Burton, Holzer highlight 32nd annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press

By David Bulla

Lincoln scholars Vernon Burton of Clemson University and Harold Holzer of Hunter College highlighted the 32nd annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression on the Summerville Campus of Augusta University.

Burton, author of “The Age of Lincoln,” gave the inaugural Hazel Dicken-Garcia Lecture titled “Lincoln, Liberty, Reconstruction, and the Supreme Court’s Deferral of Justice in the Nineteenth Century.”

Holzer was the keynote speaker, and his talk was titled “The Press and Chancellorsville: The Battle for German-American Reputation.”

Stacey Thompson, director of the Guard House Museum at AU, led a talk on the Summerville Campus and its nineteenth-century history as a military arsenal. Thompson was joined by AU Department of History assistant professor Melissa DeVelvis and AU Library Special Collections assistant professor Courtney Berge.

Thirty-eight papers were presented during the symposium, which is sponsored by the Pamplin College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, along with the Society of Nineteenth Century Historians. Jake Calhoun of the University of Virginia won the top research paper award. His paper was titled “‘Representatives of the Arch Destroyer Death’: Coroners and the Press in the Post-Civil War South.”

Awards were given to undergraduate students who presented from Coastal Carolina University and West Chester University.