Calendar of Events

Civil War Lecture-Scott Nelson

Title:Civil War Lecture-Scott Nelson
Date & Time:Wed Jan 28, 2015 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Location:Lyceum
201 S. Washington St.
Event Details:Scott Reynolds Nelson is Legum Professor of History at the College of William and Mary. He is the prizewinning author of five books on nineteenth-century American history. The New York Times has most recently called him a “fascinating guide to the grim landscape of Reconstruction.” His first book, Iron Confederacies, explored the birth of the first modern corporation – the Southern Railway – and its outsized influence in cementing the inequalities of the modern South.

According to the UNC Press: Iron Confederacies uses the history of southern railways to explore linkages among the themes of states' rights, racial violence, labor strife, and big business in the nineteenth-century South. By 1868, Ku Klux Klan leaders had begun mobilizing white resentment against rapid economic change by asserting that railroad consolidation led to political corruption and black economic success. As Nelson notes, some of the Klan's most violent activity was concentrated along the Richmond-Atlanta rail corridor. But conflicts over railroads were eventually resolved, he argues, in agreements between northern railroad barons and Klan leaders that allowed white terrorism against black voters while surrendering states' control over the southern economy.
Contact Phone No.:703.746.4994
Fees:Admission is $5, or attend all 4 lectures in the series for $17
Audience:Anyone may attend
Tags:Lyceum, Museums, Old & Historic Alexandria, Old Town


For event details visit http://www.alexandriava.gov/c/10072
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