Dr. James Marten

Dr. James MartenMarquette University

MilwaukeeWI53201United States of Americajames.marten@marquette.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Professor Emeritus

History

I have written, edited, or co-edited over twenty books in two different fields: The Civil War era and the histories of children and youth. My books include The Children’s Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), a Choice “Outstanding Academic Title” and winner of the Alpha Sigma Nu Jesuit Book Award, as well as more recent books on Civil War veterans, including Sing Not War: The Lives of Union and Confederate Veterans in Gilded Age America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), America’s Corporal: James Tanner in War and Peace, a short biography of the disabled Civil War veteran and activist James “Corporal” Tanner (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2014), and Buying and Selling Civil War Memory in Gilded Age America (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2021), co-edited with Caroline E. Janney.

 My work on children and youth includes A Very Short Introduction to the History of Childhood (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018) and a co-edited volume, War and Childhood in the Era of the Two World Wars (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019), co-edited with Mischa Honeck, as well as a number of other edited collections, including the six-volume A Cultural History of Childhood and Family (co-edited with Elizabeth Foyster and published by Berg in 2010). I edited the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth from 2013-2018.

My latest book is The Sixth Wisconsin and the Long Civil War: The Biography of a Regiment (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2025), which explores the war-time experiences and the long-term effects of the Civil War on a regiment that fought in one of the most famous units in the Union army—the Iron Brigade. 

I am a past president of both the Society of Civil War Historians (2008-2012) and the Society for the History of Children and Youth (2013-2015).

Research Interests

United States social and cultural history

Civil War era

veterans

children and youth.

Honors and Awards

I received the 2010 Lawrence G. Haggerty Award for Excellence in Research at Marquette University.

Distinguished Service Recognition, Society of Civil War Historians, 2024

Way Klingler Fellowship, Marquette University, 2021-2022