Restoring the Stories of a Rural Township's Civil War Soldiers

(On Memorial Day I drafted this post, which features a local history project that I’m working on. Eventually I intend to present this research in detail in another venue. Here I’m discussing it only to make a plea for doing similar research to create rosters or link the Civil War era with history at the grassroots. In the meantime, if you have a special interest in this part of Wisconsin or a family connection to the Town of Concord and would like to contact me, send an e-mail to historylynx@gmail.com.)


Memorial Day is theirs–the war dead–and that is why it is sacrosanct. It belongs to the fallen in each of our nation’s war, including the misguided ones. For better or worse, each death shaped out nation. Each death contributed to what we are today.

Rye Barcott, Washington Post (May 29, 2011)

REMEMBERING AND RESTORING

For me Memorial Day always brings back the image of my grandfather in his American Legion suit, marching in the parade in Rome, Wisconsin. He was a veteran of World War I, who returned to marry his sweetheart and work the farm he had purchased just before he was drafted. In the spring of 1919 he worried about getting home in time to plant fields of oats and corn but that Memorial Day he was still in Europe. My great uncle served in North Africa and Italy in World War II. He played in the band, his proudest moment playing for General Eisenhower. He returned to paint walls and hang wallpaper, and to play the organ in church on Sunday mornings and for many local weddings. As a member of the band, it ws also his duty to retrieve and carry stretchers of wounded men. Recently, I learned that Civil War bandsmen had to perform the same grueling task.

The American Civil War (1861-1865) was our nation’s greatest tragedy. More than 625,000 soldiers, men and boys from the North and South, died in that terrible war. If the same proportion of the population had died in Vietnam War, the number would have been four million–but for my generation the 58,000 names on the Vietnam War Memorial are exceedingly painful.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the opening fusillades of the Civil War, the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and the battles that followed in the summer and fall. So this Memorial Day I want especially to honor those from my Wisconsin community who fought and died to preserve the Union and to abolish slavery. I will honor them by working to restore their stories to the history of the Town of Concord, a rural township in Jefferson County, in southeastern Wisconsin.

Growing up in Concord, the Civil War was "unreal" to me and, I suspect, to most of my grade school friends. This war didn’t happen here, it had little to do with our community (a misconception), and our families didn’t take summertime trips to any Civil War battlefields. Though we studied US History in fifth grade, in a four-room school across from a church cemetery, we didn’t realize that Civil War veterans were buried there (1). The school buses passed by other local cemeteries, where Civil War veterans rested, but most of us we were ignorant of this chapter in our township’s history. I don’t ever remember hearing about Isaac Poe, who died of disease in Arkansas but was brought back to Concord in a zinc-lined coffin (2). He is buried on the Holcomb cemetery--a cemetery that until just a few years ago was overgrown with brush, many of its tombstones broken.

In high school we heard about the big battles--Bull Run, Shiloh, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Atlanta, and the March to the Sea–but these battlefields were far away. I do remember learning that Confederate POWs were housed at Camp Randall in Madison. Otherwise, we learned nothing that connected our part of the state with those four years of blood and tears. Not even a word about the heroic Cushing brothers of Delafield, Waukesha County (directly east of Jefferson County). First Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing died at Gettysburg while he and the men under his command were defending Cemetery Ridge against Pickett’s Charge. He was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2010. His brother, Naval Commander William Cushing, designed two small boats and then recruited 26 volunteers to go after a Confederate ironclad, the Albemarle, that had been attacking Union ships. The ironclad sank but that was not the end of Cushing’s exploits. He was recognized as a naval hero and no less than five Navy ships have been named Cushing. A third brother Howard served in an artillery regiment. (For more about the Cushing brothers see Resources.)

For me the Civil War became real only after I moved to south-central Pennsylvania. Here the war was very real. Local families felt very connected to that period in American history. Three times Confederate cavalry men attacked Chambersburg, a town just eleven miles down the road, and twice it was torched. Gettysburg was only thirty miles away. Visiting that battlefield awakened in me a sense of awe and dread that I could not have imagined before I walked its hallowed fields. The immensity of Gettysburg, the multitude who died there, none of this had a very deep meaning for me (my understanding of the Civil War was indeed stunted). I could only begin to comprehend the total number of Gettysburg’s casualties by comparing it to the engraved roster of the Vietnam Memorial (I’d seen it on a recent trip to Washington, DC). My parents visited Gettysburg too, when they came to see me, and they were deeply moved, especially my father.

I’m now living back in Wisconsin. After reconnecting with my Concord roots and joining the Concord Historical Society, I began to research the history of the families that had settled in Concord–beginning in the late 1830s. It was then that I first heard the story of Isaac Poe, which was well-known to members of the CHS. This was a sad story because Isaac and his wife Polly were the parents of seven children. But I didn’t stop to consider whether there were other civil war casualties or veterans from our community–until one day I discovered that two brothers, Anson and Samuel Baker, from the large Baker family, had both served in the First Heavy Infantry Regiment Wisconsin. How many more were there?

A Civil War Roster for the Town of Concord

Using data available at Ancestry.com, I did a search that brought up well-over 100 names. And nearly twenty of these soldiers were casualties. For years people had been talking about Isaac Poe, but the names of these other men had passed from memory. Of course, people strolling through local cemeteries would have noticed GAR markers on a few graves. Those markers could scarcely tell the story, however. Men who died far from home were rarely returned for burial. Veterans might settle elsewhere after the war or move to another county or state.

Now that the Wisconsin Veterans Museum has posted a database with more information I have used it to refine my results (see Resources). The two lists match almost perfectly but the WVM information includes the battles or places where soldiers were wounded, killed in action, or died later of wounds or disease. Both the WVM database and those at Ancestry.com provide the soldier’s regiment and company, date when he enlisted or drafted, and for veterans, the date and place where they were mustered out.

In 1860 there were 1,442 people residing in the Town of Concord.  There are 116 names in my Concord roster, including only eight draftees. Those who made the ultimate sacrifice number twenty-three.

The revised roster includes a few names that did not come up when I searched the WVM database. I considered these carefully before adding them. I’d like to explain why I did so as this may be of interest to others who are creating rosters.

