Dissertations and Theses
Date of Award
2026
Document Type
Thesis
Department
History
First Advisor
Alexandra E. Stern
Second Advisor
John Blanton
Keywords
Civil War memory, New York City, Civil War monuments, public memory, Union commemoration, reconciliation
Abstract
This thesis examines how New York City experienced, understood, and later remembered the American Civil War, from the outbreak of war (1861) through the dedication of major monuments at the turn of the twentieth century (1902). Although New York was the Union’s largest city and its most significant source of troops, casualties, industrial output, financial capital, and press coverage, the city’s wartime experience was deeply conflicted. As a Democratic stronghold and home to large populations of recent immigrants and working-class laborers, New York’s support for the Union was broad but conditional, fractured by class, ethnicity, race, and political allegiance. These divisions would shape the course of the war as well as its memory after 1865.
While the Union war effort encompassed both the preservation of the republic and the abolition of slavery, this study argues that postwar commemoration in New York emphasized Union victory, sacrifice, peace, and reconciliation, largely marginalizing emancipation and the role of Black soldiers and civilians. This selective memory reflected and reinforced the retreat from support and further enfranchisement of the emancipated during the Gilded Age. By placing New York City at the center of the story, this thesis argues that the Union cause was both powerful and constrained, widely supported as a defense of the republic, yet ultimately remembered in ways that muted the war’s emancipatory meaning, particularly after the end of Reconstruction. Based on primary sources including the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the New York Times, the New York Tribune, and the New York World, my analysis contributes to broader debates about Civil War memory, Union political culture, reconciliation, and the postwar neglect of Black Americans.
Recommended Citation
Sugrue, Kevin J., "Civil War Memory In New York City, 1861-1902" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/1334
