1. THESIS BUILDING POETRY OF CIVIL WAR Dr. Morse War Winter 2016

2. THESIS BUILDING WORKSHOP This is a thesis and argument building workshop in three parts. You will "talk through" the steps leading up to your preliminary thesis and then you and your group mate(s) will evaluate and offer suggestions for improvement of that thesis and discuss ways to support the argument. Your task is to articulate a clear, specific and arguable thesis about HOW the selected image represented WAR or the CIVIL WAR for its contemporary audience. In other words, how does the CIVIL WAR or WAR shape meaning in the image(s)? However, for a meaningful and complex, arguable thesis, look for ways in which your selected image(s) conveys another layer of meaning - a complicated or mixed message or ambiguity, etc.- to underscore what additional meanings about the Civil War period we recognize. On one level performs “union” but underlying that is “contraband”

3. THESIS BUILDING WORKSHOP S ome of the themes we have been working with this unit: celebration, sentimental domesticity, consolation, path to citizenship, patriotism, the good death, emancipation, Christian hypocrisy, union, sacrifice, anti-war, contraband, representation of man/woman, emasculation, limits of representation, crisis of meaning, “costs” of war. Drafting Note: Remember that the images you analyze are important historical documents, primary sources that inform our understanding of the Civil War period in American history. Merely describing the image details or summarizing your reaction to the image content do not count as analysis. Your task is to explain HOW the image mediates or re-presents some aspect of the Civil War or makes a universal argument about WAR and WHY this is important or HOW this shapes our understanding in some meaningful way.

4. THESIS BUILDING WORKSHOP 1.Is the thesis clear? 2.Does it meet the prompt requirements? 3.Is the thesis original? 4.Is the thesis specific? 5.Is the thesis complex? 6.Does it contain a “So What” element?

5. McPhearson, William D. A Typical Negro. Digital Image. Picturing the Civil War 3: African American Soldiers. American Social History Project, 2009. Web. 13 Jan. 2015. Homer, Winslow. Near Andersonville. Digital image. Winslow Homer's Near Andersonville: America's Great Emancipation Painting. Rutgers: Newark College of Arts and Sciences, 2013. Web. 20 Jan. 2015.

6. SAMPLE THESIS The two images that I have chosen conflict in their message as they appealed to audiences that viewed the depicted individuals differently, yet agreed that change needed to take place to improve their livelihoods. The ways in which the subjects of A Typical Negro from (Harper’s Weekly year) and Near Andersonville from Winslow Homer (1865) are positioned and distributed hint to the target audience and intended purpose of those represented.

7. Figure 2: Scene, Fifth Avenue – Unknown Artist (1862) Figure 3: Christmas Eve – Thomas Nast (1862) Figure 1: Near Andersonville – Winslow Homer (1866)

8. SAMPLE THESIS Through contextual information, use of text, and framing techniques, these set of images highlight the romanticization and demotion of the significance of the role of women during the Civil War, and subsequently demonstrates how war affects everyone differently by uplifting some and leaving others lost and confused.