• James Russell, for example, belonged to a large family of Scottish immigrants, whose homestead was in the northeast corner of the township. When he enlisted in the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry Regiment in September, 1861, he was living in the Town of Summit, Waukesha County (a township directly east of Concord). The Russells came to Concord before 1850 and James appears in the 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 Federal Census records. In 1861 he was probably working in Summit for a local farmer. He was one of only eight Concord men who enlisted in the cavalry, no doubt because he had horse riding skills.
• Patrick McGinnis, an Irish immigrant who came to the US with his family in 1848 at age ten, had grown up in Concord, but he was living in the Town of Brookfield (in neighboring Waukesha County) when he enlisted. He also returned to Concord family after the war. 
• The WVM database includes George Lockwood and his friend Abner Gould but provides no information about where they were living when they enlisted–on April 18, 1861–the first of eighteen Concord men who would join the Union army by the end of that year.  A later biography tells us that George had lived with his family in Concord until the day he enlisted (3). I suspect that in the case of George and Abner, in the earliest days of recruitment, their place of residence was simply not recorded. Their regiment, the 3rd Wisconsin Infantry left Wisconsin just in time for the First Battle of Bull Run on July 25, 1861. After the war George went to medical school in New York and Michigan but then returned to Jefferson County, where he set up his practice in Rome (in the Town of Sullivan, directly south of Concord). Abner, wounded a place not indicated in the database, died on May, 28, 1864.
• Christian Mittelstadt was one of three brothers, from the same German immigrant family, who served in the Union Army. His brothers William and Charles were both living in Concord when they enlisted on August 13, 1862. William never made it home. He died of disease in New Orleans, in May 1864. Charles was mustered out with his company in June, 1865 but I don’t know what he did after that–except that at some point it seems that he moved to Iowa. Christian was married in Concord in 1861 but he moved with his wife to her father’s farm in the Town of Lowell, in Dodge County (directly north of Jefferson County) and it was from there that he was drafted in 1863. After the war he returned to Lowell for a year, then moved back to Concord, where he was living at the time of the 1870 Federal Census (4). I decided that Christian Mittelstadt’s connection to Concord was strong enough to include him in the roster alongside his brothers. 

Although my research on Concord’s Civil War soldiers is still a work in progress, earlier this month I shared some of my findings at a meeting of the Concord Historical Society. I had much more to say than time to say it so I focused on the earliest casualties and the battles, in 1862, in which they fought and lost their lives.

Battle of Shiloh (Tennessee). Fifteen men from Concord, all members of Company B of the 16^th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, fought at Shiloh on April 6th and 7th, 1862. Company B was one of four companies, under the command of General Prentiss, selected for picket duty in the hours before dawn on Sunday, April 6, 1862. When they were ambushed by a much larger Confederate force, Company A was hardest hit. So Concord men from Company B took part also in the main battle.

Concord lost two men as a result of this battle. Jesse Hills, missing in action at Shiloh, was the first casualty. We must assume that his body was not recovered. Joseph Quiner, who was wounded at Shiloh, but did not die on the battlefield. He was taken to Savannah, Tennessee, where he lingered until he died on April 28th.

Joseph Quiner was the second Concord casualty of the Civil War, yet most people in the area know virtually nothing about him. It is his niece Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House on the Prairie, who gets all the attention. Let me explain, very briefly, this family history. Joseph’s parents, Henry and Charlotte (Tucker) Quiner were living in the Town of Brookfield when, as the result of a shipping accident, Henry drowned in Lake Michigan. By 1850 Charlotte moved with her six children to Concord (possibly because her deceased husband had relatives in the area), where she soon met and married Frederick Holbrook. Joseph’s sister, Caroline (Quiner) Ingalls, was the mother of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Laura was born after the family had left Concord for Pepin, Wisconsin, but her parents were married in Concord. The Ingalls connection gives Concord a bit of fame among Little House aficionados. It disturbs me, however, that this seems to eclipse so much else of importance about this time period. I especially want to restore the story of Joseph Quiner to the place he deserves in the history of our community.

Joseph was a friend of George Lockwood and Abner Gould, whose letters are part of a collection available online at the Wisconsin Historical Society site (see Resources). He left behind a wife Nancy and two young children. Nancy’s brother Peter Frank, wounded in May, 1864, died in September at St. Charles, Arkansas.

Joseph’s uncle Edward Quiner (his father’s youngest brother) played a very important part in collecting, preserving, and writing about the history of Wisconsin’s contribution to Union army. And credit must be given to Edward’s daughters, for he kept them very busy clipping articles and letters from Wisconsin soldiers that had been published in local papers all over the state. These scrapbooks are now available online (see Resources).

Second Battle of Corinth (Mississippi). After Shiloh, the Union army spent about six weeks laying siege to the fortified town of Corinth (just south, across the Tennessee/Mississippi state line), until they captured it on May 29, 1862. This is sometimes called the First Battle of Corinth. Taking this town was of great strategic importance, as north-south and east-west railway tracks crossed in here. During the summer months Union troops repaired and then extended the town’s fortifications. In early October the Confederates attacked in a prolonged battle of several days, the Second Battle of Corinth, that ended on October 10^th. John Houser of Concord, wounded in this battle on October 3, died on October 6^th. This was the third Concord man from Company B of the 16^th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment to die fighting or from wounds inflicted in battle.

Battle of South Mountain (Maryland). Avery Perkins had enlisted in the 6th Wisconsin Infantry, one of the regiments of the famous Iron Brigade. He was killed in action on September 14, 1862, at the Battle of South Mountain, which was a prelude to the better-known Battle of Antietam. When I discovered this it took my breathe away because, in Pennsylvania I had lived in the Cumberland Valley, which lies between two ridges, one of these being South Mountain.

Avery’s death must have been especially hard on his younger brother Riley because their father and stepmother had died, both on the same day in 1855, perhaps in an epidemic. Riley enlisted on August 15, 1862, almost exactly a month before the death of his brother. He served in the 20th Wisconsin Infantry with seven other Concord men and survived the war.

Battle of Prairie Grove (Arkansas). This battle, on December 7, 1862, was the last major battle in northwester Arkansas. It reminds us that the Civil War took place west of the Mississippi. There is another story waiting to be told about what happened to Concord men "out west," where they had to contend with bushwackers as well as regular Confederate troops (5).

Two regiments with Concord men took part in the Battle of Prairie Grove: two cavarly men in 3^rd Wisconsin Cavalry and eight men in the 20th Wisconsin Infantry. The battle started when the Union Cavalry and the Confederate Cavalry clashed, with the Union horsemen driven back to Walnut Grove. The Confederate troops then positioned their artillery, with its four bronze cannon, on a ridge at Prairie Grove. After Union reinforcements arrived, the battle ended in a draw, with the casualties about the same on both sides.

