=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 Oct 2001 10:47:08 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Eric Foner 
Subject:      Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Welcome to the History Matters forum on teaching Reconstruction.  A
century and a quarter after it came to a close, Reconstruction remains
perhaps the most controversial and least understood era of American
history.  The term itself applies both to a specific period of the nation's
past and to a prolonged and difficult process by which Americans
sought to reunite a nation sundered by the Civil War, and come to
terms with the destruction of slavery.  As a chronological period,
Reconstruction is usually said to have begun in 1865, with the Union's
victory in the Civil War, although in reality steps toward reuniting the
nation and recasting Southern life began during the war itself.  In
political terms, the era of Reconstruction ended in 1877, when the
federal government irrevocably abandoned the idea of intervening in
the South to protect the rights of black citizens.  As a historical process
through which sectional reconciliation was achieved and a new
system of labor and race relations devised to replace the shattered
world of slavery, Reconstruction lasted at least to the end of the
nineteenth century.  If Reconstruction is defined as the effort of
American society to come to terms with the legacy of slavery, it is still
going on.  Certainly, in debates about racial equality, the interpretation
of the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmative action, and the responsibility
of the federal government for defining and enforcing the rights of
American citizens, issues central to Reconstruction remain part of our
lives today.

Historical writing on Reconstruction began during the era itself, and
continues to the present day.  Reconstruction scholarship, one
historian has written, is a "dark and bloody ground"  a vast body of
writing marked by sharp differences of opinion and radical changes in
interpretation, especially in the last two generations.  Until the 1960s,
the prevailing interpretation viewed Reconstruction as an era of
unrelieved sordidness in political and social life.  The villains of the
piece were vindictive Radical Republicans, who sabotaged Andrew
Johnson's lenient plan for bringing the South back into the Union, and
instead fastened black supremacy upon the defeated Confederacy.
An orgy of corruption and misgovernment allegedly followed, only
brought to a close when the South's white communities banded
together to restore "home rule" (a polite euphemism for white
supremacy).  Resting on the assumption that black suffrage was the
gravest error of the entire Civil War period, this interpretation survived
for decades because it accorded with and legitimated firmly
entrenched political and social realities, including radical segregation
and the disenfranchisement of southern black voters (which lasted
from around 1900 to 1965).

Although some scholars had already challenged elements of this
point of view, it was not until the 1960s, the decade of the civil rights
revolution or "second Reconstruction," that the traditional interpretation
was entirely dismantled.  Once they discarded the assumption of
black incapacity, historians came to view Reconstruction as a
praiseworthy effort to build an interracial democracy from the ashes of
slavery.  The era was portrayed as a time of extraordinary progress in
the South; indeed, if Reconstruction was "tragic," it was because
change did not go far enough, especially in the failure to distribute
land to the former slaves.  But in the federal civil rights laws and
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments enacted during the period,
Reconstruction laid the groundwork for future struggles for racial
equality.  In this scholarship, African-Americans emerged as major
historical actors, rather than victims of manipulation by others.  Their
political and religious organizations, economic aspirations, and the
social divisions among them attracted a new deal of scholarly
attention.  The economic transformation of the South and the complex
process by which various modes of free labor replaced the labor
system of slavery, became the focal point of numerous studies,
especially in the 1970s and 1980s.  Other historians sought to place
this country's adjustment to emancipation in an international context,
comparing Reconstruction in the United States with the aftermath of
slavery in the Caribbean, Brazil, and elsewhere.  Most recently,
Reconstruction scholars, like those studying many other periods of
American history, have devoted close attention to the role of gender in
Reconstruction the reconstitution of black families, how the Civil War
affected ideologies of manhood, how freedom may have had different
meanings for freed women than for their brothers and husbands.

I look forward to discussing any of the issues raised by this body of
historical literature, as well as relating to Reconstruction's relevance
for our own times.  We live today in a "post-civil rights" era in some
ways analogous to the early 20th century.  But so long as the issues
central to Reconstruction remain unresolved -- the balance of power in
the federal system, the place of black Americans in national life, the
relationship between economic and political democracy -- an
understanding of that period will remain central to our teaching of
American history as a whole.

I=92d like to conclude with a few questions to start our discussion. How
do you teach about Reconstruction and what resources do you use?
What relevance do you see in the history of Reconstruction for our
current politics and race relations? Should we think of Reconstruction
as a failure and if so, how do we explain this? Do the cycles of
Reconstruction historiography suggest that historical "truth" is
unobtainable and that historical interpretation tends to serve
immediate political ends?

