The Confederacy was not only challenged militarily by the might of the Union, but politically by two groups of people that Southern leaders took for granted, a Binghamton University alumna and University of Pennsylvania professor said at a lecture on April 28.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor slaves and white women, people whom the (Confederate) government had expressed no previous interest, the Civil War posed more than a test of political commitments,\u201d Stephanie McCurry said. \u201cIt was a profoundly transformative event. For them, the war was a moment when time itself opened up and they stepped into the making of history.\u201d<\/p>\n
McCurry, who received her doctorate in history from Binghamton in 1988, is a specialist in 19th-century history, with a focus on the American South and the Civil War. Her first book,Masters of Small Worlds<\/em>, won numerous awards, but her latest book, 2010\u2019s\u00a0Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South<\/em>, has brought McCurry even greater acclaim. Just last month, the book was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in history.<\/p>\n \u201cI really am delighted to be back here in Binghamton,\u201d she said. \u201c(History) was a wonderful department to be in then and I\u2019m sure it still is now.\u201d<\/p>\n McCurry\u2019s book and talk are especially timely in light of the Civil War\u2019s sesquicentennial. She began her lecture \u2013 an overview of\u00a0Confederate Reckoning<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 by describing how South Carolina and other states opted out of the Union.<\/p>\n