While most people are making plans for how to ring in 2010, Dr. Aaron Astor is looking ahead to 2011.
In 2011, Astor, assistant professor of history at Maryville College, will participate in numerous events commemorating the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War. Personally, he’ll celebrate the publication of his book on the border states (Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware) and the Civil War and Reconstruction by LSU Press.
The working title of Astor’s book is Belated Confederates: Black Politics, Guerilla Violence, and the Collapse of Conservative Unionism in Kentucky and Missouri from 1860-1872. It is expected to go on sale early in 2011 as part of LSU Press’ “Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War” series.
Astor’s book began as his dissertation for a doctoral degree in American History from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Completing it in 2006, he joined the MC faculty in 2007.
As an undergrad at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., Astor majored in philosophy and never took a United States history class. A study abroad experience in Edinburgh, Scotland during his junior year first turned him on to history. Working and living in Washington, D.C., after earning his bachelor’s degree, he started to focus on the border states during the Civil War and Reconstruction. And then he read Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution by Eric Foner.
He decided then that he wanted to research Civil War history, so in 2000, he enrolled at Northwestern to earn a doctoral degree in American history.
“It was a career change at 26 that I was so happy to do,” he explained.
At Northwestern, he met his distinguished advisor, Stephanie McCurry, the award-winning author of Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country.
From the very beginning, Astor planned to study the border states of the Civil War that shared borders with both free and slave states. His master’s thesis was entitled “Black Reconstruction in Delaware,” which explored African-American politics in Delaware after 1865.
For his doctoral dissertation, however, he focused on certain towns in Kentucky and Missouri. Looking more broadly, he concentrated on Kentucky’s Bluegrass Region, and in Missouri, he focused on the so-called Little Dixie Region along the Missouri River. These were two areas that relied fairly heavily on slavery but exhibited divided loyalties toward the Union and the Confederacy.
“What I found was just enthralling and understudied,” said Astor, explaining that historians have discussed Reconstruction in the Deep South in great detail but have not studied Reconstruction in the border states.
“How can you have reconstruction in a place where congressional radical reconstruction did not apply?” he asked.
Recognized for his expertise in the subjects of border states and the Civil War, Astor has been asked to present conference papers and share his research among peers. Most recently, he participated in the Southern Historical Association’s annual meeting in Louisville, Ky. One of three presenters assembled for a session on Reconstruction in Kentucky, Astor’s presentation was entitled “No Gun, No Vote: Violence and Voting in Kentucky’s First Interracial Elections.”
Studying East Tennessee
Now a resident of East Tennessee, Astor has expanded the geographical area of his research. Since moving two years ago, he has gotten involved in Tennessee Civil War preservation.
Last October, Astor applied for a large humanities grant that would help fund the creation of a web-based geographical information system (GIS) project that would map the loyalties of East Tennessee during the Civil War. He hopes this will be a collaborative project with genealogists and local historians throughout the area. He also plans to enlist Maryville College students for data collection.
Astor would like to begin the project in Blount and Knox Counties next fall and expand into other areas to gather information about who sided with whom in the war. He is also interested in what those loyalties actually meant to people in East Tennessee who were “just trying to survive a nasty guerrilla war, pitting neighbor against neighbor and family member against family member,” he said.
“I think that will be a great opportunity for Maryville College history students, because this is the kind of research historians do,” Astor continued.
One project already underway has him working with MC freshman Adam Duggan and Steve Dean, producer of WBIR-TV’S award-winning “Heartland Series.” (Astor serves on the East Tennessee Civil War Alliance, which is headed by Dean.) The team is creating a documentary about the various forts in Knoxville.
Recently, Duggan and MC seniors Kyle Finnell and Robert Ward volunteered at an antique car show fund-raiser held at the Blount County Historical Museum. It wasn’t a typical service project for MC students, but Astor explains it easily: “To be able to train undergraduates in preservation – that is very valuable to me.”
Astor’s students had positive things to say about the event – and their professor.
“(At the fund-raiser) I got to meet some of the local car enthusiasts. Who would have guessed there was such a community of classic British car aficionados in East Tennessee?” said Ward, who was a student in Astor’s HIS203: History of the United States in the 20th Century course.
The student said he’s been impressed with Astor’s broad knowledge of history but also his insight into matters of Appalachian history and culture.
Astor said he can’t help but be interested in the history of the area.
“This is a part of the country that is very conscious of its unique past. It’s not like the rest of the South or the rest of America,” he said, theorizing that residents of the area know their roots better because they are descendents of original European settlers more commonly than anywhere else in the U.S.
The New Jersey-born professor enjoys frequenting the Rocky Branch Community Center in Walland, where he plays mandolin and talks with the “old timers” about their ancestors.
“Considering heritage preservation, they’re a great resource,” he said.
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