The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife, in conjunction with Historic Deerfield, Inc., and the Society of Civil War Historians, is pleased to announce Beyond the Battlefield: New England and the Civil War, a three-day conference on the region’s contributions to the American Civil War.

Beginning with key antebellum events that defined and shaped the North before 1861, the conference addresses the role of political figures, abolitionists, and artists in the early days of the conflict. Special sessions focus on the critical wartime participation of women (in nursing, making uniforms and tents, preparing meals, and establishing soldiers’ aid societies); on the changing public perception of black regiments and their supporters; on New Englanders’ encounters on the high seas; and on retrospective views on the war’s conduct by both Union and Confederate armies. The conference concludes with a look at New England’s role in the era of Reconstruction and its early move to reconciliation, remembrance, and the making of monuments.

The thirty-sixth annual meeting in the Dublin Seminar series, Beyond the Battlefield: New England and the Civil War will take place on the weekend of June 24 through 26, 2011, at the Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Massachusetts, and is designed for educators, historians, collectors, dealers, authors, librarians, and museum curators; students and the general public are cordially invited to attend.

For additional details, registration form, and a list of Seminar publications, see www.dublinseminar.org or www.historic-deerfield.org.