Fort Caspar Museum Announces Civil War Reading Series

Fort Caspar Museum is pleased to announce a five-part reading and discussion program, Let’s Talk About It: Making Sense of the American Civil War, beginning Sunday, May 6th at 2:00 p.m. This free, scholar-led discussion group will meet at the Museum every two weeks until early July. The three books to be discussed are available at no charge to participants and may be checked out at the Museum.

This program is designed to present sesquicentennial programming that probes meanings of the Civil War that are “hidden in plain sight” behind the key questions and main characters so familiar to us. Program participants may be surprised to encounter in the readings such a large cast of characters, so broad a range of perspectives, and so dense a web of circumstances. After considering the vast sweep and profound breadth of Civil War experience, readers will understand that the American Civil War was not a single thing, or a simple thing. And yet they will also see emancipation—the end of the most powerful system of slavery in the modern world—take its place as the central story of the war.

The American Library Association (ALA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) have co-sponsored this program, and the Wyoming Humanities Council is facilitating its presentation in various Wyoming communities as part of their Reading Wyoming series.

Casper College English instructor Patrick Amelotte will serve as our scholar, and participants will meet on May 6 & 20, June 3 & 17, and July 1, 2012, at 2:00 p.m. in the Classroom at Fort Caspar Museum. Participation in the reading group is free, and attendance at all five sessions is optional. Stop by the Museum to register for the group and to pick up the three books: March, by Geraldine Brooks; Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam, by James McPherson; and America's War: Talking About the Civil War and Emancipation on their 150th Anniversaries, a new anthology edited by Edward L. Ayers.

In April, Fort Caspar Museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 pm daily beginning May 1st. For more information, call the Museum at 307-235-8462 or visit our web site at www.fortcasparwyoming.com.

City of Casper Leisure Services Department