Clarksville Civil War Roundtable’s next meeting is January 21st, 2015

Our 130th meeting.

Clarksville, TN – The next meeting of the Clarksville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on Wednesday, January 21st, 2015 at the Bone & Joint Center, 980 Professional Park Drive, right across the street from Gateway Medical Center.

This is just off Dunlop Lane and Holiday Drive and only a few minutes east of Governor’s Square mall. The meeting begins at 7:00pm and is always open to the public.

Topic: “The Diary of Nannie Haskins Williams: A Southern Woman’s Story of Rebellion and Reconstruction.”

In 1863, while living in Clarksville, Tennessee, Martha Ann Haskins, known to friends and family as Nannie, began a diary.

The Diary of Nannie Haskins Williams: A Southern Woman’s Story of Rebellion and Reconstruction, 1863-1890 provides valuable insights into the conditions in occupied Middle Tennessee.

A young, elite Confederate sympathizer, Nannie was on the cusp of adulthood with the expectation of becoming a mistress in a slaveholding society.

The war ended this prospect, and her life was forever changed.

Though her diaries were not published until eight months ago, they are well known among Civil War scholars, and a voice-over from the wartime diary was used repeatedly in Ken Burns’ famous PBS program, The Civil War. The diaries’ four editors will give excerpts from the diaries and discuss the process of transcribing and annotating the journals.

The diaries of female civilians both north and south, have really proliferated over the last 25 years adding much to our knowledge as to how the Civil War affected the home front. Nannie Haskins’ diary is the first published from the Clarksville area and hopefully will not be the last. The diary of Nannie Haskins was published in March 2014 by the University of Tennessee Press.

About our speakers who edited these diaries:

Minoa D. Uffelman is an associate professor of history at Austin Peay State University and advisor for Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society. She is the author of “’Can Away, Can Away, Can Away:’ The History of Canning Clubs in Tennessee” to Their Work in the Public Sphere: Tennessee’s New Women in the New South During the Progressive Era, forthcoming July 2013, University of Tennessee Press, “Homer Plessy, Civil Rights Activists,” The Human Tradition in the Civil Rights Movement, Scholarly Resources, 2006, 31 encyclopedia entries, 11 book reviews. She has given numerous conference presentations, commenting on numerous conference panels, community presentations.

Ellen Kanervo is professor emerita of communication at Austin Peay State University. She earned a Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1979. Joining the faculty of Austin Peay State University in 1977 she taught undergraduate and graduate communication courses for 30 years, serving as department chair from 1989 through 1997, and retiring as a full professor in 2007. Dr. Kanervo has been published on communications through her career as well as presented papers at numerous conferences. Since 2010 she has served as the executive director of the Clarksville/Montgomery County Arts and Heritage Development Council.

Phyllis Smith is retired from the US Army and currently teaches high school science in Montgomery County, Tennessee. She is also a member of the Clarksville Civil War Roundtable and past president of the Friends of Fort Defiance, the support group for our Civil War fort.

Eleanor Williams is the Montgomery County, Tennessee, historian. She has spent many years researching and writing on the history of the county.

We hope you will join us for this interesting program with local flavor.