However, one last point concerning social mobility must be made. Therefore, the activist nature of the Populists and Progressives finds its birthplace in the activist nature of the postwar United States government and, to some extent, Reconstruction itself. Slavery, in short, seems to have exerted a profoundly conservative influence on the manufacturing process at Buffalo Forge, and one suspects that similar circumstances prevailed at industrial establishments throughout the slave South.” Thus, Dew’s assertion would render the Confederacy’s attempt to industrialize increasingly tricky since the Southern labor system was not conducive to optimum industrial efficiency. While the Dunning School used racism to portray southern whites as victims, and explain the failures of Reconstruction, Du Bois argued that racism and economic interests worked together to limit opportunities for African Americans and poor whites. Historians of the mid- to late 20th century observed the contemporary debate over civil rights in light of Reconstruction, particularly its failure to establish democracy based on racial and economic equality. Foner highlights the importance of free labor ideology, writing that “[t]he transformation of slaves into free laborers and equal citizens was the most dramatic example of the social and political changes unleashed” by Reconstruction. To show how views of Reconstruction have changed over time, this tutorial begins by providing an overview of the African-American experience in the southern United States between 1877 and 1900. How did the Civil War Change the South's Social Structure? In Dunning's view of Reconstruction, Republican radicals, unscrupulous northern carpetbaggers, (define) Southern scalawags, (define) and ignorant Freedmen took control in the South after the Civil War and ushered in a period of corrupt state governments in the South. Instead of going too far, Reconstruction failed to be radical enough. As Foner attests, these new relations and lines of authority could only be created through constant give and take (strikes, work slowdown). Du Bois chastised historians for ignoring the central figures of Reconstruction, the freedmen. Foner and other modern scholars have argued that the Civil War and Reconstruction marked the beginning of “the activist state”, in which the federal government played an increasing role in the lives of its citizens. The rise of wage labor placed wager earners in the North in opposition to the system of slavery in the South, and the rising population of the North (from immigration) increased tensions between the two regions. In response to Burgess’s characterization of African Americans as “children”, Du Bois portrayed former slaves, northern free blacks, and their white allies, as key agents in the fight to abolish slavery, restore the Union, and establish democracy based on racial and economic equality. Again, just as Foner maintained, Kolchin remarks, “And in the years after World War II, again with the help of white allies, they spearheaded a “second Reconstruction” – grounded on the legal foundation provided by the first — to create an interracial society that would finally overcome the persistent legacy of slavery.”. Reconstruction era is the period where the United States attempts to redress slavery after the Civil War. Repeatedly, throughout the work, the southern industry is portrayed as anemic at best. Thus, whether consciously or not, the Confederacy's leaders looked to recreate the South in a way that mirrored the North in several ways. In this way, the Civil War and Reconstruction can be viewed as similar to the French Revolution stages. W.E.B. Every black man employed meant one more available white soldier .” While the nature of slavery was altered, it did so temporarily. The economic reform was extreme. Suspension of civil liberties is a common wartime tactic (WWI, WWII). The historiography of Reconstruction shows that this can have devastating effects, as historians from the Dunning School legitimized the processes of racial and economic exclusion that white southern Democrats implemented after 1877. Eric Foner publishes Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution. In this way, sharecropping can be viewed as a compromise fought for by African Americans. Openstax tutorials 16.4, 19.2 & 24.3 http://bit.ly/2ov4DTs. Lincoln did the same in the North. An understanding of Reconstruction developed by William A. Dunning, John W. Burgess, and their students; interpreted Reconstruction as a disaster for white southerners because Congress abolished slavery and attempted to extend political rights to African-Americans, The study and interpretation of historical writings, Public hangings of African-American men by white mobs, A system in which poor black and white farmers paid rent on land they farmed (but did not own) with the crops they grew, The history of the average person, especially in terms of demographic groups, A prominent African-American civil rights activist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; a productive writer and scholar who was also among the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. However, while the political violence in the South (KKK) along with the legislation of black codes and Jim Crow laws severely curtailed the rights of freedmen, lasting constitutional adjustments did lay the groundwork for future battles. The Dunning School: Historians, Race, and the Meaning of Reconstruction - Ebook written by John David Smith, J. Vincent Lowery. And for its legal strategy, the movement returned to the laws and amendments of Reconstruction.” Like Foner, Kolchin points out similar features of Post-Reconstruction America, “Even as blacks became the objects of intensified racial oppression, they struggled to remake their lives as free men and women and succeeded to a remarkable degree in their efforts to secure greater independence for themselves … In assessing these developments, the question of perspective remains critical: the South of 1910 was hardly the South they would have chosen … but it was far removed from the South of 1860.”, Thus, Reconstruction allowed African Americans to more fully express agency while still oppressed. Reconstruction did succeed in frustrating the positive elements of the revolutionary Southern experience.”