Customer Reviews

The Civil War Diary of Clara Solomon: Growing Up in New Orleans, 1861-1862

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Amazing, entertaining, and detailed account of what life was like for a Jewish girl coming of age in Confederate New Orleans. Such a valuable piece of research!

The book arrived on time for my deadline to read it before my exam. It arrived in great condition, although the jacket was a little frayed, and easily rips now. All in all, it's a great primary source about Civil War Era New Orleans and its Jewry. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the Civil War, New Orleans, American Judaism, and diary enthusiasts- Clara went so far as to give her diary a name and a personality.

Clara Solomon, a Jewish confederate teenager living in New Orleans during the early 1860s, provides a spirited, eloquent first-hand account of the Civil War through her diary (who she addresses as "Philomen"). This diary stands out from other Civil War diaries and memoirs for several reasons.

First, Clara is a well-to-do Sephardic Jew and staunchly Confederate, which provides a unique perspective not often (if ever) encountered in published Civil War memoirs. Secondly, the particularly urban setting of New Orleans is uncommon because so many published accounts of the Civil War are by civilians who resided in more rural settings. Lastly, Clara Solomon was gifted with a particular eloquence which, since publication of this diary, has proven her writing superbly quotable by other Civil War texts. I mean, a strong teaching-focused education combined with a typical maudlin teenage perspective makes for some blinkingly savage descriptions (the gist being akin to "I hope those Yankees all choke and DIE!")!

Elliott Ashkenazi edited this book and, in my opinion, conducted very thorough research on Clara Solomon and her family, providing a strong framework for her many diary entries. Readers will want to keep in mind that although the diary was presented to Clara (from a writer with the Times-Picayune) as an outlet for her to document the Civil War in particular, Clara views this diary as a friend and writes freely about her friends, her crushes, and her hopes and dreams. Her family's personal life, including social status and interpersonal relationships with one another and the community, is also depicted in detail within these entries. It's as much an account of the Civil War as that of a well-to-do girl struggling to keep up appearances and have fun with her life in the face of all the extreme hardship, prejudice and shortages experienced by so many during those times.

I would also like to point out that Clara Solomon herself has several other interesting family connections: Clara's older sister, Rosa Solomon (later "Roza Da Ponte"), was a New Orleans socialite and actress who was much revered in the community for her beauty as well as her creative and philanthropic endeavors - in fact, "Rosa Park", a quiet, opulent street in New Orleans, was named after her. Clara's younger sister, Josephine, was the grandmother of popular early folk singer Sam Hinton (1917 -2009). Also Clara's first husband, wealthy New Orleans merchant Julius Lilienthal, was the brother of lauded New Orleans photographer Theodore Lilienthal, who gifted the world with some of the most striking early photographs of one of the United States' most beautiful cities.