Two Concord men, Adam Hazelwood and Samuel Lockwood (George’s brother) were wounded at Prairie Grove. Adam would go on to participate in the siege and Battle of Vicksburg (Mississippi). He was mustered out July, 1865. Samuel’s wounds were apparently more severe as that is the reason given for his discharge, three months later (March, 1863). Both returned to their homes in Concord. Adam, who had immigrated from England with his parents, married the daughter of a Welsh immigrant and became a leader in the community. Samuel also married, shortly after returning, and appears with his family in the 1870 Federal Census.

The National Park service has an excellent online lesson about this battle. It features two outstanding primary sources, accounts by witnesses who were children at the time: Julia West Pyeatt, who was fourteen; and Caledonia Ann Borden Brandenburg, who was nine. In my presentation I read short excerpts from these acounts, which told how their families hid in the cellar during the battle. The most moving passage comes from Caledonia, who described what they saw and did after dark, when they emerged from the cellar:

... we came out of the cellar. There was a dead man across the cellar door, wounded and dying men all around. ... The men worked through the night helping the wounded. Yankees and Rebels all got the same care. Pa sneaked back up the hill ... the home that we all loved so much, had been burned to the ground after the Yankees plundered the inside ... They killed and ate our cattle, hogs, sheep, chickens. ... We had 60 bushels of wheat stored upstairs and it slowly burned for three weeks in the rubble.

Here  wecome face to face with the painful experiences of civilians caught up in the war. We also feel the strength of their compassion ... binding up the nation’s wounds in December of 1862, long before the peace at Appomattox.


Personal Connections to the Past

After my presentation one of our members, a descendant of Adam Hazelwood, who had just returned from a visit to Vicksburg, where he had participated in an elder hostle program, shared with us many fascinating details about that battlefield. What impressed me most, however, was the deep personal connection he felt to the past. Yes, the Civil War veterans are all long gone, but their stories are still being carried forward by their descendants. I feel the same kind of connection to World War I, my grandfather’s war. 

When we can connect the past to real people, who were there and experienced it, the past becomes more than words on the pages of history books, more than documents preserved in archives, more than images or artifacts curated in museums. Of course, all of these help us to imagine the past. Every community needs stories about real people, grassroots people, to enrich its collective memory. There are Civil War soldiers with no descendants to tell their stories. For those of us who love history it is our duty to restore their stories to our communities.

PROJECTS

These are projects for a US History class, a local historical society, local media reporters, a Boy Scout or Girl Scout troop, family reunion organizers, genealogists, or anyone who cares about keeping our communities connected to the past. These efforts will make a lasting contribution to local history and provide much needed resources for local teachers. 

ROSTER: Does your community have a roster of its Civil War soldiers? If not, recovering their names and basic information (such as that available in the Wisconsin Veterans Museum database) should be a priority. If a roster exits but was created several years ago, it probably needs checking and revising–as new information may be available.

CEMETERY ROSTER: Survey all the cemeteries in you community and compile a roster of Civil War soldiers burial sites. This roster will (and should) include names of veterans who moved into the community after the war. Then use available databases to add basic information about each person listed. Share this roster with local organizations, schools, and media. Turn it into a Civil War walking/driving brochure of these cemeteries.

FAMILY HISTORIES: What do you know about the families of those who served in the Union or Confederate armies? I’ve discovered that sometimes even genealogists do not know about family members who fought in the Civil War. And it is sad to read obituaries of Civil War veterans that fail to mention their service. At the same time, you can add a vital dimension to any name in the roster by connecting it to families in census records or to information gleaned from family trees. 

SOLDIERS’ STORIES: Using regimental histories and accounts of skirmishes and battles, it is possible to reconstruct the activities of soldiers–or at least follow their movements during the course of the war. What might they have experienced at Shiloh or during the siege of Vicksburg? Are there any documents (including letters, diaries, discharge papers) to help restore their stories? Dig deep in local archives, talk to members of local historical societies, find obituaries, check out resources at state historical societies or repositories, and consult military or Civil War museums. Piece together what you find, speculate a bit (as long as you’re honest about it), and turn names from a list into real people.

HOME FRONT STORIES: Those who didn’t go off to war also made important contributions to the war effort. Find out what’s in local newspapers and look for clues in any surviving correspondence from the Civil War era. Examine agricultural and industrial policies at all levels of government–and compare pre-war, wartime, and post-war statistics–to uncover economic aspects of the war and its aftermath. In communities with many immigrants don’t forget to check out local newspapers in European languages (for example, the German press in Wisconsin).

GENERAL RESOURCES

Anderson, Nick. "Teaching the Civil War, 150 Years Later." Washington Post (April 10, 2011): http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/teaching-the-civil-war-150-years-later/2011/04/01/AFyFxaGD_story.html

Blight, David W. "Forgetting Why We Remember." New York Times (May 29. 2011): http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/opinion/30blight.html?ref=opinion

• Did you know that the first Memorial Day was observed on May 1, 1865 in Charleston, South Carolina? (I’m including this resource because it too illustrates a fascinating piece of local history.)

Valley of the Shadow: http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/ 

• A University of Virginia digital archive of primary sources (letters and diaries, census and church records, speeches) created by people living in two counties, one in the North (Franklin County, Pennsylvania) and one in the South (Augusta County, Virginia). These are organized into three time periods: Eve of the War, War Years, and Aftermath.
• An excellent example of local history resources collected for the purpose of putting localities into the broader flow of history.
• These sources are of great value for topics not tied necessarily to the Civil War, such as local social history. Where I was teaching our department secretary discovered a scandal from those years in her husband’s family!
• Highly recommended for use in high school and college classes across the country.

"The Battle of Prairie Grove: Civilian Recollections of the Civil War." National Park Service: http://www.cr.nps.gov/NR/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/70prairie/70prairie.htm

• Prairie Grove is a state park but the NPS features it in its series "Teaching with historic Places Lesson Plans." Explore this series for other Civil War lessons and primary sources.

RESOURCES: WISCONSIN AND THE CIVIL WAR

Civil War Wisconsin: http://www.civilwarwisconsin.com/

• Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Commission’s web site of resources for local historical societies over the next five years.