. In an essay for Major Problems in the Civil War and Reconstruction entitled, “The Differences between the Antebellum North and South,” McPherson argues that the South had not changed, but the North had. Du Bois' book challenges the Dunning School by placing African Americans at the center of the Civil War and Reconstruction. However, while Thomas’s overall argument has strength, it has a weakness in that all the change he describes as revolutionary occurred strictly as a result of the Civil War. They cynically used freedmen's civil rights as a means to force capitalism and economic dependence on the South. Cotton, once king, became a pawn in the Confederate South. Du Bois emphasized the attempts by Republican-led state governments to secure voting rights and promote land distribution among former slaves in the South. Still, the political activism by freedmen and freedwomen signifies a great change in Southern society. The term historiography has been used in this course to refer to the study of historical writing, or the "history of history". Members of the planter class often won the elections to company commands.” Thus, the reader is left wondering what is meant by revolution since Thomas seems to be saying that the South revolutionizes during the war but then retreats from its revolution once the war comes to its conclusion. With the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments and the changing nature of the South, racial and class attitudes set upon a difficult task of redefining race and race relations, a process that continues today. For example, the Union League’s acceptance of freedmen resulted in white flight or segregation among other branches, despite the small white farmer and the freedmen's obvious class similarities. While certainly influenced by the day's racial bias, the Dunning School at least formulated a coherent argument (although an incredibly inaccurate and distasteful one) that refused to fragment. Both Thomas and Foner are correct when they view both events as revolutionary. For the nation as a whole, the collapse of Reconstruction was a tragedy that deeply affected the course of its future development.” Thomas views the final results of Reconstruction similarly but through a slightly different historical lens. Reconstruction as an “Unfinished Revolution”. https://dailyhistory.org/index.php?title=Understanding_Reconstruction_-_A_Historiography&oldid=21756. It reflected the rising tide of nationalism that followed the Dew’s work documents both slave and master's experience at an industrial metalworking forge in Virginia known as Buffalo Forge. Two economic and social variables absent from the South. Education was available to only the upper classes, who often sent children to elite schools. Divided into three sections (colonial America and the American Revolution, antebellum South, and Civil War and Reconstruction), Kolchin weaves historians' arguments past and present into a coherent work that examines several aspects of slavery. Rather stability was seen as the optimum end. Moreover, Du Bois pointedly remarked on the prevailing racial bias of the historical inquiry up to that moment, “One fact and one alone explains the attitude of most recent writers toward Reconstruction; they cannot conceive of Negroes as men.” Du Bois’s indictment served as a precursor for the explosion of revisionist history of the 1960s, which would latch onto the argument of Du Bois and refocus the debate concerning Reconstruction to include the central figures of the freedmen. The three groups of sources that follow are categorized by the historical Whites failed to share this vision and saw the “ethos of mutuality” as a threat to free labor and self-determination. African American political grassroots activism exploded with increased political autonomy. Reconstruction: America's unfinished revolution, 1863-1877. This interpretation of Reconstruction placed it firmly in the category of historical blunder. Therefore, would this not serve more aptly as an example of wartime necessities undertaken for war but not intended for permanence? NY, NY: Harper Perennial. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2lfEaIW, Claude G. Bowers, The Tragic Era (1929), p. 198, Internet Archive . Thomas argues that increased responsibilities and rights given to slaves because of the War’s demands on the white population proved that the Confederacy was even willing to sacrifice slavery for independence, “White Southerners depended upon black Southerners to do more than till the fields and tend the campfires … As the war wore on the trend toward black labor became more pronounced. Although focusing on freedwomen's labor, Jones's work notes the differences in the meaning of freedom for black women compared to its meaning for African American men. Several leading historians Historians of the mid- to late 20th century observed the contemporary debate over civil rights in light of Reconstruction, particularly its failure to establish democracy based on racial and economic equality. No doubt, at the war’s beginning, the planter class dominated the military. However, despite the differing focus, Jones notes the desire for autonomy among African Americans. However, one work stands out from this period as a harbinger of what was to come. Internet Archive. Reconstruction as an “Unfinished Revolution”. Woodman refuses to acknowledge this as revolutionary, “Instead of chronicling quantity we must rather assess quality: the problem is not how much change but what kind of change.”, So, how successful was Reconstruction? The literature on the Reconstruction is extensive and has shown sharp changes in interpretation. Thus, dissent was not a valuable political commodity. Social historians contributed to the creation of a new narrative for Reconstruction, one that challenged the Dunning School's conclusions, by the end of the 20th century. Freedmen were portrayed as animalistic or easily manipulated, therefore, lacking the kind of agency they indeed exhibited. Many Northerners saw education as a means of social mobility. One might respond that such cases begin the process of change since historically, once people are granted rights or freedoms, it proves to be quite difficult to reclaim such rights, mobility, or freedoms. But compared to the antebellum South, the Confederate South underwent nothing short of an economic revolution.”