Published Date

June 20, 2024

Resource Type

For the Classroom

Thematic

Military, Slavery

AHA Topics

Teaching & Learning

Geographic

United States

16 Months to Sumter: Newspaper Editorials on the Path to Secession

Providing access to hundreds of newspaper editorials detailing the shifting tides of emotion and opinion in the 16 months leading to southern secession and the American Civil War, this collection is intended primarily as a teaching resource, to enrich students’ exploration and understanding of the period and assist history teachers by expanding the available primary sources.

The project has its origins in a three-volume series prepared for the American Historical Association in the 1930s by Dwight Dumond (southern editorials) and Harold Perkins (northern editorials). In reviewing the series, we were troubled by the selectivity of the coverage and its often uneven geographic distribution. So we expanded the coverage and range by including editorials from regions neglected in the original series—particularly in the West, with the inclusion of newspapers from California, Texas, and the Missouri-Kansas border region.