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antebellum

 
Dictionary: an·te·bel·lum   (ăn'tē-bĕl'əm) pronunciation
 
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adj.

Belonging to the period before a war, especially the American Civil War.

[Latin ante bellum : ante, before + bellum, war.]


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US Military Dictionary: antebellum
 
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[ܖæntēܒbelǝm]

ܖæntēˈbelǝm adj. occurring or existing before a particular war, especially the Civil War: the conventions of the antebellum South.

Etymology: mid 19th cent.: from Latin, from ante ‘before’ and bellum ‘war.’

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

 
Architecture: antebellum
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Dating before or existing before the US Civil War (1861–1865).

 
History Dictionary: antebellum
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(an-tee-bel-uhm)

A descriptive term for objects and institutions, especially houses, that originated three or four decades before the Civil War. Antebellum is Latin for “before the war.”

 
Latin Phrase: Ante Bellum
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Before the war. Usually used to describe the United States before the U.S. Civil War (1861-65). Typically spelled antebellum in English.

 
Wikipedia: Antebellum
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"Antebellum" is an expression derived from Latin that means "before war" (ante, "before," and bellum, "war").

In United States history and historiography, "antebellum" is commonly used, in lieu of "pre-Civil War," in reference to the period of increasing sectionalism that led up to the American Civil War. In that sense, the Antebellum Period is often considered to have begun with the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, though it is sometimes stipulated to extend back as early as 1812. The period after the Civil War is called the Reconstruction era.

Contents

Romanticism

There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the "Old South." Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind...

— From the opening of the film Gone with the Wind (1939)

While most western civilizations mark an important turning point during the period of the 1800s due to the Industrial Revolution, those who romanticize the Antebellum South credit the widespread destruction of Sherman's March to the Sea from Atlanta to the Atlantic Ocean and the military occupation of the defeated Confederacy by Union forces during the period termed Reconstruction implemented in Florida, Tennessee, or the Trans-Mississippi states, instead.

More than any other single American work, Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel, Gone with the Wind and the subsequent 1939 film, have permanently altered historical perspective and fixed a slanted popularized image of pre-Civil War American history and are good examples of the romanticized view. The romanticized view looks back on the Antebellum Period with sentimental nostalgia, as an idealized pre-industrial highly-structured genteel and stable agrarian society, in contrast to the anxiety and struggle of modern life. The issue of slavery is largely ignored in Gone with the Wind — although Mitchell does make a point of examining the relationship between the slaves and their masters on the southern plantations. D. W. Griffith's 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation, romanticized the pre-war South in a very similar way

Laws against slaves

Fugitive Slave Act: An act where suspected runaway slaves (who were not necessarily so) could be forced to return south to their home plantations

Architecture

The term antebellum is also used to describe the architecture of the pre-war South. Many Southern plantation houses use this style, including:

See also

References

  1. ^ Welcome To Monmouth Plantation
  2. ^ Old Governor’s Mansion

External links

v • d • e
American Civil War
 
Origins
American Civil War portal

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
US Military Dictionary. The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military. Copyright © 2001, 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Architecture. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
History Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.  Read more
Answers Corporation Latin Phrase. © 1999-2009 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Antebellum".  Read more

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