Jonathan Daniel Wells's Books

The Kidnapping Club

Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Kidnapping Club

Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

Winner of a 2020-2021 New York City Book Award In a rapidly changing New York, two forces battled for the city's soul: the pro-slavery New Yorkers who kept the illegal slave trade alive and well, and the abolitionists fighting for freedom. We often think of slavery as a southern phenomenon, far removed from the booming cities of the North. But even though slavery had been outlawed in Gotham by the 1830s, Black New Yorkers were not safe. Not only was the city built on the backs of slaves; it was essential in keeping slavery and the slave trade alive. In The Kidnapping Club, historian Jonathan Daniel Wells tells the story of the powerful network of judges, lawyers, and police officers who circumvented anti-slavery laws by sanctioning the kidnapping of free and fugitive African Americans. Nicknamed "The New York Kidnapping Club," the group had the tacit support of institutions from Wall Street to Tammany Hall whose wealth depended on the Southern slave and cotton trade. But a small cohort of abolitionists, including Black journalist David Ruggles, organized tirelessly for the rights of Black New Yorkers, often risking their lives in the process. Taking readers into the bustling streets and ports of America's great Northern metropolis, The Kidnapping Club is a dramatic account of the ties between slavery and capitalism, the deeply corrupt roots of policing, and the strength of Black activism.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

345

Publisher

Bold Type Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1645037118

ISBN 13

9781645037118

Blind No More

African American Resistance, Free-soil Politics, and the Coming of the Civil War

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Blind No More

African American Resistance, Free-soil Politics, and the Coming of the Civil War

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

With a fresh interpretation of African American resistance to kidnapping and pre-Civil War political culture, Blind No More sheds new light on the coming of the Civil War by focusing on a neglected truism: the antebellum free states experienced a dramatic ideological shift that questioned the value of the Union. Jonathan Daniel Wells explores the cause of disunion as the persistent determination on the part of enslaved people that they would flee bondage no matter the risks. By protesting against kidnappings and fugitive slave renditions, they brought slavery to the doorstep of the free states, forcing those states to recognize the meaning of freedom and the meaning of states' rights in the face of a federal government equally determined to keep standing its divided house. Through these actions, African Americans helped northerners and westerners question whether the constitutional compact was still worth upholding, a reevaluation of the republican experiment that would ultimately lead not just to Civil War but to the Thirteenth Amendment, ending slavery. Wells contends that the real story of American freedom lay not with the Confederate rebels nor even with the Union army but instead rests with the tens of thousands of self-emancipated men and women who demonstrated to the Founders, and to succeeding generations of Americans, the value of liberty.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

199

Publisher

University of Georgia Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0820354856

ISBN 13

9780820354859

The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

With a fresh take on social dynamics in the antebellum South, Jonathan Daniel Wells contests the popular idea that the Old South was a region of essentially two classes (planters and slaves) until after the Civil War. He argues that, in fact, the region had a burgeoning white middle class--including merchants, doctors, and teachers--that had a profound impact on southern culture, the debate over slavery, and the coming of the Civil War. Wells shows that the growth of the periodical press after 1820 helped build a cultural bridge between the North and the South, and the emerging southern middle class seized upon northern middle-class ideas about gender roles and reform, politics, and the virtues of modernization. Even as it sought to emulate northern progress, however, the southern middle class never abandoned its attachment to slavery. By the 1850s, Wells argues, the prospect of industrial slavery in the South threatened northern capital and labor, causing sectional relations to shift from cooperative to competitive. Rather than simply pitting a backward, slave-labor, agrarian South against a progressive, free-labor, industrial North, Wells argues that the Civil War reflected a more complex interplay of economic and cultural values.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

340

Publisher

Univ of North Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807876291

ISBN 13

9780807876299

Women Writers and Journalists in the Nineteenth-Century South

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Women Writers and Journalists in the Nineteenth-Century South

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

The first study to focus on white and black women journalists and writers both before and after the Civil War, this book offers fresh insight into Southern intellectual life, the fight for women's rights and gender ideology. Based on new research into Southern magazines and newspapers, this book seeks to shift scholarly attention away from novelists and toward the rich and diverse periodical culture of the South between 1820 and 1900. Magazines were of central importance to the literary culture of the South because the region lacked the publishing centers that could produce large numbers of books. As editors, contributors, correspondents and reporters in the nineteenth century, Southern women entered traditionally male bastions when they embarked on careers in journalism. In so doing, they opened the door to calls for greater political and social equality at the turn of the twentieth century.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

