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• Calamity at Chancellorsville: The Wounding and Death of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson
• Chancellorsville’s Forgot Front: The Battles of Second Fredericksburg and Sal Church, May 3, 1863
• Confederate General William “Extra Billy” Smith: From Virginia’s Statehou Gettysburg Scapegoat • The First Battle for Petersbu The Attack and Defense of the Cockade City, June 9, 1864 • Divided Loyalties: Kentucky’s Struggle for Armed Neutrality the Civil War • The Gettysburg Campaign in
Some Suggest By Chris Mackowski During a recent panel discussion at the Gettysburg Heritage Center, several of us from ECW pondered a question we all hear these days: “How do we get more young people interested in the Civil War?” My colleagues offered a lot of good advice, every thing from “get students onto the battlefields” to “focus on great storytelling.” I heartily endorse such sentiments! I hear this same lament a lot when I’m on the road speaking to roundtables. Everyone seems
to be feeling the same pinch and comments, “We need more
young people.” It’s true; we do! With everything competing for
to names/dates/places, Civil War history can seem downright boring compared to the entertaining multimedia immersion students
Since the panel discussion, I’ tried to think of several specifi suggestions I can offer as ways t get more young people interested in the Civil War. I offer these s gestions specifically with roundtables and historical societies in mind. I warn you in advance, the list is not exhaustive; in fa I would encourage all of you to chime in with specific things you
group successfully does. But here, at least, is a stab. Reach out to young people through the media channels they’re most apt to engage. A no-
tice in the local paper is great people in the traditional roundta ble demographics, but how many teenagers, or even twenty-somethings, read the local newspaper? Instead, what are you doing with social media, and not just Facebook (which has become kinda uncool for teens) but Twitter, In tagram, SnapChat, YouTube, and others? You have to keep current,
Casualties, and Maps, June 9 July 14, 1863 • A Little Short of Boats: The Battles of Ball’s Bluff & Edwa Ferry, October 21-22, 1861
• The Maps of Bristoe Station an Mine Run: An Atlas of the Batt and Movements in the Eastern Theater after Gettys
Including Rappahannock Station Kelly’s Ford, and Morton’s For to July 1863 - February 186 • “No Such Army Since the of Julius Ceasar”: Sherman’s Carolinas Campaign Fayetteville to Averasboro March 1865 • The Rashness of That Hour: Politics, Gettysburg, the Downfall of Confederate
too. After all, remember a crazy little thing called “MySpace”? Most teens today don’t remember it, either. “Vine” was a big thing for a while, too, but that seems t have withered. You have to know what social media young people are using today, and then consider how you’re actively using it to reach them. For example, are you sending out tweets about your meeting times? Is that all you’re tweeting, or are you retweeting links to interesting news stories and blog posts you like, too? If that social media stuff all sounds
like work, it is, but that’s what it will take if you want to reach
history clubs at their schools? Through Scouts? Through church
youth groups? Reach out to people and groups that have influ-
and think creatively. Be sure your meetings are inviting to younger people. Sure, you might think the atmosphere of your meetings is welcoming, but the people who’ve been going for years and years are used to th routine. What’s it like to show up as a new person? What’s it like to
show up as a new young person? Is the room full of old fogies?
Are people friendly to strangers, or do people hang with their own cliques?
Then there’s the larger question of getting younger people
in the door in the first place. Is the meeting time convenient for younger people? How about the meeting location? Dress code? What about the cost of dinner, if
too much for most of us, but for a teenager, that’s a day’s wages a their part-time job. Get involved with National History Day, the Civil War Trust’s
Potomac’s “Valley Forge” • The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railro August 1864
This total prize package, a col lection of Civil War books, has
relatives see what they have been missing out on by getting them to
in print today, and get your name in the drawing as many times as you can for a chance to win this amazing collection of Civil War books.
National Teacher Institute, and other organizations that promote history education. The more you can do to partner with groups tha already focus on history education, particularly Civil War hist ry, the more you can build off of each other’s efforts. For instanc sending a local teacher off to th Trust’s annual Teachers Institute is an excellent investment i someone who’s working on the front lines with young people. Not only are you helping that person better kindle an interest in the Civil War in their student
but that teacher is also far more apt to funnel interested students
in the direction of your roundtable. For National History Day, of
courage more Civil War projects. Aside from offering the prize,
you can also show off the projects at one of your meetings, and
Solicit volunteers to go into schools to talk with students. This is more complicated than it sounds, though. First, you need to find the right person/people to contact at the school. Then you need to talk with them about ways you and your group can interact with students most effec-
tively. Because of state testing requirements, the amount of time teachers can devote to the Civil War is limited, so class time mus be used as effectively as possi-
ble. Going and “talking about the Civil War” might not be enough. Find out what your teachers need and then work with them to develop programming that helps them. Similarly, it’s not enough to send just anyone into a class. Be sure your volunteers aren’t just passionate about the subject