Dr. April Holm is the Director of the Center for Civil War Research and an Associate Professor of History in the Department of History at the University of Mississippi.
Research Interests
Dr. April Holm is a historian of the nineteenth century United States with a particular interest in sectionalism, the Civil War and Reconstruction, Christianity, and the border states. Her work concerns the intersection of the moral and the political.
She is currently at work on a book about provost marshals and civilians in the occupied border states during the Civil War. This project reveals how civilians and the army created and contested occupation in the border states during the American Civil War.
Biography
Dr. Holm received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2010 and spent a year as at Schwartz Postdoctoral Fellow at the New School and The New-York Historical Society. She joined the University of Mississippi in 2011. She served as the center's Interim Director from 2020 to 2021, and in 2022, she became the director of the Center for Civil War Research.
Publications
2017, Louisiana State University Press
Evangelicals, Loyalty, and Sectionalism in the Civil War Era
From the publisher:
In the decades before the Civil War, the three largest evangelical denominations diverged sharply over the sinfulness of slavery. This division generated tremendous local conflict in the border region, where individual churches had to define themselves as being either northern or southern. In response, many border evangelicals drew upon the “doctrine of spirituality,” which dictated that churches should abstain from all political debate. Proponents of this doctrine defined slavery as a purely political issue, rather than a moral one, and the wartime arrival of secular authorities who demanded loyalty to the Union only intensified this commitment to “spirituality.” Holm contends that these churches’ insistence that politics and religion were separate spheres was instrumental in the development of the ideal of the nonpolitical southern church.
Courses Taught
- HIST 1300 Intro to US History to 1877
- HIST 4000 Early America to 1715
- HIST 4040 US: The Civil War Era, 1848-1877
- HIST 4980 Undergrad Research Seminar in History
- HIST 5050 Historiography of US to Reconstruction
- HIST 6050 Readings in US Through Reconstruction
- HIST 6110 Readings in Era of the US Civil War
- HIST 6930 Readings in General US History
Education
M.P.H. History, Columbia University in the City of New York (2006)
M.A. History, Columbia University in the City of New York (2004)
Ph.D. History, Columbia University in the City of New York (2010)
Latest News
Harry Owens Collection boosts acquisition of rare documents for global research.
Philanthropy
/ Research News
OXFORD, Miss. – Researchers from around the world will have more opportunities to broaden their understanding of Mississippi and the surrounding region during the Civil War, thanks to the new Harry Owens Civil War Archival Collection at the University of Mississippi.
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Faculty News -
Faculty News / Honors & Awards / Research News