During the Civil War; private printers in both the North and South produced a vast array of envelopes featuring iconography designed to promote each sidersquo;s war effort. Many of these ldquo;coversrdquo; featured depictions of soldiers; prominent political leaders; Union or Confederate flags; Miss Liberty; Martha Washington; or even runaway slaves---at least fifteen thousand pro-Union and two hundred fifty pro-Confederate designs appeared between 1861 and 1865. In Patriotic Envelopes of the Civil War; the first book-length analysis of these covers; Steven R. Boyd explores their imagery to understand what motivated soldiers and civilians to support a war far more protracted and destructive than anyone anticipated in 1861. Northern envelopes; Boyd shows; typically document the centrality of the preservation of the Union as the key issue that; if unsuccessful; would lead to the destruction of United States; its Constitution; and its way of life. Confederate covers; by contrast; usually illustrate a competing vision of an independent republic free of the ldquo;tyrannyrdquo; of the United States. Each sidersquo;s flags and presidents symbolize these two rival viewpoints. Images of presidents Davis and Lincoln; often portrayed as contestants in a boxing match; personalized the contest and served to rally citizens to the cause of southern independence or national preservation. In the course of portraying the events of the period; printers also illustrated the impact of the war on women and African Americans. Some envelopes; for example; featured women on the home front engaging in a variety of patriotic tasks that would have been almost unthinkable before the war. African Americans; on the other hand; became far more visible in American popular culture; especially in the North; where Union printers portrayed them pursuing their own liberation from southern slavery. With more than 180 full-color illustrations of the covers themselves; Patriotic Envelopes of the Civil War is a nuanced and fascinating examination of Civil War iconography that moves a previously overlooked source from the periphery of scholarly awareness into the ongoing analysis of Americarsquo;s greatest tragedy.
#2471686 in eBooks 2010-09-10 2010-09-10File Name: B0045I6L3S
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