The McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will host its sixth annual Civil War Lecture Series starting at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, January 24.
This year’s lecture series, “An All-American City Endures: Knoxvillians at War 1860-1865,” will examine Knoxville families before, during and after the upheaval of war. The lectures, given by McClung Museum Civil War Curator Joan Markel, will explore the Civil War in Knoxville through the lens of everyday people, including lawyers, clergy, the press, merchants, farmers and other workers, who were forced to make life and death decisions in the midst of social turmoil.
“There is a vast, though dispersed, cache of historic details of the lives of Knoxvillians during the Civil War years,” Markel said. “While few individual stories are fully complete, many collected stories contribute to our growing understanding of how a community goes to war, endures the trauma and emerges shaken but intact. Exploring the lives of the families who survived within the structure of an ‘all-American town’ contributes a new perspective to our understanding of Knoxville and our nation during and after the Civil War.”
The series kicks off on January 24 with “Clergy, Physicians, and Press: Ministering to the People,” which will look at service professions and how these key figures met the needs of suffering civilians, provided spiritual leadership to religious congregations and kept the populace informed during the war.
Each presentation begins at 2:00 p.m. in the McClung Museum auditorium. All lectures are free and open to the public.
Upcoming lectures in the series are:
Feb. 21—”Politicians and Lawmakers: Attempting to Maintain Control.”
March 20—”Merchants, Manufacturers, and Financiers: Show Us the Money.”
April 24—”Civil Servants, Trades, Farmers, and Military: Just Trying to Hold It Together.”
The McClung Museum is at 1327 Circle Park Drive. Museum admission is free and the museum’s hours are 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Monday to Saturday and 1:00–5:00 p.m. on Sundays. Free parking is available on the weekends. Free public transportation to the museum is available via the Knoxville Trolley Vol Line.