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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;text-align:center" class="MsoNormal"
align="center"><b style=""><span style="font-family:"Book
Antiqua","serif";font-size:14pt">Civil
War historians to speak at library</span></b></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;text-indent:0.5in" class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif""><font
size="3">The
2013 Spring Literary Arts Festival, “North and South: A
House Divided,” will
host two keynote presentations by Civil War historians James
Downs, Ph.D. and
Ronald Coddington on Saturday, April 6 beginning at 1:00
p.m. in the meeting
room of the Herbert Wescoat Memorial Library<font size="3">,
McArthur, Ohio.<br>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;text-indent:0.5in" class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif""><font
size="3">James
Downs, Ph.D., is an associate professor of history at
Connecticut College and
author of <i style="">Sick from Freedom:
African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil
War and Reconstruction.</i>
Dr. Downs’ areas of specializations are 19</font><font><sup>th</sup></font><font
size="3"> century U.S. history,
African-American studies, and the history of medicine and
public health.</font></span></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;text-indent:0.5in" class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif""><font
size="3">Downs’
recent publication tells the largely unknown story of how
many former slaves
died at the moment of freedom. Drawing on a number of
unexamined records at the
National Archives, Downs uncovers a smallpox epidemic that
devastated newly
freed slaves, and he also reveals how cholera, dysentery and
yellow fever
threatened the lives of emancipated slaves. <i style="">Sick
from
Freedom</i> has been featured in <i style="">The
New York Times, The Guardian, Daily Mail, the BBC, the Joe
Madison Show, New
Zealand National Public Radio</i>, among others<i style="">.</i></font></span></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;text-indent:0.5in" class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif""><font
size="3">Ronald
Coddington is a contributing author for the <i style="">New
York Times</i> and assistant managing editor of <i
style="">The Chronicle of Higher Education</i>. In his
position at <i style="">The Chronicle of Higher Education</i>,
Coddington leads a creative team of designers, developers,
researchers and
editors who create award-winning journalism for thought
leaders and other
professionals in academe. Those with an active interest in
the Civil War know
him as a contributing author to the <i style="">New
York Times</i> series <i style="">Disunion</i> and
author of three books of soldier stories, <i style="">Faces
of the Civil War, Faces of the Confederacy, </i>and<i
style=""> African American Faces of the Civil War.</i></font></span></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;text-indent:0.5in" class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif""><font
size="3">While
other kids in his Middlesex, New Jersey neighborhood were
collecting baseball
cards, fourteen-year-old Ron Coddington was browsing flea
markets looking for
old photographs. Little did he realize after he purchased
his first photo in
1977 that collecting historic images would become a lifelong
pursuit. He
originally collected various formats of vernacular
photography dating from the
1840s to the 1890s. Over time, he focused his collection on
Civil War era
cartes de visite, a paper format popular during the 1860s.</font></span></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;text-indent:0.5in" class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif""><font
size="3">Coddington
wrote that “The history of the Civil War is the stories of
its soldiers.” In
2001, Coddington began writing <i style="">Faces of
War</i>, a regular column in the <i style="">Civil
War News</i>, where he would profile a soldier, each
illustrated with an
original, wartime carte de visite photograph. His subjects
were enlisted men
and non-commissioned officers, and officers below the rank
of colonel. <span style=""> </span></font></span></p>
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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt;text-indent:0.5in" class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif""><font
size="3">For
information about the festival, contact the library at (740)
596-5691 or visit
the library’s calendar of events at </font></span><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.vintoncountypublic.lib.oh.us/"><span
style="font-family:"Book
Antiqua","serif""><font size="3"
color="#0000ff">www.vintoncountypublic.lib.oh.us</font></span></a><span
style="font-family:"Book Antiqua","serif""><font
size="3">. The Herbert Wescoat Memorial
Library serving Vinton County and the Friends of the Herbert
Wescoat Memorial
Library are also on Facebook. </font></span></p>
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