257

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1139503499

ISBN 13

9781139503495

A House Divided

The Civil War and Nineteenth-Century America

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

A House Divided

The Civil War and Nineteenth-Century America

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

Consolidating one of the most complex and multi-faceted eras in American History, this new edition of Jonathan Wells’s A House Divided unifies the broad and varied scholarship on the American Civil War. Amassing a variety of research, this accessible and readable text introduces readers to both the war and the Reconstruction period, and how Americans lived during this time of great upheaval in the country's history. Designed for a variety of subjects and teaching styles, this text not only looks at the Civil War from a historical perspective, but also analyzes its ramifications on the United States and American identities through the present day. This second edition has been updated throughout, incorporating new scholarship from recent studies on the Civil War era, and includes additional photographs and maps (now incorporated throughout the text), updated bibliographies, and a supplementary companion website.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

385

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1317352335

ISBN 13

9781317352334

Blind No More

African American Resistance, Free-Soil Politics, and the Coming of the Civil War

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Blind No More

African American Resistance, Free-Soil Politics, and the Coming of the Civil War

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

With a fresh interpretation of African American resistance to kidnapping and pre–Civil War political culture, Blind No More sheds new light on the coming of the Civil War by focusing on a neglected truism: the antebellum free states experienced a dramatic ideological shift that questioned the value of the Union. Jonathan Daniel Wells explores the cause of disunion as the persistent determination on the part of enslaved people that they would flee bondage no matter the risks. By protesting against kidnappings and fugitive slave renditions, they brought slavery to the doorstep of the free states, forcing those states to recognize the meaning of freedom and the meaning of states’ rights in the face of a federal government equally determined to keep standing its divided house. Through these actions, African Americans helped northerners and westerners question whether the constitutional compact was still worth upholding, a reevaluation of the republican experiment that would ultimately lead not just to Civil War but to the Thirteenth Amendment, ending slavery. Wells contends that the real story of American freedom lay not with the Confederate rebels nor even with the Union army but instead rests with the tens of thousands of self-emancipated men and women who demonstrated to the Founders, and to succeeding generations of Americans, the value of liberty.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

199

Publisher

University of Georgia Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0820354848

ISBN 13

9780820354842

The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

340

Publisher

Univ of North Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807876291

ISBN 13

9780807876299

Freedom Soldiers

The Emancipation of Black Soldiers in Civil War Camps, Courts, and Prisons

By: Assistant Professor of History Jonathan Lande,Jonathan Lande

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Freedom Soldiers

The Emancipation of Black Soldiers in Civil War Camps, Courts, and Prisons

By: Assistant Professor of History Jonathan Lande,Jonathan Lande

Freedom Soldiers examines the lives of formerly enslaved men who deserted the US Army during the Civil War and their experiences in army camps, courts, and prisons. It explores their reasons for leaving, often through their own voices from courts-martial testimony.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

329

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

019753175X

ISBN 13

9780197531754

A House Divided

The Civil War and Nineteenth-Century America

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

A House Divided

The Civil War and Nineteenth-Century America

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

The Civil War is one of the most defining eras of American history, and much has been written on every aspect of the war. The volume of material available is daunting, especially when a student is trying to grasp the overall themes of the period. Jonathan Wells has distilled the war down into understandable, easy-to-read sections, with plenty of maps and illustrations, to help make sense of the battles and social, political, and cultural changes of the era. Presented here is information on: the home front the battles, both in the East and the West the status of slaves women’s role in the war and its aftermath literature and public life international aspects of the war and much more! Students will also find helpful study aids on the companion website for the book. A House Divided provides a short, readable survey of the Civil War and the Reconstruction period afterward, focusing not only on the battles, but on how Americans lived during a time of great upheaval in the country’s history, and what that legacy has meant to the country today.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

