Eulogies, Letters, and the Ideals of Northern Statesmanship with Rachel Wiedman

In this episode of Historians & Their Histories, we speak with Rachel Wiedman. She discusses her dissertation research on gender and political culture in the Civil War era North, tracing a shift in how Northerners evaluated political leadership from an ideal of restrained manhood that valued moderation and compromise to one of martial manhood that prized principle, moral courage, and confrontation. At the MHS, Rachel has been working with letters written by constituents to figures such as John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, and Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew, revealing how ordinary Northerners used the language of manhood to praise and condemn their political representatives. Rachel Wiedman is a recipient of the Marc Friedlaender Fellowship from the MHS.  To learn more about MHS fellowships and how to apply, please visit this page. Learn more about this episode here: https://www.masshist.org/podcast/hath-episode-36-Wiedman  This episode uses materials from:   Colocate by Podington Bear (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported)