Gettysburg 1963

Civil Rights, Cold War Politics, and Historical Memory in America's Most Famous Small Town

Jill Ogline Titus

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781469665344
  9781469665337
• eBook ISBN:
  9781469665351
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

The year 1963 was unforgettable for Americans. In the midst of intense Cold War turmoil and the escalating struggle for Black freedom, the United States also engaged in a nationwide commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Civil War. Commemorative events centered on Gettysburg, site of the best-known, bloodiest, and most symbolically charged battle of the conflict. Inevitably, the centennial of Lincoln’s iconic Gettysburg Address received special focus, pressed into service to help the nation understand its present and define its future — a future that would ironically include another tragic event days later with the assassination of another American president.

In this fascinating work, Jill Ogline Titus uses centennial events in Gettysburg to examine the history of political, social, and community change in 1960s America. Examining the experiences of political leaders, civil rights activists, preservation-minded Civil War enthusiasts, and local residents, Titus shows how the era’s deep divisions thrust Gettysburg into the national spotlight and ensured that white and Black Americans would define the meaning of the battle, the address, and the war in dramatically different ways.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations in the Text
• Introduction: Using History to Shape the Future
• Chapter One: An American Town. Segregation, Civil Rights, and the Color Line in Gettysburg
• Chapter Two: The Battlefield Belongs to the Nation. Preservation, Commercialization, and Cold War Tourism
• Chapter Three: A Shrine for the Free World. The Cold War Vision of Neutra’s Cyclorama Building
• Chapter Four: 1963. All Eyes on Gettysburg
• Gallery
• Chapter Five: A Nation Was Born Here. The 1963 Battle Anniversary
• Chapter Six: The Pen Is Mightier than the Sword. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
• Chapter Seven: Post-100. The Impact of the Centennial Era
• Epilogue: War and Peace, Protest and Propaganda
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index