Wisconsin Veterans Museum: Civil War Database: http://museum.dva.state.wi.us/civilwaronline/Search.aspx

Wisconsin Historical Society: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/civilwar/
"Quiner, Edwin Bryant." Wisconsin Historical Society: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/civilwar/people.asp?term_id=2671&action=search

• For links to ten volumes of letters Quiner clipped from newspapers during the war years and to regimental histories from his book, Military History of Wisconsin (1866).
• Also a link the diary of Emilie Quiner (his daughter).

"Turning Points: Wisconsin in the Civil War Era." Wisconsin Historical Society: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/subtopic.asp?tid=5

"Letters by Relatives of Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1861-1919." Wisconsin Historical Society: Turning Points: Wisconsin Civil War Ear: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=1728

• For letters by George Lockwood, Samuel Lockwood, Verdine Carpenter, and Horatio Brewer (all Concord men who fought in the Civil War).

Wisconsin Veterans Museum: Civil War Database: http://museum.dva.state.wi.us/civilwaronline/Search.aspx

Loohauis-Bennett, Jackie. "150 Years Ago, Faraway Battles Drew Wisconsinites ." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (April 2, 2011): http://www.jsoline.com/entertainment/119079394

Jones, Meg. "Descendants of Wisconsin Veterans mark Anniversary of the Civil War." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (April 12, 2011): http://www.jsoline.com/news/milwaukee/119671359.html

Dodge Jefferson County Genealogical Society: http://www.dodgejeffgen.com

• Click on ARCHIVES and scroll down to Concord (Jefferson Cty) for link to "Nathaniel Carpenter Ransom biography." It contains a much information, including Ransom’s attempts to enlist and how he experienced the Civil War.
• Use their extensive collection of obituary clippings and library to research the genealogies of Civil War soldiers.
• DJCGS has just received (still cataloguing) a special family collection that includes Civil War documents.
• Site includes links to online Rosters at the Wisconsin Historical Society site: Civil War, Roster of Wisconsin Civil War Soldiers, vol. I; Civil War, Roster of Wisconsin Civil War Soldiers, vol. I

"Civil War Encampment September 2007." Johnson Creek Historical Society: http://www.johnsoncreekhistory.com/civilwar.htm


The Cushing Brothers

"Civil War Soldier Awarded Medal of Honor." CBS News (May 20, 2010): http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/20/national/main6502241.shtml

"Winning a Battle to Honor a Civil War Hero." New York Times (June 11, 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/us/12medal.html?hpw

• Includes a photo of Alonzo Cushing and five others, taken at Antietam
• Describes how Margaret Zerweh spent 23 years to restore Alonzo Cushing's story to national history, finally convincing Senator Russ Feingold to help in the effort to award him the Medal of a Honor

"The Story of William Barker Cushing." U.S.S. Cushing Association. http://cushing.0catch.com/wbcush.htm

• Link from this page to "In William Barker Cushing's Own Words: The Destruction of the Albemarle" and other primary sources

"Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Fuger’s "Brief" Military History of Nearly 44 Years of Service in the 4th Regiment of Artillery, U.S. Army." Cushing’s Battery: http://cushingsbatterywi.com/historical.html

• Fuger, who was at Gettysburg with Alonzo Cushing, provides a detailed account.
• Site is currently being updated.

NOTES

1) That school is now closed. Students in the township attend schools in the Watertown, Jefferson, Oconomowoc, and Johnson Creek districts. I am pleased to report that the Johnson Creek elementary school is doing a great job with its annual Civil War encampment program (see photos at site listed in the Wisconsin section of Resources).

2) A series of Civil War letters from Isaac Poe to his family and by relatives and friends were published in the Milwaukee Journal (May 28, 1961) under the title "Dear Wife and Children." Poe belonged to the 29th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, Company F, with ten other Concord men. He was one of five Concord casualties from this company (there were two others from another company). The survivors were mustered out in June, 1865, at Shreveport, Louisiana.

3) "George S. Lockwood, M.D." Entry in The History of Jefferson County, Wisconsin (Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1879). Online: http://www.rockvillemama.com/lockwoodg.txt

4) Based on Federal Census data, the WVM database, and significant additional information provided by Bob Mittlestadt.

5) Isaac Poe, who died in 1863, served on the frontier (I intend to tell more of his story in a follow-up presentation). William Allen, who died of disease at Rolla, Missouri, October 1862, was part of this western story and one of the five Concord causualties of 1862

Film and History (Take One)

(This post began with an attempt to recycle a film project from a course I designed for history majors at a state university in the late 1990s. I wanted to call that course "Doing History" but after colleagues nixed that title it was added to the roster as "Theory and Practice of History." While the film project was a major component, it was interwoven with other skill sets–such as finding resources in the library and online, presenting items in a bibliography, and the evaluation and interpretation of primary sources.)

INTRODUCTION

It’s that time of year again, movie time in classrooms across America, when teachers as well as students need to unwind after high-stakes exams (AP World History, AP European History, state-mandated exams) or just need an end-of year filler, or a last-week-of-class reward for good behavior. Certainly, it’s possible to show a feature film, perhaps over two or more class periods, for BOTH fun AND the advancement of critical thinking.

If, as suspected, many teenagers learn history from the movies, any time spent in class that gets those critical thinking cells juiced up is time well-spent. Not frivolous at all. The alternative is letting them just slurp it up, passively imbibing history, without really tasting any of the nuances that rise to the surface if we stir it up by raising questions.

What is the value of showing historical feature films? Where should we direct our critical engagement when view such films? Are film-makers also history-makers? To what extent does a critique of a film as a film (as a work produced in that medium) influence our ability to evaluate it as a depiction of history? For social studies and history teachers those questions swirl around issues of historical "quality"–which is a better (because it is broader) concept than "accuracy" (think quality in the Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance sense).

Whenever a teacher decides to show a film with an historical setting or pivoting around an historical event or person, the selection of the film itself is a process, involving questions and answers. Since the underwriting of feature films turns on profits rather than pedagogy, it is up to the individual teacher to discover in it a didactic purpose (1). The next step is devising an activity that will turn mere viewing into an exercise in historical thinking. It really comes down to this: Is this film good or good enough as history, given the class time that will be consumed by showing it? Is it "good to think with" (the favorite query of the late Claude Levi-Strauss)? I’d also ask myself: Is this really the kind of history I want to promote in my classroom?

