[OPLINLIST] Civil War Historians To Speak in McArthur, Ohio

[Erick C. Walker]

*Civil War historians to speak at library*

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, McArthur, Ohio.

James Downs, Ph.D., is an associate professor of history at Connecticut 
College and author of /Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and 
Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction./ Dr. Downs’ areas of 
specializations are 19^th century U.S. history, African-American 
studies, and the history of medicine and public health.

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. /Sick from Freedom/ has been featured in /The New York Times, 
The Guardian, Daily Mail, the BBC, the Joe Madison Show, New Zealand 
National Public Radio/, among others/./

Ronald Coddington is a contributing author for the /New York Times/ and 
assistant managing editor of /The Chronicle of Higher Education/. In his 
position at /The Chronicle of Higher Education/, 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 /New York Times/ series 
/Disunion/ and author of three books of soldier stories, /Faces of the 
Civil War, Faces of the Confederacy, /and/African American Faces of the 
Civil War./

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.

Coddington wrote that “The history of the Civil War is the stories of 
its soldiers.” In 2001, Coddington began writing /Faces of War/, a 
regular column in the /Civil War News/, 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.

For information about the festival, contact the library at (740) 
596-5691 or visit the library’s calendar of events at 
www.vintoncountypublic.lib.oh.us 
<http://www.vintoncountypublic.lib.oh.us/>. The Herbert Wescoat Memorial 
Library serving Vinton County and the Friends of the Herbert Wescoat 
Memorial Library are also on Facebook.



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