A Nation Unraveled

During the American Civil War, clothing became central to the ways people waged war and experienced its cost. Through the clothes they made, wore, mended, lost, and stole, Americans expressed their allegiances, showed their love, confronted social and economic challenges, subverted expectations, and, ultimately, preserved their history.

Join us as author Sarah Weicksel draws on her book and focuses on artifacts—including those in the American Civil War Museum’s collections—and their stories to explore how clothing was central to the ways people waged the Civil War and experienced its cost.

Dr. Sarah Weicksel is a historian and material culture scholar and the author of A Nation Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era (UNC Press, 2026). She currently serves as the executive director of the American Historical Association and previously worked at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Her writing focuses on the American Civil War, emancipation, military history, gender history, and material culture. Weicksel earned a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, an MA in American material culture from the Winterthur Program at the University of Delaware, and a BA in history from Yale University.