Let’s remember, too, that even professors of world history are not (for the most part!) experts in all the national or regional fields at the base of that humongous endeavor. We also learn history from movies, as Robert Rosenstone reminds us:

• How many professional historians, when it comes to fields outside their areas of expertise learn about the past from film? How many Americanists, for example know the great Indian leader primarily from Gandhi? Or how many Europeanists the American Civil War from Glory, or Gone with the Wind? Or how many Asianists early modern France from The Return of Martin Guerre? (2)

As an Africanist who’s had to do a lot of stretching over the years, I know how right-on this statement is. Thus, we too need to think hard about "film and history" issues, for our own benefit, not just that of our students. And for those who prepare future teachers, it is even more imperative. Inevitably, as teachers they will be finding their own "pedagogical purposes" at the movies.

Here I will present a few thoughts about these issues, a first installment (as the title of my post suggests). These are yours for the taking (or not), to apply to the showing of an end-of-year film now or to consider when adding a film or film excerpt) to next year’s lesson plans or integrating a film into a semester-long syllabus as a special project.

Every feature film is part of history, a primary source for the era of its production and, especially in the case of block-busters, for understanding the history of popular culture. Of course, it is a milestone (or a millstone) in the historical trajectory of film-making itself (a sub-field of both history and film studies) and critical thinking about almost any film of any genre is enhanced by trying to figure out how it is communicating its messages (3). This includes knowledge of technical aspects of film-making, such as ways of manipulating the lighting, and the limiting/expanding capabilities of the hardware available at any particular time (4).

When we speaking of "historical films," we are usually thinking about an inclusive category, but these films fall into two principal types: historical fiction films and historical drama films. A historical fiction film has settings and contexts that are realistic–grounded in what we know about the time and place--but the main characters are fictitious (though historical figures may appear in cameo roles). In these films the "historical setting is intrinsic to the story and meaning of the work" and that’s where audiences will perceive its historical intent (5). A historical drama film depicts, in its main characters and plot, real persons and events and therefore we expect a degree of fidelity to what is well-documented in the historical record. In practice, however, what distinguishes these types is breaking down as, increasingly, the dramatic strategy of "placing fictional characters next to historical characters in settings alternately documentable and wholly invented" (6).

In the film project from which this post is derived, the films selected for critique and analysis were historical drama films. For that reason this post will focus on historical drama though much of it may apply more generally to any films with a historical setting.

What has always bothered me about cinematic representations of historical events is their ability to imprint a particular understanding of what was really happening." This is because what we see on the screen is so vivid, so easily recalled even years later. An informant told Mark Carnes, "What has endured in my imagination all of these years are the movie’s vivid pictures." Carnes goes on to discuss psychological studies linking visual perception and memory. Today’s advances in neuroscience offer more than confirmation– they offer clearer explanations of how this occurs in the brain (7).

The power of visual images is such that even a very critically-minded historian cannot easily escape from viewing the past as they predispose us to see it. Like Philippa Levine, I’m "film-suspicious." She’s right: aesthetics, compression, simplification–all of these "visual seductions of film can have a reductive effect, and perhaps especially in historical films" (8). Now more than ever--since we inhabit a post-literate world, a highly visual world-- being suspicious is simply being prudent. Let’s be up front about the power of images to linger in our memory, to pre-shape our historical imaginations, and to interfere with attempts to use documented history to adjust what we think we know about the past.

Take any film about an actual event, a process (series of linked events and their contexts) or a life embedded in events or in the slower changes of an era. Such a film is a always a representation of history–however flawed it may be--and as a representation it is but one view of that history. Like any view, it will be incomplete and never a perfect reproduction nor even a perfect mirror. If the goal is nurturing an ability to imagine and, perhaps, to sort out multiple views of past events, then, as Robert Rosenstone points out, we need to explain how the history produced by film-makers is different from that produced by conventional historians, whose medium is text (accompanied by tables, graphs, charts, maps, scattered few illustrations).

If a historical drama film is history–but history in a different medium, that means its conventions will be those of film and "history on film will always violate the norms of written history"(9). Rosenstone calls attention to a set of fictional devices, conventions involving "Compression, Condensation, Alteration, and Metaphor." (Since I don’t have time here to explain these well-enough, let me just recommend reading the full article–as well as other work by Rosenstone, whose scholarship has shaped the "film and history" discourse since the 1980s.)

Rosenstone also makes what is potentially a very useful distinction between the "false" invention of Mississippi Burning and the "true" invention of Glory (10). The false inventions in Mississippi Burning are perpetrated by what it omits: "This story simply excludes too much we already know about Mississippi Freedom Summer and their rather belated actions of the FBI to solve the murder of there three civil rights workers." The true inventions in Glory include an undocumented incident that is "one of many ways the film has of pointing to the kinds of Northern racism that black soldiers faced" and even in its other simplifications "it proposes nothing that clashes with the ‘truth’ of the Fifty-fourth Regiment." It is here that teachers and students need to apply their critical thinking skills, first to find what is invented, and then to judge it according to the historical record, knowledge, and discourse at hand. Does an invention elicit a message that is "true" or "false"?

While I’m not completely at ease with every point Rosenstone makes (because I’m still too much of an empiricist), I do think his approach merits our attention. Better to see historical film and history as complementary than to insist upon an absolute standard of accuracy (unattainable in any medium). The humanities are moving forward inexorably into a digital age, with the digital humanities gaining prominence, we need to be open to many forms of history even though, at the same time, we will point out both their strengths and weaknesses (11).

Class Discussion of the Issues

I couldn’t resist including a few quotations that should elicit (provoke?) discussion. They are presented here for use as a hand-out. For citations see "Quotations" in the Notes section (below).

QUOTATIONS ABOUT BIG ISSUES

　　
1) LOUIS MENAND: "Since Steven Spielberg made the turn toward seriousness with Schindler’s List, he has been working in a kind of no man’s land between entertainment and art. Big Hollywood entertainments on large historical subjects have almost always been manipulative, and show little evidence of embarrassment about that fact. The filmmakers want to stir audiences because audiences want to be stirred. They come to cheer, to weep, to go out for popcorn. ... The overt moral sentiment is always merely flattering: it is what audiences want to be told to thin, because it is what they already do think. They didn’t come for an argument."

2) ROBERT A. ROSENSTONE: "[A] film is a film, not a book or a lecture. Not an argument or a represenation on a page but a work that creates a world for us in a visual and aural medium (though film can also incorporate the written word). Were history simply a matter of getting information across, we culd all go back to writing chronicles. But we don’t. We write narratives–moral narratives–in which the demands of written languge and genre inflect the kinds of things we can say about the past."
　
3) NATALIE ZEMON DAVIS: "Historical films should let the past be the past. The play of imagination in picturing resistance to slavery can follow the rules of evidence when possible, and the spirit of the evidence when details are lacking... wishing away the harsh and strange spots in the past, softening or remodeling them like the familiar present" can only make building a desired future harder.

