LIPITZ LECTURE

Anne Sarah Rubin, Professor of History and Associate Director of the Imaging Research Center, UMBC

Historians know that over the course of the American Civil War, the Confederacy essentially starved to death, a result of the Union blockade, the breakdown of slavery on the homefront, and not enough food being grown.  What we don’t know, however, is what that felt like for ordinary people – on the most intimate and individual scale. “Confederate Hunger” explores the ways that the war affected what people ate and how food choices became symbols of nationalism, resistance, and survival. This project looks at food and hunger from the perspectives of white Southern civilians, African Americans, and Confederate soldiers.  It moves from the cabins of yeoman farmers, through plantation kitchens, army messes, and contraband refugee camps, from 1861 through the 1866 harvest. 

Bio: 

Anne Sarah Rubin is a Professor of History and Associate Director of the Imaging Research Center at UMBC. She is the 2016-2017 Lipitz Professor of the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Dr. Rubin received her A.B. from Princeton University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. She is the author of A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy (UNC, 2005), which received the 2006 Avery O. Craven Award from the Organization of American Historians for the most original book on the Civil War era, and Through the Heart of Dixie: Sherman's March in American Memory (UNC 2014).