Websites

American Ballroom Companion from the Library of Congress, An

This site offers a listing of dance manuals from the 19th century; some of which are available in their entirety online. In addition, the Library of Congress offers videos of some dances and links to specific dance instructions here.

Association of Living History, Farm, and Agricultural Museums
ALHFAM serves those involved in living historical farms, agricultural museums and outdoor museums of history and folklife. ALHFAM.org provides information on ALHFAM and up-to-date news on the living history museum community.

Authentic Campaigner
"A Web Site for the Authentic Civil War Living Historian" offers some wonderful research articles and good information on impressions. There are three civilian specific forums. It tends to be more oriented toward national events and environs east of Texas. The long time users can also be rather harsh with new users and repetitive questions. Be sure to use the search function thoroughly before posting your questions.

Bonny Blue Historical Help
This is designed to be a friendly, fun, and informative resource for lady reenactors who are interested in building a historical reenacting wardrobe from the beginning. I do not pretend to be an expert, but I have been researching and learning from my own mistakes for nearly five years. I simply want to share what I have learned and hopefully save some new-comer living history enthusiasts from making the 'farby' mistakes that I made!

Capering and Kickery
A blog for social dance historians, reconstructors, performers, social dancers, writers of historical fiction, and anyone else who wants solid, research-based information about historical social dance in Europe and America from the 15th through the early 20th centuries. Site includes links to music and dance videos.

Civil War Books and Authors blog
Books reviews, news, interviews, profiles and commentary, with an emphasis on small publishers, university presses, and local history. Subject areas include antebellum politics and all aspects of the Civil War, as well as the U.S.-Mexican War and Indian Wars. All areas are covered, but geographical focus is on the West and Trans-Mississippi theaters.

Civil War Campaigner Magazine
Civil War Campaigner Magazine is a new bi-monthly digital publication for Civil War Reenactors brought to you by and featuring some of the leading, most highly respected and experienced Living Historians in the field. CWC with its unique outlook, is aimed at Reenactors with either military or civilian interests and who hold a passion for accurately reconstructing the true life of the everyday men and women of the 1860s.

The Civil War Discovery Trail links more than 600 sites in 32 states to inspire and to teach the story of the Civil War and its enduring impact on America.

The Civil War for Kids
While there are a lot of Civil War web sites, there really aren't many that help kids like me understand what the Civil War was about, how many American's gave their life and what kids can do to make sure we don't erase our history. Building on a battlefield is like erasing history. I didn't want to let that happen. So I asked my dad to help start this web site to help you learn about the war, learn how to protect battlefields, help parents and have fun.

CIVIL WAR IN THE AMERICAN WEST, THE: Civil War Sesquicentennial Bibliography
The key purpose of this bibliography is to demonstrate the complexity and extent of the Civil War in the American West through a listing of published books on the subject, including recent scholarship accomplished since publication of Alvin Josephy's general work.

Civil War Librarian Blog
Blog of Rea Andrew Redd, follows new and classic American Civil War books and media.

Civil War Network, The
This is a new, fully interactive website for living historians into the Civil War. Please join, upload photos, videos, blogs, have your own profile, set up your own group forum, add your upcoming events and so much more!

America's largest non-profit organization (501-C3) devoted to the preservation of our nation's endangered Civil War battlefields. The Trust also promotes educational programs and heritage tourism initiatives to inform the public of the war’s history and the fundamental conflicts that sparked it.

Common Ground, The
Our intent is to provide you with a nice place to hold civil discussions about the American Civil War to include Civil War Reenacting, Events, After Action Reports, 19th century life in general, etc.

Community and Conflict: The Impact of the Civil War in the Ozarks
The Springfield-Greene County Library District and several organizations throughout the Ozarks are working together to digitize Civil War era documents. Funded by a Library Services and Technology Act grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Missouri State Library, Community and Conflict strives to expand and enhance scholarship on the Ozarks by documenting how the Civil War changed life in the region. It is the goal of this project to unify collections scattered throughout the Ozarks by making them available to researchers online. This project focuses on the consequences and effects of the war on community, families, economy, and culture.