4) RICHARD BERNSTEIN: "When artists, intentionally or not, distort the known facts to get an effect, either political or commercial, they are on the wrong side of the line between poetic truth and historical falsification. Artists who present as fact things that never happened, who refuse to allow the truth to interfere with a good story, are betraying their art and history as well."


Class Discussion of a Particular Historical Drama Film

My advice, for any given film, is to consider aesthetics first since all of its aesthetic angles contribute to its story-telling success or failure. If the acting isn’t so good, if the scenery and props are dull or inappropriate, if the cinematography lousy, the overall impression will be that the film is a "dud" and whatever history it is allegedly conveying won’t come through very well either. In short, critical engagement begins with attention to aesthetics.

If the film works as a film, the next step is to open up the classroom conversation to ruminations about its themes and messages. Yes, I did say ruminations, because we want students to chew on their thoughts for a while. Give the audience (the class) an opportunity to share some of their "gut" reactions and let them chew on each others’ thoughts.  Consider asking these questions:

• What is history being represented in this film?
• What is the film really about? Perhaps we can’t really say, or maybe it wasn’t intended to have a deeper meaning?
• Are there major and minor themes (just as there are major and minor characters)?
• Is there a clear overall message? Or many small messages?
• Will the diversity of life experiences among people in the audience elicit different responses? Different responses because people perceive different messages? Or different responses to essentially the same messages?
• How does the film reflect the conventions of the film medium? For example, where is there "compression" of the time frame?
• Are there elements of the plot that don’t seem quite right?
• Is what happens historically plausible? But isn’t reality sometimes stranger than fiction?
• How might we go about assessing the history conveyed in this particular film?
• What’s in the historical record? What knowledge do we have of the events and people depicted?
• What historical discourse and debates are relevant?
• Are there examples of "true" invention? Of "false" invention? Are these consequential enough to justify a "true" or "false" label for the film as a work of history?
• Are we dealing here with highly contested history? If so, is bias we can identify bias? Is it biased to the point of being propagandistic? Could it be used as propaganda? Perhaps there is evidence that it has?

From this kind of brainstorming students will develop a whole range of hypotheses about the quality of the film and its value as a representation of history. These hypotheses will provide ample avenues for individual research and the writing of critical essays or other projects.

THE FILM PROJECT

It was with many of the issues discussed above that I decided to integrate a film project into the "Theory and Practice of History" course. The purpose of that project was to give each student an opportunity to critique a particular film, approach it as an apprentice historian.

As preparation we read and discussed in class two short articles and one longer one, all three still very suitable material. But if you use them, I recommend updating your own prep notes with comparable examples from more recent films, especially those that students may have seen or at least heard about.

We started with Richard Bernstein’s "Can Movies Teach History?" (1989). Bernstein raises many of the same issues that Rosenstone does, but in a more accessible format. Acknowledging that filmmakers, like novelists, engage in "poetic license," he asks two "does it matter" questions:

• Does it matter if the details are wrong if the underlying meaning of events is accurate? Or, conversely, does it matter if the details are correct if the underlying truths remain twisted and unsubstantiated?

He goes on to identify Fat Man and Little Boy as a prime example of "a work where a strongly felt point of view has guided the film makers in deciding what historical facts to show and how to show them." Both Joffe’s and Paul Newman’s anti-nuclear views were widely known, so it was relatively easy for Bernstein to expose the film’s ideological twist. In the end he comes down much harder on falsification than Rosenstone (see #4 in the "Quotations About Big Issues" section).

Mark Carnes’s column, "Beyond Words" (1996) was distributed to students and brought into the discussion as students began working on their projects. Like typical students, they were concerned with the accuracy of the details (and I did expect them to attend to these). Yet, Carnes tackles this issue by making a distinction between the authenticity of a film’s material culture (costumes, buildings, vehicles, props of all kinds) from the historical accuracy of the plot. He also addresses the "stickiness" of a movie’s vivid imagery (as discussed above). If you assign this article, you’ll probably want to shorten it by by omitting the account of how Warner Brothers restricted access to still photographs that Carnes wanted to include in Past Imperfect (though this is fascinating if you’re interested in copyright issues).

The Eric Foner and John Sayles conversation (1995) served many purposes. It begins by contrasting films that are "star vehicles" with those an "ensemble of actors" (where the focus is on the team). From his perspective as a historian Foner thinks that the "ensemble situations" of Sayles’s films make them stronger. A good example is Matewan, though Sayles admits he altered facts, simplified, reduced the number of points of view--while trying to remain "true to the larger picture." This is a rich and provocative piece, sure to elicit many comments in class. My margins of my original copy are filled with questions that intended to toss out and tie into the assigned film project.

Getting Started: Questions to Ask about the Film

I stressed that after viewing the film, perhaps for the very first time, students should jot down their impressions. To make sure that they had a firm grasp of the film’s content I suggested that they make notes, using the following questions (#1-6) as a guide. Beyond that, they were advised to make a list of specific questions that, when answered, would clear up any confusion they might have about the setting/s and structure of the film.

Today students can find online resources (such as the film’s web site or Internet Movie Database) to draw up a cast of characters, to make an outline of the plot, and to create other "crib sheets" that will save time so that more effort can be put into their research and analysis. I’d also suggest that students look for published versions of the screenplay (where these exist) but warn them not to assume that these are transcripts of the final version of the film.

I explained that while the initial screening would give students a holistic sense of the film, they should view it a second with larger issues in mind (questions #7-9) and keep at, rewinding and re-viewing scenes as needed, until they were satisfied.

1) What is the setting of the film?

2) Who are its main characters? Are these historical figures?

3) Do historical figures appear in the film in minor roles? (Applies to historical fiction films)

4) Summarize the film’s plot. Work up a timeline of the action. Are there flashbacks? Is there foreshadowing?

5) What is the central (climatic) event? Is this a historical or fictional event?

6) What is the film’s theme?

7) What do you think is the director’s point of view? What is the director’s ideological perspective?

8) What artistic techniques are most apparent?

9) What strikes you as possibly or probably inaccurate, distorted or biased?

10) What specific research do you need to do to assess this film?

