Dr. James J. Broomall
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Profile
Dr. Broomall is a cultural historian of 19th-century America. He specializes in the Civil War and Reconstruction era, Southern history, and material culture. He has published articles or essays in Common Place: The Journal of Early American Life; Gettysburg Magazine; Ohio Valley History; Civil War Times; Civil War History; and The Journal of the Civil War Era. He co-edited with Dr. William A. Link, Rethinking American Emancipation: Legacies of Slavery and the Quest for Black Freedom (Cambridge University Press) in 2016. And the University of North Carolina Press published his book, Private Confederacies: The Emotional Worlds of Southern Men as Citizens and Soldiers, as part of the Civil War America series in 2019. Dr. Broomall is an active public historian who frequently serves as a consultant for National Park Service sites, leads tours of battlefields and historic sites across the country, and delivers numerous public presentations each year. Invested in fostering active learning, he frequently organizes symposia, conferences, workshops, and field experiences. He has authored two major historic resource studies for the National Park Service and the Organization of American Historians including a study conducted for Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park, Middletown, VA,“The Stars Fought From Heaven”: Race and Slavery in the Shenandoah Valley From Early Settlement to Jim Crow (2020). In 2023, he co-authored with Drs. Keith Alexander and Ben Bankhurst a report on Black history at the Blackford House, Ferry Hill, and Bridgeport community in Washington County, MD. Dr. Broomall directed the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War at Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, WV, for nearly a decade, and previously served on the faculty of the University of North Florida and Virginia Tech.
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Selected Publications
Books
Books and Public History Projects
Private Confederacies: The Emotional Worlds of Southern Men as Citizens and Soldiers (University of North Carolina Press, Civil War America, 2019)
Co-edited with William A. Link, Rethinking American Emancipation: Legacies of Slavery and the Quest for Black Freedom (Cambridge University Press, 2016)
“The Stars Fought From Heaven”: Race and Slavery in the Shenandoah Valley From Early Settlement to Jim Crow (peer-reviewed, historic resource study submitted to The National Park Service and Organization of American Historians, 2020)
“This Debatable Land”: The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal’s Civil War (peer-reviewed, historic resource study report submitted to National Park Service and Organization of American Historians, 2016)
Journal ArticlesSelect Articles and Essays
“Picturing Gettysburg: John B. Bachelder and the Making of Civil War Memory,” Gettysburg Magazine (January 2023)
“The Fabric of War: Civil War Uniforms and the Making of Memory,” Ohio Valley History as part of special edition on material culture edited by Joan Cashin (Winter 2022)
“Wartime Masculinities,” in The Cambridge History of the American Civil War, vol. III, ed., Aaron Sheehan-Dean (Cambridge University Press, 2019)
“Chaos Along the River: Confederate Raiders Raised Continuous Havoc in the Potomac River Valley,” Civil War Times (December 2017)
“‘We are a band of brothers’: Manhood and Community in Confederate Camps and Beyond,” Civil War History. 60, No. 3 (September 2014): 270-309
“Ulysses S. Grant’s Last Battle: Has the Battlefield Butcher and Bad President been Redeemed?”, in A Companion to the American Civil War, ed., Aaron Sheehan-Dean (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014)
“Ulysses S. Grant Goes to Washington: The Commanding General as Secretary of War,” in A Companion to the Reconstruction Presidents, 1865-81, ed., Edward O. Frantz (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014)