Civil War News
16
March 2020
Fig. 1. Boston Athenæum website.
Confederate Imprints Imprint: “…an indelible distinguishing effect or influence;” is one definition Webster offers. Duke University defines Confederate Imprints as: “… items printed in the Confederate States of America between secession from the Union and the surrender of the Confederate military forces (December 1860-April 1865).” Researchers can bring visualization to this part of our nation’s history through mining the various repositories, in person or online, which hold thousands of items printed in the Confederacy. For this article, we will focus on those institutions with more
substantial holdings, and especially those offering digitized imprints online. Researchers interested in consulting books to assist in locating specific imprints can benefit from several available sources, including state-specific titles. Of note, the two-volume Confederate Imprints: A Check List Based Principally on the Collection of the Boston Athenæum. Check https://www. worldcat.org to find a copy in a local library, or view online at https://catalog.hathitrust.org/ Record/001168298. The repository holding the most extensive collection of Confederate imprints is the Boston Athenæum (see Fig. 1 for an example). Shortly after
the war ended, historian Francis Parkman and colleagues traveled to Richmond and made several acquisitions. Thus, the beginning of a rich collection, one, which prompted James Ford Rhodes to weave the picturesque description of a researcher’s visit to the Athenæum that will close this article. The image above shows the Boston Athenæum homepage at https://cdm.bostonathenaeum.org/digital/collection/ p16057coll14, where one can view over 4,000 images - printed material ranging from government and state documents, military manuals, maps, poetry, textbooks, religious tracts, church publications, almanacs, and more. Each of the online collections (readers will find the websites listed at the end of the article) offers the ability to search using keywords, retrieve results, and download images for personal use. One note, commercial use will require permission from the holding institution. To demonstrate the Athenæum website, this writer conducted a search using the keywords “religious tracts.” This image shows the 122 results from the search shown in Fig. 2. A search using the same keywords, from the Duke University Libraries, Confederate Imprints website (https://archive.org/details/dulci?tab=about), yielded the results shown in Fig. 3. Researchers can bookmark the following Confederate Imprint websites for future reference. Many other sites, most offering smaller collections, exist. Conduct your own search for more sources!
Confederate Imprint Websites •
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Boston Athenæum: https:// cdm.bostonathenaeum. org/digital/collection/ p16057coll14 Duke University Libraries: https://archive.org/details/ dulci?tab=about Library of Congress: https:// w w w. l o c . g o v / c o l l e c tions/broadsides-and-othe r- p r i n t e d - e p h e m e r a / ? -
Fig. 2. Boston Athenæum Religious Tracts
Fig. 3. Duke University Religious Tracts
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dates=1860/1869 Digital Library of Georgia: http://american-south. org/collections/geu/ confederateimprints/ items/?Welcome Internet Archive: https://archive.org/search.php?query=confederate%20imprints%20AND%20 mediatype%3Atexts
Let us close with the words of Rhodes. “The older man settles himself in the Confederate room, and as he gazes at the bound volumes of newspapers and at the other volumes, the outside aspect of which is eloquent of the life in the Southern Confederacy… he blesses the men who had the forethought to make so valuable a collection for him as he thinks and writes of society at the South.” Next month, we will explore additional primary sources. Until then, good luck in researching the Civil War!
Michael K. Shaffer is a Civil War historian, author, lecturer, instructor, and a member of the Society of Civil War Historians, the Historians of the Civil War Western Theater, and the Georgia Association of Historians. Readers may contact him at mkscdr11@gmail.com, or to request speaking engagements, via his website www.civilwarhistorian.net. Follow Michael on Facebook www.facebook.com/ michael.k.shaffer and Twitter @ michaelkshaffer.
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