Project Options

Students were given a choice of projects: a critical essay, a multimedia presentation (with script), a written proposal for a "remake" of the film, or a study guide. This last option was available only if no published study guide existed. I was open to other project ideas (though no one came up with any).

Each project had to utilize primary source material as a basis for evaluating the film, determining how it represented or misrepresented the past. Students were instructed to integrate references to primary material into their essays, multimedia presenations, "remake" proposals, or study guides.

All projects had to include a bibliography of primary and secondary sources and a separate select bibliography of all the film reviews consulted. Copies of these reviews had to be put in the project folder so I could easily check when evaluating the projects. This requirement was to put in place to encourage originality and deter plagiarism.

Students could choose from a list of 15 films (nearly all available in the college library or at the two video outlets in town) but these choices had to be approved on a first-come, first-served basis. Thus, in a class of 20-some students there were no more than two students per film.

Results

All the students worked very hard on this project. Certain tasks (finding reviews, working up bibliographies) were carried out as exercises during the course of the semester. Each student handed in a project proposal and the approval process included individual session/s during office hours. The results were all satisfactory, some better than others, a few showing a great deal of creativity.

Most students opted to write critical essays and some of these were quite long, reflecting theirauthors attention to detail and/or deep engagement with the issues. No student choose to do a multimedia presentation but today I suspect that this might be the most popular option (a PowerPoint, a hypertext "essay" with embedded images of film clips, or a video) as students are so much more familiar with the software and technology. A few future teachers produced study guides. Only a couple took the "re-write" route.

Let me share two projects that demonstrated exceptional engagement with the assignment.

One was a critical essay by a student who had spent a year in Germany as an exchange student. He selected the film Europa, Europe and took the time to read the memoir so that he could compare it with the film. He discovered how closely the film followed the events in the book, finding only a few discrepancies, mostly resulting from the compression of events.

The other project was the most creative of the lot, a script for a re-make of the film Cry Freedom. Taking seriously critiques of the film that had pointed out how its focus on the white reporter prevented it from telling a fuller version of the Biko’s story, he produced scenarios for what was essentially an alternative film. He drew his material from online texts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This student, who was returning to school after dropping out for a year or two, had revealed to me that he was often frustrated by significant learning disabilities. He thrived doing a project where he could spread the wings of his innate creativity. It was a pleasure to read.

ONLINE REFERENCE RESOURCES

This post’s Resources sections are by no means exhaustive. Watch for updates in my "Film and History" series.

Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdt.com/

• Basic information about almost any film: director, producer, actors
• Trailers (sometimes suited to a "pedagogical purpose")
• Links to news about the film or related films

"100 Films Views by Historians". AHA Blog:
http://blog.historians.org/resources/1316/100-films-reviewed-by-historians.

• Very useful list of the "Masters and the Movies" columns in AHA Perspectives . Beginning in September 2007, it continues to the present. Scroll down past the blank part of the page to arrive at the chart.
• Links to 17 short articles and their introductions (see these for information about author, commentary by the editor). Also a link for each film to the Internet Movie Database.
• See, for example, Ron Briley on The Battle of Algiers (widely used in AP World History classes): http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2010/1010/1010fil.2.cfm

"Film and Media." AHA Perspectives (search page): http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/search.cfm

• Search "film" to bring these up (mixed in with other relevant articles, including those from "Masters and the Movies"). Take the time to scroll through and sample these because the films and the issues raised are still relevant.
• Carnes (1996), listed below, was part of this series.

Browse the listings (titles, dates, very basic info) at the Internet History Sourcebooks Project site: No commentary on usefulness, mostly older films.

• "Ancient History in the Movies": http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/asbookmovies.html
• "Medieval History in the Movies": http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/medfilms.html
• "Modern History in the Movies": http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbookmovies.html

History in the Movies: http://www.stfrancis.edu/content/historyinthemovies/

• Web site of Cathy Schultz, a history professor at the University of St. Francis, who writes a newspaper column about historical films. See long list of films on left side, titles of recent columns on the right.
• Links to resources for teaching

"List of Historical Drama Films." Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_drama_film

• Includes many older and many foreign films (mostly European), dealing with European and Western or Western-colonized settings.

"List of Historical Drama Films of Asia." Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_drama_films_of_Asia

• East and Central Asia, India; organized by country (except for "Indochinese History").

History on Film: http://www.historyonfilm.com/links.htm.  Links to many sites with reviews and commentary.


World History in Film: http://worldhistoryinfilm.com/

• Assembled by high school and college World History instructors. A place to browse but comments about each film are very short.
• Click "General Resources" for History or Hollywood AP Project (downloadable). It appears that no resources posted for individual films.
• Site needs more external links (one is Wikipedia, "List of Historical Drama Films").
• Consider helping these folks out–by contributing comments and resources.

Teach with Movies: http://www.teachwithmovies.org/world-history-2.html#26a

• Another place to browsing, but listings are mostly Hollywood or US productions. (This site, though often linked to, is not all that useful.)
• Instructional materials available only by subscription and samples are provided not especially relevant to World History).　

ALSO GOOD FOR BROWSING: Schultz and von Tunzelmann’s columns (see next section).


RESOURCES: EXPLORING THE TOPIC　

Film and History (a major journal, based at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh): http://www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory/

• Check out current/back issues for reviews of books about film and cultural history, film and political history, visual representation, the history of various film genres.
• Click on "Resources" for a long list of related web sites.
• Under "Resources" check out the "Instructional Assisstance" section for online theory and pedagogy articles and sites.
• Also under "Resources" a list of recently reviewed films.

Anderson, Steve. "History TV and Popular Memory." In Gary R. Edgerton and Peter C. Rollins, eds., Television Histories: Shaping Collective Memory in the Media Age (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001). URL: http://iml.usc.edu/remix/anderson/publication/5.AndersonHistoryTV.pdf

Bernstein, Richard. "Can Movies Teach History?" New York Times (November 26, 1989): http://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/26/movies/can-movies-teach-history.html?scp=1&sq=richard%20bernstein%20can%20movies%20teach%20history&st=cse

Carnes, Mark C., ed. Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1995.

• This compendium of 75 fairly short essays (mostly by historians prominent in their fields) about classic, big-screen films is still an essential references for history teachers.  Select essays to use as case studies for class discussion.
• A place to start for students doing papers or projects on a particular film, but emphaze that they will need to search online for additional reviews and more recent commentary.

Carnes, Mark C., ed. "A Conversation between Eric Foner and John Sayles." In Past Imperfect (see above).

