Jon Westling Professor of History
she/her/hers
19th- and early 20th-century American history
Nina Silber has taught in both the History Department and the American and New England Studies Program since coming to Boston University in 1990. Her research and teaching focus on the US Civil War, US women’s history, and the history of the American South, and she offers classes for both undergraduates and graduate students. On occasion she has also offered team-taught classes that explore the history and literature of the South. Her books include The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South, 1865-1900 (1993); Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War (1992); Daughters of the Union: Northern Women Fight the Civil War (2005); and Gender and the Sectional Conflict (2009). She has been the recipient of numerous grants, including the Charles Warren Fellowship at Harvard University, a Fulbright Senior Lectureship at Charles University in Prague, and a Senior Research Fellowship through the Boston University Humanities Foundation. Aside from her teaching and research, Professor Silber has also worked on numerous public history projects, ranging from museum exhibitions at the Gettysburg National Military Park to film projects on the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Between June 2018 and June 2020, Professor Silber will serve as President of the Society of Civil War Historians.
Professor Silber’s newest book, This War Ain’t Over: Fighting the Civil War in New Deal America, was published by the University of North Carolina press in November, 2018.