Confederate Reckoning Podcast
University of Pennsylvania professor of history STEPHANIE McCURRY, looks at the Confederate War through the experience of the South's women and slave struggles in her new book, Confederate Reckoning. We'll talk to her about how women and slaves influenced the demise of the Confederacy, including how they took on the Jefferson Davis government on government enlistment, and tax and welfare policies.

Core Historical Literature of Agriculture
The Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA) is a core electronic collection of agricultural texts published between the early nineteenth century and the middle to late twentieth century. Full-text materials cover agricultural economics, agricultural engineering, animal science, crops and their protection, food science,forestry, human nutrition, rural sociology, and soil science. Scholars have selected the titles in this collection for their historical importance. Their evaluations and 4,500 core titles are detailed in the seven volume series The Literature of the Agricultural Sciences, Wallace C. Olsen, series editor.

Documenting the American South
A digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes ten thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.

Encouraging Hearts, Strengthening Hands: Women Support the Confederate War Effort
This video from the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va. outlines some of the many roles women faced during the Civil War, including flag-making, nursing, fundraising and spying. Artifacts featured in this segment include an apron and bowl used by nurses at Confederate hospitals, the flags of the 2nd Virginia Cavalry, Co. C, and the 21st North Carolina Infantry, Co. D, a shell jacket worn by Private George Greer of the 58th Virginia Infantry, and assorted letters and documents produced by women, including a letter written by spy Rose O'Neal Greenhow.

Genteel Arts Academy
This is the site for Carolann Schmitt. She conducts classes on civilian clothing and produces the "Ladies and Gentlemen of the 1860s Conference" in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The conference is a great resource for information on the clothing and material culture of the 1860s.

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Civil War and Reconstruction
Founded in 1994 by Richard Gilder and Lewis E. Lehrman, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is a nonprofit organization devoted to the improvement of history education. The Institute has developed an array of programs for schools, teachers, and students that now operate in all fifty states, including a website that features the more than 60,000 unique historical documents in the Gilder Lehrman Collection.

Guthrie Civil War Letters
The letters present a snapshot of the lives of Major J.N. Coleman of the Third Texas Cavalry and his fiancée, Virginia E. "Jennie" Adkins. John's letters from the field provide readers with a unique insight into the horrors, excitement, and day-to-day monotony of a soldier's life in the Confederate army, while Jennie's letters detail life on the home front in Marshall, Texas.

Handbook of Civil War Texas
This site has more than 800 entries relating to the war in the Lone Star State, many of which appeared in earlier versions of the Handbook, but more than 325 of which are new. Many of the new entries are enriched with illustrations provided by the Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photographs Collection at Southern Methodist University.

Historical Sewing.com
At HistoricalSewing.com we are committed to helping others experience 19th century fashions through modern and period sewing techniques.

Home Economics Archive
HEARTH is a core electronic collection of books and journals in Home Economics and related disciplines. Titles published between 1850 and 1950 were selected and ranked by teams of scholars for their great historical importance. The first phase of this project focused on books published between 1850 and 1925 and a small number of journals. Future phases of the project will include books published between 1926 and 1950, as well as additional journals. The full text of these materials, as well as bibliographies and essays on the wide array of subjects relating to Home Economics, are all freely accessible on this site. This is the first time a collection of this scale and scope has been made available.

This site is an online exhibit from the American Antiquarian Society. The exhibit includes much information about the development of social dance in America.

Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts
The Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts is a scholarly, refereed e-journal presenting new research about the decorative arts and material culture of the American South prior to 1860.

Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photographs
The Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photographs digital collection contains a wide range of early Texas photography. The digitized images are from the Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Photography Collection, which contains 5,000 photographs, ca. 1846-1945, and is held by SMU's DeGolyer Library.

Living-History.net
Living-history.net is dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of historical knowledge and understanding through the promotion of living history. If you are a reenactor, buckskinner, mountain man, or living history enthusiast this is the site for you. Within this site you will find resources and information pertaining to reenacting, rendezvous, and of course, living history. These resources include a merchants page with many 18th century merchants, sutlers, and traders as well as listings of French & Indian War, Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Fur Trade, NRLHF, and Civil War events and groups all across the country.

