The Seminar is accepting proposals for papers on New England’s participation and involvement in the American Civil War. The subject covers a broad time period, between 1840 and 1890, and includes the prewar conditions, attitudes, and significant events in the North leading up to the conflict; the issues of abolition and the Underground Railroad; military recruitment drives; New England’s role in major Civil War battles and its influence on the U.S. Navy; and the period of postwar Reconstruction and remembrance. Topics of interest might include the region’s proportion of Union losses; the role of black regiments; women’s contributions on the “home front”; the ideological reasons for continuing the war despite mounting losses; mixed loyalties; the demographic, economic, and social consequences of communities without men; developments in medicine and nursing; and the rapid technological increase in armaments, the making of apparel and textiles, and food preservation and distribution. Other areas of interest include Copperheads; the St. Albans Raid; press coverage; popular art and photography; balladry and music; the draft; soldier life; the experiences of disabled veterans; and the treatment of prisoners. The Seminar encourages papers that reflect original research, especially those based on primary or underused resources such as letters and diaries, newspapers, portraits, prints and photographs, business records, material culture, museum collections, and autobiographies.

The thirty-sixth meeting in the Seminar series, the program will consist of approximately seventeen lectures of twenty minutes each, with related tours. Selected papers will appear as the 2011 Annual Proceedings of the Dublin Seminar to be issued about eighteen months after the conference.