What Reconstruction Meant: Historical Memory in the American South (The American South Series)

Baker, Bruce E.

ISBN 10: 081392877X / ISBN 13: 9780813928777

Published by University of Virginia Press (edition Illustrated), 2009

It's a well-cared-for item that has seen limited use. The item may show minor signs of wear. All the text is legible, with all pages included. It may have slight markings and/or highlighting. Seller Inventory # 081392877X-11-1

Synopsis:

A great deal has been written about southern memory centering on the Civil War, particularly the view of the war as a valiant lost cause. In this challenging book Bruce E. Baker looks at a related, and equally important, aspect of southern memory that has been treated by historians only in passing: Reconstruction. He examines what both white and black South Carolinians thought about the history of Reconstruction and how it shaped the way they lived their lives in the first half of the twentieth century. Baker addresses the dominant white construct of 'the dark days of Reconstruction', which was instrumental both in ending Reconstruction and in justifying Jim Crow and the disenfranchisement of African Americans in the South, setting the tone for early historians' accounts of Reconstruction. Looking back on the same era. African Americans and their supporters recalled a time of potential and of rights to be regained, inspiring their continuing struggles to change the South. The author draws on a tremendous range of newspapers, memoirs, correspondence, and published materials to show the intricate process by which the white-supremacist memory of Reconstruction became important in the 1890s as segregation and disenfranchisement took hold in the South, and how it began to crumble as the civil rights movement gained momentum. Examining the southern memory of Reconstruction, in all its forms, is an essential element in understanding the society and politics of the twentieth-century South.

About the Author: Bruce E. Baker is Lecturer in U.S. History at Royal Holloway, University of London. His essays have appeared in numerous publications, including most recently American Nineteenth Century History and Radicalism in the South since Reconstruction.

Bibliographic Details

Title: What Reconstruction Meant: Historical Memory...
Publisher: University of Virginia Press (edition Illustrated)
Publication Date: 2009
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Very Good
Edition: Illustrated.