362

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1136519610

ISBN 13

9781136519611

From Every Stormy Wind That Blows

The Idea of Howard College and the Origins of Samford University

By: S. Jonathan Bass

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

From Every Stormy Wind That Blows

The Idea of Howard College and the Origins of Samford University

By: S. Jonathan Bass

Founded in 1841 in Marion, Alabama, Howard College provided a Christian liberal arts education for young men living along the old southwestern frontier. The founders named the school after eighteenth-century British reformer John Howard, whose words and deeds inspired the type of enlightened moral agent and virtuous Christian citizen the institution hoped to produce. In From Every Stormy Wind That Blows, S. Jonathan Bass provides a comprehensive history of Howard College, which in 1965 changed its name to Samford University. According to Bass, the “idea” of Howard College emanated from its founders’ firm commitment to orthodox Protestantism, the tenets of Scottish philosophy, the British Enlightenment’s emphasis on virtue, and the moral reforms of the age. From the Old South, through the Civil War and Reconstruction, to the New South, Howard College adapted to new conditions while continuing to teach the necessary ingredients to transform young southern men into useful and enlightened Christian citizens. Throughout its history, Howard College faced challenges both within and without. As with other institutions in the South, slavery played a central role in its founding, with most of the college’s principal benefactors, organizers, and board of trustees earning financial gains from enslaved labor. The Civil War swept away the college’s large endowment and growing student enrollment, and the school never regained a solid financial footing during the subsequent decades—barely surviving bankruptcy and public auction. In 1887, with the continued decline of southern agriculture, Howard College moved to a new campus on the outskirts of Birmingham, where its president, Rev. Benjamin Franklin Riley, a well-known New South economic booster, fought to restore the college’s financial health. Despite his best efforts, Howard struggled economically until local bankers offered enough assistance to allow the institution to enter the twentieth century with a measure of financial stability. The challenges and changes wrought by the years transformed Howard College irrevocably. While the original “idea” of the school endured through its classical curriculum, by the 1920s the school had all but lost its connections to John Howard and its founding principles. From Every Stormy Wind That Blows is a fascinating look into this storied institution’s history and Samford University’s origins.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

366

Publisher

LSU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807182095

ISBN 13

9780807182093

Slavery in North America Vol 4

From the Colonial Period to Emancipation

By: Mark M Smith,Peter S Carmichael,Timothy Lockley,Jonathan Daniel Wells

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Slavery in North America Vol 4

From the Colonial Period to Emancipation

By: Mark M Smith,Peter S Carmichael,Timothy Lockley,Jonathan Daniel Wells

First published in 2009. From the founding of Jamestown to the American Civil War, slavery and abolition shaped American national, regional and racial identities. This four-volume reset edition draws together rare sources relating to American slavery systems. Volume 4 includes the Civil War and Emancipation period from 1861 to 1866.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

326

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1000559440

ISBN 13

9781000559446

Slavery in North America Vol 1

From the Colonial Period to Emancipation

By: Mark M. Smith,Peter S Carmichael,Timothy Lockley,Jonathan Daniel Wells

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Slavery in North America Vol 1

From the Colonial Period to Emancipation

By: Mark M. Smith,Peter S Carmichael,Timothy Lockley,Jonathan Daniel Wells

First published in 2009. From the founding of Jamestown to the American Civil War, slavery and abolition shaped American national, regional and racial identities. This four-volume reset edition draws together rare sources relating to American slavery systems. Volume 1 includes a general introduction and the colonial period covering slavery and the law, slave resistance, religion and slavery; and Pro-Slavery, Anti-Slavery and the Revolutionary Impulse.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

314

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1000559114

ISBN 13

9781000559118

Slavery in North America Vol 2

From the Colonial Period to Emancipation

By: Mark M Smith,Peter S Carmichael,Timothy Lockley,Jonathan Daniel Wells

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Slavery in North America Vol 2

From the Colonial Period to Emancipation

By: Mark M Smith,Peter S Carmichael,Timothy Lockley,Jonathan Daniel Wells

First published in 2009. From the founding of Jamestown to the American Civil War, slavery and abolition shaped American national, regional and racial identities. This four-volume reset edition draws together rare sources relating to American slavery systems. Volume 2 includes the Revolutionary and Early National Period and covers the Anti-Slavery Impulse and Reaction to It and the Slave Experience.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

231

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1000559122

ISBN 13

9781000559125

The Kidnapping Club

Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Kidnapping Club

Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War

By: Jonathan Daniel Wells

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

345

Publisher

Bold Type Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1645037118

ISBN 13

9781645037118

Latter-day Saint Family Encyclopedia

By: Christopher Kimball Bigelow,Jonathan Langford

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Latter-day Saint Family Encyclopedia

By: Christopher Kimball Bigelow,Jonathan Langford

A home reference guide to key terms in Mormon culture. A one-volume compendium of Mormon culture, this handy reference book covers key doctrinal terms, beliefs, ordinances, church history and growth, and more. You’ll find extensive entries on the prophets and personalities from all four standard works accepted by the church, and many interesting anecdotes and facts on a wide array of topics. Teens and adults will appreciate the fresh, innovative approach this encyclopedia takes as it culls the vast sea of LDS information available into a manageable book suitable for the whole family.

Average ratings

N/A