HISTORY 324A:  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

November 18, 1999

1.    What is the picture of the homefront that Baker presents?  What is the nature of the female war experience for Baker?

2.    What does  Simpson mean that "it was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight"?  Do you agree with his assessment?  On what basis?

3.    Which was more united in its war effort, the North or the South?

4.    How different, and how similar, were the challenges of conducting the war facing Lincoln and Davis from the evidence presented by Simpson in chapter 6?  Could it be argued that Davis had a more difficult time than did Lincoln?

5.    What were the problems facing the people at the homefront?  Is there a commonality of experience between  North and South?

6.    According to Faust, why did a new ideology have to be fashioned for southern women?  What did it attempt to alter or achieve?  Overall what does its necessity tell us about the Confederate war experience?

7.    What does Faust mean that "much of the shift in women's perceptions of the war arose from the ever expanding dimensions of required sacrifice"?

8.    How was the women's sphere redefined by the war?  What were the limitations (implicit and explicit) placed on that new behaviour?

9.    To what extent is class, as much as gender, a consideration in Faust's analysis?