Making of America
The Cornell University Library Making of America Collection is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. This site provides access to 267 monograph volumes and over 100,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints. The project represents a major collaborative endeavor in preservation and electronic access to historical texts.

National Park Service Civil War Home Page
From 1861 to 1865, the American union was broken as brother fought brother in a Civil War that remains a defining moment in our nation's history. Its causes and consequences, including the continuing struggle for civil rights for all Americans, reverberate to this day. From the battlefields to the homefront, the cost of the war was steep...its lessons eternal.

Not Even Past
Provides dynamic, accessible, short articles on every field of History. Founded in 2010 and developed by the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin, Not Even Past speaks to everyone interested in the past and in the ways the past lives on in the present.

History leaves no life untouched and the story of every life deserves to be told. Not Even Past is, first and foremost, a home for these stories. It is also a place for all who are interested in history to meet one another and share their viewpoints, to learn what books and films historians are reading and watching, and to gather perspectives on national, international, and Texas events of contemporary interest.

The title of the website reflects our professional and ethical commitment to understanding history as a public conversation about the importance of the past for our actions, values, and beliefs in the present and for the decisions we make today that will affect our lives—and those who come after us—tomorrow.

There are many history-related sites on the web, but few bring together a diverse group of historians with international reputations in every major historical field and time period. Not Even Past does that by drawing on the expertise of the faculty and graduate students of the History Department at UT Austin. The wealth of knowledge and resources these historians offer will now be available to anyone who wants to know more about the past.

Original Garments
Photos of collections on display at the Mid-West Civil War Civilian Conference 2004

Rally on the High Ground
The National Park Service, the National Park Foundation, and Eastern National sponsored a symposium on May 8 and 9, 2000 at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC. They brought together many of the leading scholars on the Civil War era with park managers, interpreters and educators to explore new research and interpretations of this period of American history. This symposium, Rally on the High Ground, became much larger and more important than the sponsors envisioned. It was broadcast nationally on C-Span, and many of the nation's leading media sources covered the event. The papers from this symposium are published here in Rally on the High Ground: The National Park Service Symposium on the Civil War Eastern National, softcover, 120 pages.

Richmond Daily Dispatch 1860-1865
The Richmond Daily Dispatch is the result of a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and collaboration between the University of Richmond, Tufts University's Perseus Project, and the Virginia Center for Digital History. There are currently 1384 issues of the paper available online, ranging in date from November 1860 through December 1865.

See the Sites Blog
From western forts to Victorian mansions and pivotal battlegrounds, the Texas Historical Commission's 20 state historic sites exemplify a breadth of Texas history. Come explore the real stories at the real places.

Smithsonian Folkways: Civil War Songs and Sounds
Speaking of the impact music had on his troops, Confederate General Robert E. Lee said, "Without music you cannot have an army." With this in mind, the music collected here is not so much an account of what came to be known as America's most violent war as it is the culmination of the anxieties, politics, and the racial divide that started the war in the first place. Certainly the origins of the Civil War are present in its music: the abolitionist's cry for freedom in songs such as "The Ballad of Frederick Douglass" and "John Brown's Body"; the irrevocable violence and censure laced into America's founding in "Cumberland Gap"; and the bureaucratic irony of warfare in "All Quiet Along the Potomac." But many of the era's songs also convey intense personal longing, and struggle (see: "Just Before Battle, Mother" and "Go Down, Moses"). Frederick Douglass (through the voice of actor/activist Ossie Davis) speaks of this struggle in the playlist's final track when he says: "A man who will not fight for himself, when he has the means of doing so, is not worth being fought for by others."

Society of Civil War Historians, The
The Society of Civil War Historians (SCWH) is an association of scholars dedicated to exploring slavery, the sectional crisis, Civil War, emancipation, and reconstruction roughly from the 1830s through 1880. The society also looks at the legacies of the conflict that continue to have an impact on society today. SCWH’s mission is to encourage scholarly activity and academic exchange among historians, graduate students, and professionals who interpret history in museums, national parks, archives, and other public facilities. SCWH’s goal is to bring greater coherence to the historical field by encouraging the integration of social, military, political, and other forms of history and generally to promote the study of the Civil War era.

