Students should be able to:

• Read handwritten primary sources
• Recognize and articulate connections between religious belief and patriotism

Prior to visiting the archives, students need context about the causes of the American Civil War and the role that religion played in these divisions. This can be provided through lectures, course readings, and films (see Further Reading below).

During the Fall 2012 semester, my course used the presidential race as a counterpoint to the documents they examined in the archives. Students followed the public debate around Governor Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith and the religious beliefs of President Barack Obama. Students read and listened to speeches from both candidates in which religious freedom and beliefs were invoked. They engaged in lively discussion about the relevance or appropriateness of a candidates’ real or perceived religious identity.

Current events can provide an excellent contemporary comparison to the nineteenth-century archival documents examined in this exercise.

Number of Visits: 1
Duration of Visit: 1 hour 10 minutes

Agenda

In groups of 4 – 5, students are assigned to one of three stations:

• Two letters from a devout mother inquiring about her deceased soldier son
• A scrapbook of hate mail to a well-known abolitionist preacher
• A congregant letter protesting the John Brown raids

Students remain at one station during the entire class visit. They read the correspondence at their station and hold a discussion based on questions in the handout.

Wrap Up

Students reconvene to reflect upon their analyses and their responses to the questions posed in the handout.

Blog Posts

After the visit, students respond to the following questions on a class blog:

• What is the connection between religion and politics?
• Does this connection transcend time or was it merely isolated at this period?
• Do you see any links to religious attitudes and the attitudes of what it means to be an American that might correlate to a contemporary issue in America in the 21st century?

Students are required to make substantive comment (more than just, “I agree”) on at least two of the posts written by their colleagues.