To promote U.S. history education, the 
Published since 1985, each quarterly issue of the OAH Magazine of History focuses on a theme in U.S. history. Articles draw upon recent scholarship, survey the historiography, and provide practical teaching strategies. Its goal is to enhance the teaching and presentation of U.S. history in secondary and college classrooms, as well as in public history settings.
current issue:
Civil War at 150: Mobilizing for War
Why did the Union win, and why did the Confederacy lose? Historians of the American Civil War have grappled with these knotty questions for decades, and their answers continue to evolve. Military battles were pivotal, but as the contributors to this issue show, fighting the Civil War meant mobilizing the resources of an entire society. “Military” and “civilian” spheres intersected and could become indistinguishable. Internal strains in both the Union and Confederacy played havoc with war plans, none more powerfully than the controversial role played by free and enslaved African Americans both as soldiers and as noncombatant laborers. Viewing war mobilization in this expanded context enables us to better understand the war’s outcome, and to appreciate its multiple meanings for the men, women, and children who experienced the bloody conflict.
This issue’s consulting editor is Carol Sheriff. Sheriff is the Class of 2013 Professor of History at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, where she teaches courses on the Civil War era. Her publications include The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817–1862 (Hill and Wang, 1997); A People at War: Civilians and Soldiers in America’s Civil War, 1850–1877 (Oxford University Press, 2007), co-authored with Scott Reynolds Nelson; and A People and A Nation, an American history textbook co-authored with five others.
