortitude of our leaders. Learn about the battles, generals, and everyday heroes that held the nation together.
About This Series:
The Civil War took place in America between April 1861 and April 1865. During the four-year struggle between the North and the South, approximately 10,000 battles were fought on land and sea, leaving 620,000 dead. As a result of the war, more than three million enslaved people gained their freedom. The four books in the "Exploring the Civil War" series examine the war's key people, places, and events, and its causes and consequences, making them the perfect tools to introduce children to one of the defining events in American history.
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$7.99
The Columbia Guide to American Women in the Nineteenth Century
by Catherine Clinton, Christine A. Lunardini
The experience of women in the nineteenth century has generated a wealth of interdisciplinary research in recent decades. The Columbia Guide to American Women in the Nineteenth Century presents the best of the recent scholarship available in a concise, "one-stop" resource, providing students of women's history and nineteenth-century American culture with an authoritative source of information and interpretation.
The authors emphasize areas in which scholars have identified important changes (such as suffrage and reform), topics in which researchers are now making great strides (such as racial, ethnic, religious, and regional diversity), and innovative and relatively recent explorations (for example, work on female sexuality). Accessible overview articles and alphabetical encyclopedia-like entries are combined in a comprehensive, easy-to-use volume.
Part 1 contains a historiographical essay followed by a ten-chapter narrative overview. These chapters include discussions of families and households, labor and the workforce, religion and morality, feminism and equal rights, reform and voluntarism, and more.
Part 2 is an A-to-Z listing of concise entries on key terms, notable figures, political movements, social and religious organizations, and legislation.
Part 3 is an annotated chronology placing events in historical context.
Part 4 is a topically organized selection of the best resources for further research, including general historical works, biographies and autobiographies, journals, archives, web sites, novels, and films.
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Roe V. Wade Fifty Years After
by Catherine Clinton, Rhae Lynn Barnes
Just over fifty years ago on January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade assured millions of women that abortion was a protected constitutional right due to a woman's right to privacy. In the context of the burgeoning women's rights movement, it seemed like an inalienable victory: women might become equal to men in their right to determine what would happen to their bodies. This was a hard-won fight that reached back to colonial America and slavery, but on June 24, 2022, the decision was shockingly reversed by the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. What happened? What transpired socially, politically, legally, in religious institutions and in popular culture in the half-century when "the right to choose" led to this stunning transformation in American society?
Roe v. Wade: Fifty Years After, coedited by Rhae Lynn Barnes and Catherine Clinton for the History in the Headlines series, brings together a team of world-renowned scholars, prizewinning historians, and Pulitzer Prize-winning public intellectuals who specialize in reproductive history. They assembled at Harvard University in the weeks following the Dobbs decision to talk through the centuries-long history of abortion in what became the United States, how its representation changed in the law and popular culture, and how a wellspring of social movements on both the right and left led to a fifty-year showdown over some of the most outstanding human questions: What is life? When does it begin? Who has the right to end it? Who has the right to determine what happens to someone else's body? How can the law define and restrict women's reproductive health? And how have race, class, geography, sexuality, and other factors shaped who gets to be a part of answering these questions? The international impact of the struggles for reproductive freedom for women within the United States comes into sharp focus within this important volume, shedding light on past, present, and future dimensions of reproductive freedom for all Americans.
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