. For freedmen, Reconstruction’s beginnings were auspicious. Segregation had an impact on how white historians interpreted Reconstruction in the early 20th century, as did the desire among white Americans to reconcile sectional divisions between North and South. More importantly, the North reinterpreted its ideas concerning republicanism. Jefferson Davis and others saw the need for increased industry and urbanization, “A nation of farmers knew the frustration of going hungry, but Southern industry made great strides. it's also interesting that it is really in a 1940 essay that harvard k. beal writing an essay on reconstruction in the american historical review praises dubois. Remember that the Bureau had been established to help former slaves succeed in the transition to freedom. The Dunning School is thus a significant contribution, not just to the historiography of Du Bois, Foner emphasizes “the centrality of the black experience”, and argues that African-Americans played an active, positive role in Reconstruction. It was an explanation for and justification of taking the right to vote away from black people on the grounds that they completely abused it during Reconstruction. According to Thomas, such reorganization did not limit itself to the economic field. Historical reconstructions provide both a chronology and a history. Led by radical “fire-eaters,” Southern politicians incited animosity between the North and South, “They made a ‘conservative revolution’ to preserve the antebellum status quo, but they made a revolution just the same. Foner argues that Reconstruction proved revolutionary for a period but ultimately failed. historians, the passions of the debate have to some extent subsided since then; but in the popular mind, Reconstruction continues to raise "dark and bloody" images. This page was last edited on 9 December 2020, at 19:46. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America (1935), pp. They viewed this failure as a cause of persistent racial and social injustice in American society. According to Woodman, historians must assess the quality of this change, not the amount. For generations, scholars influenced by the Lost Cause portrayed Reconstruction as the lowest point in American history, a period characterized by political corruption and retaliatory action against former Confederates, which “mercifully” came to a close with the withdrawal of the U.S. Army and the restoration of “legitimate” (i.e., white) government in southern states in 1877. Interpreting American History: Reconstruction - Project MUSE Thus they retreated from wage labor. According to McPherson, the Southern states had remained loyal to the Jeffersonian interpretation of republicanism. Thus, white Southerners sincerely hoped to offer the emancipated freedmen rights and protection along with equal opportunity. Ironically though, Dew’s work points out the difficulties in industrializing through slave labor. The failure of Reconstruction resulted from several factors besides the two already mentioned. You likely began this class thinking that "history" simply meant the written record of the past, perhaps based on what you encountered in a history textbook. Recall also the motivations behind creation of the Black Codes, which sought to control the lives of former slaves: Burgess and Dunning inspired an entire generation of historians who viewed Reconstruction similarly. Bourgeoisie free labor was the basis of the new southern economy since the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War had destroyed the previous one. Instead of investing in manufacturing and industry, they reinvested in agrarian pursuits. By the 1900s, commemorative ceremonies at Gettysburg and other Civil War battlefields celebrated the sacrifices that white soldiers on both sides made, and asserted that these sacrifices had made the nation stronger. In contrast, the North modernized through industrialization. Retrenchment occurred, yet reform had started. Thus, the Emancipation Proclamation catalyzed the eventual Civil Rights movement of the mid-twentieth century. Thus, the “folk culture” of the South valued tradition and stability. According to Thomas, the South’s initial break from the Union was inspired by the hope that the South might preserve its traditions and institutions. These ceremonies omitted references to the role that slavery played in the Civil War, and ignored the contributions of African-American soldiers to the Union war effort. This U.S. History course has covered a lot of ground, and examined a variety of diverse subjects. 44-45, Internet Archive. Slavery failed to encourage innovation. Generations of Americans grew up wi… By the end of 1867, it seemed, virtually every black voter in the South had enrolled in the Union League. Although these new histories celebrated Reconstruction's potential to transform southern society, they blamed white southerners — and northerners — for its failures. So where has that left historians today? However, the creation of historical narratives is a complicated and ongoing process. Carpetbaggers, scalawags, and uneducated freedmen plunged the South into depression and confusion until the white South banded together to reclaim southern culture and heritage. Many of the processes and issues central to Southern Reconstruction – the consolidation of a new class structure, changes in the position of blacks, conflicts over access to the region’s economic resources were also present, in different forms, in the North … Reconstruction cannot be fully understood without attention to its distinctively Northern and national dimensions.”, Foner’s work's major strength lies in its attempt to sketch for the reader a process that Foner argues begins in 1863 with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. 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