Rice history Ph.D. students publish anthology on millennialism and the Civil War

A new anthology edited by two Rice University history Ph.D. students highlights the diverse ways in which beliefs about the “end times” had a great influence on 19th-century American lives amid the trials of the Civil War.

Zach Dresser and Ben Wright’s “Apocalypse and the Millennium in the American Civil War Era,” published by Louisiana State University (LSU) Press, hits the bookstores in November and is the result of a conference on the topic that they organized at Rice in October 2010. It features essays by noted historians and religious scholars who participated in the conference.

Dresser received his doctorate earlier this year and is now a visiting assistant professor in Virginia Tech’s Department of Religion and Culture. Wright is preparing to complete his dissertation on religious conversion and American antislavery this fall.

The impetus for the conference and anthology was to fill a void, the editors said. While scholars have acknowledged the presence of apocalyptic thought in the era, until now, few studies have taken the topic as their central focus or examined it from the antebellum period through Reconstruction. This void was also recognized by Michael Parrish, the Linden G. Bower Professor of American History at Baylor University and a series editor at LSU Press, who participated in the conference. “He (Parrish) immediately recognized the potential for a volume,” Wright said.

“Religion matters deeply,” Dresser said about the volume’s central argument. “Especially in the 19th century, much of what people did had religious underpinnings, both actions and ideas included,” he said.

Wright said the volume centers around three essential questions: the role of millennial thought in shaping American reform movements, the religious impact of violence and defeat and the religious continuities and change that grew out of emancipation. “If our volume succeeds, scholars of the Civil War will no longer be able to write histories that dismiss religion, and scholars of religion will come to understand the mid-19th century as a moment of unrivaled change,” he said.

Organizing the conference and shepherding the anthology through to publication was no small feat for two graduate students, but they are quick to express gratitude for the support they received along the way. “We had a great community of Civil-War-era and American-religion experts at Rice to help us in organizing the conference,” Dresser said. “It’s impossible to overstate how important a supportive department was for getting this project off the ground.” Critical support came from History Department faculty, including professors John Boles, Caleb McDaniel and Randal Hall and fellow graduate students, notably Luke Harlow.

Dresser is now working to publish his dissertation, a study of religion in the Reconstruction South. In addition to completing his dissertation, Wright has now embarked on another project: Along with Joe Locke, another recent Rice history Ph.D. recipient, he is editing a free online American history textbook, www.americanyawp.com.

For more information on “Apocalypse and the Millennium in the American Civil War Era,” visit http://lsupress.org/books/detail/apocalypse-and-the-millennium-in-the-american-civil-war-era/.