Texas Center for African American Living History
A non-profit organization for public education whose mission is to research, document, preserve, interpret, and distribute Texas history and culture that includes African Americans from the African American perspective.

Texas Civil War Association
The Texas Civil War Association (TCWA) was created to remember the American Civil War and the men of both the Confederacy and the United States who sacrificed to make the United States what it is today. Focusing on both military and social sides of the war. Also on Facebook.

Texas Heritage Online
Provides unified online access to Texas' historical documents and images for use by teachers, students, historians, genealogists, and other researchers.

Texas Living History Association
The Texas Living History Association is an organization with an interest in professional and private living history.

The goal of the association will be to further the field of living history in the state of Texas by providing quality resources to members as well as cultivating and increasing public support.

TLHA's aim is to advance the practice of living history interpretation by hosting annual conferences, organizing workshops, providing networking opportunities, and developing a certification program for historical interpreters. It will offer training and mentoring opportunities that otherwise do not exist in this state.

Texas Slavery Project
The Texas Slavery Project examines the spread of American slavery into the borderlands between the United States and Mexico in the decades between 1820 and 1850.

Trans-Mississippian, The
A blog about the Civil War west of the Mississippi River. The bulk of Civil War historiography has focused on the war east of the Mississippi, but the war west of the big river has seen increasing attention in recent years. Particularly since the 1980s, historians have started to realize that even though armies and battles were of smaller size and scale in the West, it does not mean that these actions were unimportant or insignificant. There are also some interesting features to the war west of the Mississippi such as the role of Native Americans, guerrilla warfare, the role of African-American troops, refugees, the challenges of campaigning on the frontier, and operations along the Gulf Coast and the Pacific coast.

Under the Rebel Flag: Life in Civil War Texas
Though Texans had fought for many years to achieve annexation to the United States, they voted decisively to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy in 1861. From the embattled cotton port of Galveston to the besieged Indian frontier, from the Louisiana border to the Rio Grande, Texans would spend the next four bitter, desperate years learning the reality of war.

Victorian Dance Ensemble
The Ensemble is a group of living historians who share a love for the grace and beauty of mid-nineteenth century dancing. We are devoted to fostering an appreciation for the dance and social customs of the Civil War era by presenting demonstrations, classes, balls and other related programs. The site offers dance instruction and articles on Civil War era balls.

Virginia Historical Society Lectures
The Virginia Historical Society offers a wide variety of lectures, many of which feature renowned historians and authors.

War Comes to the Land Office
Texas General Land Office Archives and Records Newsletter. Vol 4, Number 2, Fall 2007.

Why Not Then
A website dedicated to the study, preservation and reproduction of historic clothing. Here you will find detailed pictures of original garments from the 19th and 20th centuries as well as other resources from my collection for study. You will also find accurate reproductions of fashions of days gone by and articles, patterns and other helpful tidbits to help you create your own accurate reproductions!

William Elisha Stoker: A Texas Farmer’s Civil War
William Elisha Stoker was a Texas farmer who served in the Confederate army for nearly two years before dying from his wounds in May 1864. Private Stoker hated the war and complained about practically everything in vivid letters home, but he somehow endured the conflict with remarkable bravery and fortitude. Part of what kept Stoker going was love for his wife Betty and little daughter Priscilla and an overwhelming desire to return to their "sweet little home" in Upshur County. This website from the House Divided Project features Stoker's memorable and moving letters which are now held by the National War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

WPA Life Histories From Texas

These titles are mostly first-person accounts of life in Texas collected during the Great Depression. Subjects include Pionerr Reminiscences, including those of immigrants from Europe; Cowboy and Ranching Reminiscences and Lore, including African-Americans and Hispanics; some discussion of Indians; and more. Places described include: the counties of Real, Uvalde, Grayson, McLennan, Tarrant, Lamb, Erath, Borden, Coryell, Lubbock, and more; and the towns of Lampasas, Waco, Amarillo, Fort Worth, Reagan, San Angelo, Brandon, Eldorado, Coleman, Wichita Falls, Waxahachie, Stephenville, Palestine, Maverick, Ballinger, and more.