The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North, 1865-1901
by Heather Cox Richardson
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Historians overwhelmingly have blamed the demise of Reconstruction on Southerners' persistent racism. Heather Cox Richardson argues instead that class, along with race, was critical to Reconstruction's end. Northern support for freed blacks and Reconstruction weakened in the wake of growing critiques of the economy and calls for a redistribution of wealth.Using newspapers, public speeches, popular tracts, Congressional reports, and private correspondence, Richardson traces the changing show more Northern attitudes toward African-Americans from the Republicans' idealized image of black workers in 1861 through the 1901 publication of Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery. She examines such issues as black suffrage, disenfranchisement, taxation, westward migration, lynching, and civil rights to detect the trajectory of Northern disenchantment with Reconstruction. She reveals a growing backlash from Northerners against those who believed that inequalities should be addressed through working-class action, and the emergence of an American middle class that championed individual productivity and saw African-Americans as a threat to their prosperity.
The Death of Reconstruction offers a new perspective on American race and labor and demonstrates the importance of class in the post-Civil War struggle to integrate African-Americans into a progressive and prospering nation.
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ThingScore 75
Richardson's explanation for the abandonment of black southerners offers an innovative and stimulating perspective. By giving priority to "free labor," rather than equal rights, as the centerpiece of Republican ideology and postwar policy, she emphasizes the significance of economic considerations and also class divisions as explanatory factors in the termination of the party's involvement in show more the late-nineteenth-century South. Furthermore, the focus on the Republicans' theories about labor after emancipation establishes the political context for the current interest among historians in the origins and nature of the labor system that emerged after emancipation. These are very valuable insights and contributions. show less
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Author Information
11+ Works 2,167 Members
Heather Cox Richardson is Professor of History at Boston College. The author of West from Appomattox, The Greatest Nation of the Earth, and The Death of Reconstruction, she lives in Massachusetts.
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North, 1865-1901
- Important places
- USA
- Important events
- Reconstruction
- Original language
- English
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, Politics and Government, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 973.8 — History & geography History of North America United States The Gilded Age, Reconstruction, Spanish American War (1865-1901)
- LCC
- E668 .R5 — History of the United States United States Late nineteenth century, 1865-1900 Johnson's administration, April 15, 1865-1869 Reconstruction, 1865-1877
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 110
- Popularity
- 295,115
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.57)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 3
