When looking at Hollywood, the 1960s became a real turning point when interpreting the Civil War and this is no more so evident with the 1965 Jimmy Stewart classic Shenandoah. A lot had changed by 1965, it was the last year of the Civil War Centennial that was celebrated across the nation forcing the country … Continue reading Class Notes →

If you want to understand the difference on the Homefront between Vietnam and the current wars, in 1967 America lost 10,000 soldiers in Vietnam and it was reported every night on the news. The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan rarely made the nightly news and for many it was easy to forget a war was … Continue reading Class Notes →

When dealing with Mary Baker Eddy’s most known work, Amy Voorhess writes: “Others propose that Science and Health is a scripture because, for example, scriptural status lines in the interactive relationship between text and community. Christian Scientists themselves do not subscribe to this view. Neither do they claim that Science and Health reopened the biblical … Continue reading Class Notes →

In 1954, on the same day the French were forced to surrender in Vietnam, a peace conference was held. It was determined that the country would be divided between north and south, with Ho Chi Minh controlling the north and the American supported Ngo Dingh Diem in the south. The plan was for the election … Continue reading Class Notes →

Amy Voorhess wrote about Christian Science, “This new religious identity was not simply an invention of Christian Scientists but embodied central features of Eddy’s book as it developed over time. This is especially evident if we pay attention to the origins and receptions of Science and Health. Christian Scientists received Eddy’s text most fundamentally as … Continue reading Class Notes →

For Civil War and Memory we watched John Ford’s classic Civil War Cavalry film The Horse Soldiers staring John Wayne and William Holden. Released in 1959, in the height of the Civil Rights movement we were watching to see how the themes of the Lost Cause were portrayed. Again, the way I ask students to … Continue reading Class Notes →

Amy B. Voorhees in her book A New Christian Identity: Christian Science Origins and Experiences in American Culture wrote, “As early Christian Science adherents engaged the Bible as interpreted by Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, they forged a new Christianity identity. This new religious identity mediated modernity in distinctive … Continue reading Class Notes →

There were changes to the Civil Rights movement in the later 1960s. The fight became frustrating for some as things were moving slowly. Stokely Carmichael, leader of SNCC captured this anger in the phrase Black Power. Carmichael rejected the integration of MLK and instead wanted Blacks to develop their own culture and become self-dependent.

Ellen White’s biographer, Reme Noorbergen, wrote, “the record of Ellen White as a prophet is not one based purely on fulfillment of prediction, yet even though she never laid boastful claim of being a prophet, she most definitely did the work of one and more. Her medical insight was faultless in every way; her spiritual … Continue reading Class Notes →

For my Civil War in Memory class, we watched the 1940 Raoul Walsh film Dark Command staring John Wayne and Walter Pidgeon. The film was very different from Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind in that it did not portray slavery in a positive light. The story takes place in Kansas and … Continue reading Class Notes →