Historiography of the Reconstruction Era
Riham Elshazli
Professor Clement Price
Civil War and the Reconstruction
12/11/12
Historiography of the Reconstruction Era At a time when America was trying to piece itself back together, the Reconstruction Era is one of the most important chapters in history. It is also, however, one of the most debated. After the Civil War, the South was devastated and thousands of freed slaves needed to be integrated into society. When Andrew Johnson took office, he was moderate in his views as to what should happen to restore order to the United States. However, some Republicans had other plans in mind. They wanted to impose harsher terms and used Congress to do so, justly giving them the name Radical Republicans. Opinions about this time period have swung back and forth between America’s most prominent of historians. Through the years, the different theories suggested about Reconstruction have been entirely conflicting, with one side calling it a failure while another calls it a success. Perhaps this chapter in history is so hotly contested because of the dramatic changes that have occurred in black society over the years. As society changes and new information rolls in, writers see former events through a new lens. The first view, brought up by William Dunning in 1907, categorized Reconstruction as a disaster because of the corruption of Radical Republicans. 30 years later, revisionists such as Vann C. Woodward challenged that notion, claiming that Reconstruction failed because of economic reasons, not because of corruption. During the 1960s, neoabolitionists such as John Hope Franklin and Kenneth Stampp suggested that Reconstruction was not a failure at all; rather, it left a legacy that eventually brought on the Civil Rights Movement. The most current view, held by historians such as Heather C. Richardson, claims that Reconstruction affected the entire nation, not just the South, and that most of the change has been positive. The first view to emerge, spearheaded by
Professor Clement Price
Civil War and the Reconstruction
12/11/12
Historiography of the Reconstruction Era At a time when America was trying to piece itself back together, the Reconstruction Era is one of the most important chapters in history. It is also, however, one of the most debated. After the Civil War, the South was devastated and thousands of freed slaves needed to be integrated into society. When Andrew Johnson took office, he was moderate in his views as to what should happen to restore order to the United States. However, some Republicans had other plans in mind. They wanted to impose harsher terms and used Congress to do so, justly giving them the name Radical Republicans. Opinions about this time period have swung back and forth between America’s most prominent of historians. Through the years, the different theories suggested about Reconstruction have been entirely conflicting, with one side calling it a failure while another calls it a success. Perhaps this chapter in history is so hotly contested because of the dramatic changes that have occurred in black society over the years. As society changes and new information rolls in, writers see former events through a new lens. The first view, brought up by William Dunning in 1907, categorized Reconstruction as a disaster because of the corruption of Radical Republicans. 30 years later, revisionists such as Vann C. Woodward challenged that notion, claiming that Reconstruction failed because of economic reasons, not because of corruption. During the 1960s, neoabolitionists such as John Hope Franklin and Kenneth Stampp suggested that Reconstruction was not a failure at all; rather, it left a legacy that eventually brought on the Civil Rights Movement. The most current view, held by historians such as Heather C. Richardson, claims that Reconstruction affected the entire nation, not just the South, and that most of the change has been positive. The first view to emerge, spearheaded by
Bibliography: Dunning, William Archibald. Reconstruction: Political and Economic. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1907. Franklin, John Hope. Reconstruction: After the Civil War. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1961. Richardson, Heather Cox. The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001 Stampp, Kenneth M Woodward, C. Vann. Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1951. -------------------------------------------- [ 1 ]. William Archibald Dunning, Reconstruction: Political and Economic (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1907), 119 [ 2 ] [ 7 ]. C. Vann Woodward, Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1951), 51. [ 10 ]. Kenneth M. Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), 213.