Considering the Civil War Era as a moment of revolutionary change.

As the title of this week on the syllabus suggests, we begin to see the emergence of broad societal, political, economic, and technological changes that will ultimately define the rest of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Like the last two weeks, our goal is to collectively unpack the many ways in which the nation and world was changing in the early 1860s as a consequence of the war (and including ways the world was changing in spite of the war that had an impact upon its outcome). 

The goal of your post is to identify one way in which this time period and/or the war itself represented revolutionary change and how that change manifested itself in America of that era. I realize that  your posts will have some overlap, but the nature of the material should allow us to explore the many different facets of revolutionary change, but also how often these aspects of revolutionary change are related. For instance, in order for technological changes to occur, we need a culture of industrialization, and in turn can we foster a culture of industrialization without the political structures that encourage it or the technological know-how of immigrants and others who bring it to America? 

In this week’s discussion, I want you to take special care in making your posts speak to each other, building on the points of your classmates, but also forging into new territory – not simply “yeah I agree with so-and-so” – but an expansion and furthering of the discussion. You are also welcome to post an entirely new idea that someone else hasn’t discussed. I’ll be commenting periodically on your posts to help facilitate this discussion’s forward progress. 

You may draw upon all the material we have examined thus far in this class, but I want you to prioritize the materials from this week, including the week 3 lecture and notes, Glory, and our selections from Escott, Masur, and McPherson. 

Posts that receive full credit should do the following:

• Reveal clearly that you’ve listened to the week’s course material.
• Clearly articulate a point that speaks directly to the question being asked.
• Avoids as much as possible the duplication of comments already made by other students