Carnes, Mark C. "Beyond Words; Reviewing Moving Pictures." AHA Perspectives (May/June 1996): http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/1996/9605/9605FIL.CFM

Grossman, Jim. "Historians and The Conspirator: Using Film to Ask Big Questions." AHA Blog (April 13, 2011): http://blog.historians.org/executive-director/1311/historians-and-the-conspirator-using-film-to-ask-big-questions

Landy, Marcia. The Historical Film: History and Memory in Media. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2001.  (Consult parts of this book at Google Books.)

Levine, Philippa. "The Trouble with Film." AHA Perspectives (Marh 2010): http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2010/1003/1003fil2.cfm

Rosen, Philip. Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory. Minneapolis: Unversity of Minnesota Press, 2001.

Rosenstone, Robert A.  Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

• See table of contents online at Harvard UP site (includes chapter of Oliver Stone’s JFK and on Reds).
• Includes "History in Images/History in Words" but access this important essay online

Rosenstone, Robert A. "History in Images/History in Words: Reflections on the Possibility of Really Putting History onto Film." American Historical Review 93 (December 1988): 1173-1185. URL: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/classics/rr0499/rrrr6a.htm

Rosentstone. Robert A. "The Historical Film as Real History." Film-Historia 5 91995): 5-23. URL: http://www.publicacions.ub.es/bibliotecaDigital/cinema/filmhistoria/Art._Rosenstone.doc.pdf

Stoddard, Jeremy D. and Alan S. Marcus. "More Than "Showing What Happened": Exploring the Potential of Teaching History with Film." The High School Journal 93/2 (January–February 2010): 83-90. Online at Project MUSE®.

• Based on ten years of data and research, with a focus on how "to equip students with the ability to view historical representation critically." Authors stress the importance of having "a clear purpose for selecting a film."

Toplin, Robert Brent. Reel History: In Defense of Hollywood.  Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2002.

• Toplin’s long interest in "film and history" issues makes this a book worth consulting. For several years he edited the "Media and the Masters" column in the AHA Perspectives (see "100 Films Reviewd by Historians").
• See Rosenstone’s somewhat critical review in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History 37 (Summer 2006):159-160.

Reel History.  Historian Alex von Tunzelmann’s column in the Guardian:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/series/reelhistory.  Historian Alex von Tunzelmann’s column in the Guardian:

• Each review gives the film two grades: one for Entertainment, the other for history. Scroll to end of piece for von Tunzelmann’s "Verdict."
• Links to related articles, reviews (especially for British points of view).
• See, for example, "The King's Speech: True Blood or Right Royal Dud?" (January 13, 2011): http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jan/13/reel-history-kings-speech-colin-firth　

Check out Cathy Schultz’s columns at History in the Movies (above) for discussions of specific films that also deal with larger issues.

OTHER RESOURCES 

PROJECT: "Scripting the Past: Exploring Women's History Through Film." Edsitement (September 27, 2010):

http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/scripting-past-exploring-womens-history-through-film#sect-activities

• A "learn-by-doing" project" in which students craft/write screenplays for a documentary.
• Includes a research component: what kinds of information do they need to create a biographical documentary? 
• Adapt this project by asking students to compose a scenario or write of a screenplay for a historical drama feature film about the life of a historical figure. Students this project would find it useful to consult several essays about biographical films in Past Imperfect.

Byers, Richard. "Reel Germans": Teaching German (And World) History with Film." World History Connected 7 (February 2010): http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/7.1/byers.html

• Includes an "FILM ANALYSIS FORM" to guide students writing film reviews (Appendix B).
• Also helpful, "Classical Hollywood Style / Institutional Mode of Representation (IMR)" (Appendix C).
• General and specialized bibliography (Appendix D).

Gallagher, Gary W. "Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: Hollywood and the Civil War Since Glory." AHA Perspectives (May 2008): http://historians.org/perspectives/issues/2008/0805fil2.cfm
　
Njeri Ngugi. "Presenting and (Mis)representing History in Fiction Film: Semb ne's Camp de Thiaroye and Attenborough's Cry Freedom." Journal of African Cultural Studies (2003): 57-68.

• Two films of great relevance to teachers of World History. Not online but try to obtain from university library or interlibrary loan.
• Njeri considers how two directors, "taking on the dual role of director and historian," are in actuality seeking "to 'control' history, that is, they depict their vision of a particular set of historical facts - in the hope of persuading their audience that this is the 'true' or 'correct' representation of what occurred."
• Also, for analysis of the implications of using film to depict a story (rather than a textual account), making the argument that "it is in the product of this selection and representation that the ideology of the directors may be discerned as it is they who select which facts to present and the light in which they shall be cast." (Quoting from the abstract).

Notes

1) See Jeremy D. Stoddard and Alan S. Marcus (2010) in Resources.

2) Robert A. Rosenstone, "The Historical Film as Real History," (1995), PDF, p.1 (see Resources).

3) Natalie Zemon Davis, "The Author’s Response," AHA Perspectives (September 2001): http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2001/0109/0109fil4.cfm. She points out that film studies scholars rarely consider how communication works in specifically historical films, with the notable exception of Philip Rosen (see Resources).

4) For example, see Mark Carnes (1996) on how the message of All the President’s Men was conveyed by what could only be intentionally produced lighting effects (see Resources).

5) Rosenstone (see note 2), PDF, p.2. His examples: Molly Maguires, The Black Robe.

6) Rosenstone (see note 2), PDF, p.2. His prime example is Glory (a film he discusses later in the article but also examines in detail in other essays).

7) See Carnes (1996) but this discussion needs updating. I have a whole file of neuroscience clippings to support this point. In my own research on oral traditions I’ve explored how visual imagery enhanced the transmission of stories about the remote past (so this is a special concern of mine).

8) Levine, "The Trouble with Film" (2010) in Resources.

9) Rosenstone (see note 2), PDF, p. 7.

10) For this paragraph and its quotations see Rosenstone (note 2), PDF, pp. 9-11. Actually, I disagree with how he justifies a key alteration in Glory, the film’s implying that most of the 54th’s soldiers were ex-slaves. They were most free men and to imply otherwise is to marginalize their place in history. I intend to take this up in a post on film and representations of slavery and the Civil War. In the meantime, see Blight (2001), Gallagher (2008), and Grossman (2011), all listed in Resources.

11) See, for example, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, "The Humanities, Done Digitally," The Chronicle of Higher Education (May 13, 2011): B26.