Conference to examine Civil War America and parallels to today

The Gilder Lehrman Center’s 19th annual conference, which will focus on the topic “Disunion in Civil War America: Parallels for Today,” will be held Friday and Saturday, Nov. 3-4.

The conference will examine the 1840s and 1850s as an earlier example of deep currents of fear and disorder within U.S. political culture and history, and will consider contemporary experiences of polarization in the United States, compared with what happened to the American political party system, political culture, realignment, voter turnout and suppression, and coalitions during the two decades before the Civil War. It will be held in Luce Hall auditorium, MacMillan Center, 34 Hillhouse Ave. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Panelists, including David Blight, the Class of 1954 Professor of History and director of the Glider Lehrman Center, will seek to link past and present in order to address questions about history for a broad public.

This conference is being organized in collaboration with James Oakes of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and Joe Murphy, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the New-York Historical Society.

For more information, visit the conference website.