Largest mass execution in U.S. history — December 26

December 26, 1862 — Mankato, Minnesota (Library of Congress)

From This American Life. . .
Growing up in Mankato, Minnesota, John Biewen says, nobody ever talked about the most important historical event ever to happen there: in 1862, it was the site of the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Thirty-eight Dakota Indians were hanged after a war with white settlers. John went back to Minnesota to figure out what really happened 150 [now 152] years ago, and why Minnesotans didn’t talk about it much after. Listen to the full episode here: #479: Little War on the Prairie

Real Housewives of Gettysburg

Hat tip to Dana Shoaf, and to The Gettysburg Compiler.
Meg Sutter ’16 and Megan McNish ’16 report from Gettysburg College’s Special Collections in Musselman Library. In this episode, they present a Civil War housewife used by Lewis W. Tway of the 147th New York.

Hard times in the Cradle of Secession. . .

The Keeping Room debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival three months ago. It is "a film that tells the story of 3 Southern women (2 of them sisters, and the third, their long-silent family slave) who are forced to defend their home in the last days of the war, against a large group of soldiers who have broken off from the Union Army."

Read a review by Zeba Blay here.