Participant Info
- First Name
- Rebecca Capobianco
- Last Name
- Toy
- Country
- United States
- State
- VA Virginia
- rebecca_toy@nps.gov
- Affiliation
- College of William & Mary, National Park Service
- Website URL
- https://www.wm.edu/as/history/gradprogram/graduate-student-bios/capobianco_r.php
- Keywords
- memory, U.S. Civil War, Reconstruction, memorialization, public history, National Park Service, reform, race, prison reform, historic sites, monuments
- Availability
- Media Contact
- Additional Contact Information
- PhD
- PhD
Personal Info
- Photo
- About Me
Rebecca received her PhD in history from the College of William & Mary and presently works at the Supervisory Park Ranger for Interpretation and Education at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. She earned her M.A. in U.S. and Public History from Villanova University in 2013 as well as a M.A. in U.S. History from William & Mary in 2017. Before returning to graduate school, Rebecca worked in education and interpretation for the National Park Service and as an adjunct professor of history.
Rebecca’s areas of research include the U.S. Civil War and its aftermath. More specifically, Rebecca explores how contests over control of public spaces and public memories sought to define a particular vision of American identity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her dissertation is entitled, “Landscapes of Freedom: Restoring the History of Emancipation & Black Citizenship in Yorktown, Virginia, 1861-1940.” She is an author for Civil Discourse: a Blog of the Long Civil War Era where she writes about various topics related to the Civil War, its legacy, and its continuing impact on issues in the present. You can read all of Rebecca’s posts here: https://civildiscourse.squarespace.com/becca-capobianco-1/
- Recent Publications
“Southern Women and Emancipation,” in Women and the American Civil War: North-South Counterpoints, edited by Judith Giesberg and Randall Miller, Kent State University Press, 2018.
“‘She is the Beauty of this Place:’ Elizabeth Velora Elwell and the Role of Prisoner Participation and Deviance at Eastern State Penitentiary,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, January 2018.
Co-editor of Emilie Davis’s Civil War: The Diaries of a Free Black Woman in Philadelphia, 1863-1865. Penn State University Press, 2014.
- Media Coverage
- https://whyy.org/segments/19th-century-love-letters-between-eastern-state-inmates-document-story-of-resistance/
- Social Media
- beccalcap
- Country Focus
- United States
- Expertise by Geography
- North America, United States
- Expertise by Chronology
- 19th century, 20th century
- Expertise by Topic
- American Civil War, Emancipation, Gender, Government, Material Culture, Military, Museums, Public History, Race, Slavery, Women
