The Strange Career of Jim Crow
by C. Vann Woodward
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C. Vann Woodward, who died in 1999 at the age of 91, was America's most eminent Southern historian, the winner of a Pulitzer Prize for 'Mary Chestnut's Civil War' and a Bancroft Prize for 'The Origins of the New South'. Now, to honour his long and truly distinguished career, Oxford is pleased to publish this special commemorative edition of Woodward's most influential work, 'The Strange Career of Jim Crow'.Tags
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I was appalled when I read that some of the manipulative figures featured in this book deliberately produced racist propaganda, in which they did not truly believe, that undid any gains in civil rights and racial tolerance that resulted from Reconstruction. Not that I thought such cynical behavior is beyond pundits or politicians, but I had the general impression from history classes and other sources that the majority of Southern whites simply would not accept equal rights for the former slaves for decades after the Civl War, and that the deterioration of gains enforced during Reconstruction was inevitable after the federal troops left. The revelation that a better society had emerged and could have continued had not the selfish show more ambitions for short-term political goals led to overwhelming horror is devastating. show less
Analyzes the rise of racial segregation in the American South after Reconstruction. The book argues that the formalized segregation laws, which became known as Jim Crow, were a relatively recent development, not an age-old tradition, and were implemented as a political strategy to divide the white and Black masses.
This was a required reading for my college credit American History class in high school, and it was particularly illuminating to a boy who had come from small-town Ohio and only spoken to one black person in his life. The book is a classic of American race relations, covering the genesis and history of the "Jim Crow" laws and practices which sprang up across America after the Civil War into modern times. The laws are off the books now, but many of the attitudes and customs remain, and this book helps the reader understand why.
A good read if you want to know more about political and social-historical events that shaped the Jim Crow era and beyond. A big emphasis on the political forces, even over social, so be ready for that. Dated somewhat (written in 1955, with updates), it was at times harder to read. The end of the book ended on a down note and was for me a little depressing. But there are enough gems in the book for me to give it four stars.
2735 The Strange Career of Jim Crow Second Revised Edition, by C. Vann Woodward (read 22 Apr 1995) This was a famous book of lectures in 1955. This edition was published in 1966. It is a stirring work, and the chapters on the decline and legal fall of Jim Crow in the years since 1945 are eminently attention-holding. I have read more modern books, telling the whole stirring story of the Civil Rights Movement, most notably Parting the Waters and Bearing the Cross, but this work, though short, sweeps one up. Woodward is an able and right-thinking man, or was. Well worth reading, even at this late date.
I hate to say that I got bored with the book so after 32 pages I gave up.
Donation from Monica Tetzlaff, July 24, 2013.
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Author Information
25+ Works 4,215 Members
One of the world's most distinguished historians, C. Vann Woodward was born in Vanndale, Arkansas, and educated at Emory University and the University of North Carolina, where he received his Ph.D. in 1937. After teaching at Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Florida, and Scripps College for a time, in 1946 he joined the faculty at show more The Johns Hopkins University, where he began producing the many young Ph.D.s who have followed him into the profession. In 1961 he became Sterling Professor at Yale University, where he remains today as emeritus professor. He has been the Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities, Harmsworth Professor at Oxford University, and Commonwealth Lecturer at the University of London. Past president of all the major historical associations, he holds the Gold Medal of the National Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and is a member of the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society. His honors also include a Bancroft Prize for Origins of the New South, 1876--1913 (1951) and a 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Mary Chesnut's Civil War (1981). A premier historian of the American South and of race relations in the United States, Woodward studies the South in a way that sheds light on the human condition everywhere. In recent years he has turned his attention increasingly to comparative history. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Strange Career of Jim Crow
- Original publication date
- 1955
- First words
- The previous revision of this book, published in its original edition nearly twenty years ago, brought the account up to the events of August 1965. That was the fateful month in the strange career of segregation and the movem... (show all)ent against it. On 6 August Congress passed and the President signed the Voting Rights Act, and on 11 August the terrible riot in Watts initiated four summers of violent racial explosions all over the country. -Preface to the Third Revised Edition, New Haven, October 1973
The ten years that have passed since the original edition of this book was published have been crowded with unanticipated developments and revolutionary changes at the very center of the subject under consideration. The old e... (show all)dition had begun to suffer under some of the handicaps that might be expected in a history of the American Revolution published in 1776, or a history of the First Reconstruction dated 1865. The intervening years of social upheaval and political travail since 1955 have inevitably altered the perspective from which the earlier history was viewed. -Preface to the Second Revised Edition, New Haven, August 1965
The period of history that gave rise to the laws of segregation, which we call the "Jim Crow" system, is still wrapped in a good deal of obscurity. For all but the elderly it lies below the threshold of living memory. Yet it ... (show all)is too recent to have received serious investigation from any but a few specialists. Their findings have not made their way into the books read by intelligent laymen, let along the popular mind. -Preface to the First Edition, February 1955
The people of the South should be the last Americans to expect indefinite continuity of their institutions and social arrangements. Other Americans have less reason to be prepared for sudden changes and lost causes. Apart fro... (show all)m Southerners, Americans have enjoyed a historical continuity that is unique among modern peoples. The stream of national history, flowing down from seventeenth-century sources, reaches a fairly level plain in the eighteenth century. There is gathered mightily in volume and span from its tributaries, but it continued to flow like the Mississippi over an even bed between relatively level banks. -Introduction
The long experience of slavery in America left its mark on the posterity of both slave and master and influenced relations between them more than a century after the old regime. Slavery was only one of several ways by which t... (show all)he white man has sought to define the Negro's status, his 'place,' and assure his subordination. Exploitation of the Negro by the white man goes back to the beginning of relations between the races in modern times, and so do the injustices and brutalities that accompany exploitation. -I, Of Old Regimes and Reconstructions - Canonical DDC/MDS
- 301.45196073
- Canonical LCC
- E185.61 .W86
Classifications
- Genres
- History, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, Politics and Government
- DDC/MDS
- 301.45196073 — Social sciences Social sciences, sociology & anthropology Sociology and anthropology Formerly: Social structure Africans and people of African descent
- LCC
- E185.61 .W86 — History of the United States United States Elements in the population Afro-Americans Status and development since emancipation
- BISAC
Statistics
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- 1,201
- Popularity
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- Reviews
- 7
- Rating
- (4.06)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 13
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 34