In antebellum America, both North and South emerged as modernising,
capitalist societies. Work bells, clock towers, and personal
timepieces increasingly instilled discipline on one’s day, which
already was ordered by religious custom and nature’s rhythms. The
Civil War changed that, argues Cheryl A. Wells. Overriding
antebellum schedules, war played havoc with people’s perception
and use of time. For those closest to the fighting, the war’s
effect on time included disrupted patterns of sleep, extended hours
of work, conflated hours of leisure, indefinite prison sentences,
challenges to the gender order, and desecration of the Sabbath.
Wells calls this phenomenon “battle time.” To create a modern
war machine military officers tried to graft the antebellum
authority of the clock onto the actual and mental terrain of the
Civil War. However, as Wells’s coverage of the Manassas and
Gettysburg battles shows, military engagements followed their own
logic, often without regard for the discipline imposed by clocks.
Wells also looks at how battle time’s effects spilled over into
periods of inaction, and she covers not only the experiences of
soldiers but also those of nurses, prisoners of war, slaves, and
civilians. After the war, women returned, essentially, to an
antebellum temporal world, says Wells. Elsewhere, however, postwar
temporalities were complicated as freedmen and planters, and
workers and industrialists renegotiated terms of labour within
parameters set by the clock and nature. A crucial juncture on
America’s path to an ordered relationship to time, the Civil War
had an acute effect on the nation’s progress toward a modernity
marked by multiple, interpenetrating times largely based on the
clock.
General
Imprint: |
University of Georgia Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
May 2012 |
Firstpublished: |
June 2012 |
Authors: |
Cheryl A. Wells
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 15mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
208 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8203-4342-6 |
Categories: |
Books >
Humanities >
History >
General
Books >
History >
General
|
LSN: |
0-8203-4342-0 |
Barcode: |
9780820343426 |
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