Eric Foner

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 Oct 2001 14:32:00 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Pete Haro 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable

Dear Professor Foner: I think that I speak for all participants when I say
that I am looking forward to communicating with a historian of your stature
and achievement. My name is Peter D. Haro and I teach at Southwestern
Community College in Chula Vista, CA. I just had a student approach me and
ask if I was aware of any sources that dealt with the role of African
American women in slave culture, abolition and/or Reconstruction. Are there
any sources that you can suggest? I don't recall whether your book (A Short
History of Reconstruction) dealt with this issue. Any suggestions would be
appreciated. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,


Peter D. Haro, MA

----------
>From: Eric Foner 
>To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
>Date: Mon, Oct 1, 2001, 7:47 AM
>

> Welcome to the History Matters forum on teaching Reconstruction.  A
> century and a quarter after it came to a close, Reconstruction remains
> perhaps the most controversial and least understood era of American
> history.  The term itself applies both to a specific period of the nation=
's
> past and to a prolonged and difficult process by which Americans
> sought to reunite a nation sundered by the Civil War, and come to
> terms with the destruction of slavery.  As a chronological period,
> Reconstruction is usually said to have begun in 1865, with the Union's
> victory in the Civil War, although in reality steps toward reuniting the
> nation and recasting Southern life began during the war itself.  In
> political terms, the era of Reconstruction ended in 1877, when the
> federal government irrevocably abandoned the idea of intervening in
> the South to protect the rights of black citizens.  As a historical proce=
ss
> through which sectional reconciliation was achieved and a new
> system of labor and race relations devised to replace the shattered
> world of slavery, Reconstruction lasted at least to the end of the
> nineteenth century.  If Reconstruction is defined as the effort of
> American society to come to terms with the legacy of slavery, it is still
> going on.  Certainly, in debates about racial equality, the interpretatio=
n
> of the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmative action, and the responsibility
> of the federal government for defining and enforcing the rights of
> American citizens, issues central to Reconstruction remain part of our
> lives today.
>
> Historical writing on Reconstruction began during the era itself, and
> continues to the present day.  Reconstruction scholarship, one
> historian has written, is a "dark and bloody ground"  a vast body of
> writing marked by sharp differences of opinion and radical changes in
> interpretation, especially in the last two generations.  Until the 1960s,
> the prevailing interpretation viewed Reconstruction as an era of
> unrelieved sordidness in political and social life.  The villains of the
> piece were vindictive Radical Republicans, who sabotaged Andrew
> Johnson's lenient plan for bringing the South back into the Union, and
> instead fastened black supremacy upon the defeated Confederacy.
> An orgy of corruption and misgovernment allegedly followed, only
> brought to a close when the South's white communities banded
> together to restore "home rule" (a polite euphemism for white
> supremacy).  Resting on the assumption that black suffrage was the
> gravest error of the entire Civil War period, this interpretation survive=
d
> for decades because it accorded with and legitimated firmly
> entrenched political and social realities, including radical segregation
> and the disenfranchisement of southern black voters (which lasted
> from around 1900 to 1965).
>
> Although some scholars had already challenged elements of this
> point of view, it was not until the 1960s, the decade of the civil rights
> revolution or "second Reconstruction," that the traditional interpretatio=
n
> was entirely dismantled.  Once they discarded the assumption of
> black incapacity, historians came to view Reconstruction as a
> praiseworthy effort to build an interracial democracy from the ashes of
> slavery.  The era was portrayed as a time of extraordinary progress in
> the South; indeed, if Reconstruction was "tragic," it was because
> change did not go far enough, especially in the failure to distribute
> land to the former slaves.  But in the federal civil rights laws and
> Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments enacted during the period,
> Reconstruction laid the groundwork for future struggles for racial
> equality.  In this scholarship, African-Americans emerged as major
> historical actors, rather than victims of manipulation by others.  Their
> political and religious organizations, economic aspirations, and the
> social divisions among them attracted a new deal of scholarly
> attention.  The economic transformation of the South and the complex
> process by which various modes of free labor replaced the labor
> system of slavery, became the focal point of numerous studies,
> especially in the 1970s and 1980s.  Other historians sought to place
> this country's adjustment to emancipation in an international context,
> comparing Reconstruction in the United States with the aftermath of
> slavery in the Caribbean, Brazil, and elsewhere.  Most recently,
> Reconstruction scholars, like those studying many other periods of
> American history, have devoted close attention to the role of gender in
> Reconstruction the reconstitution of black families, how the Civil War
> affected ideologies of manhood, how freedom may have had different
> meanings for freed women than for their brothers and husbands.
>
> I look forward to discussing any of the issues raised by this body of
> historical literature, as well as relating to Reconstruction's relevance
> for our own times.  We live today in a "post-civil rights" era in some
> ways analogous to the early 20th century.  But so long as the issues
> central to Reconstruction remain unresolved -- the balance of power in
> the federal system, the place of black Americans in national life, the
> relationship between economic and political democracy -- an
> understanding of that period will remain central to our teaching of
> American history as a whole.
>
> I=92d like to conclude with a few questions to start our discussion. How
> do you teach about Reconstruction and what resources do you use?
> What relevance do you see in the history of Reconstruction for our
> current politics and race relations? Should we think of Reconstruction
> as a failure and if so, how do we explain this? Do the cycles of
> Reconstruction historiography suggest that historical "truth" is
> unobtainable and that historical interpretation tends to serve
> immediate political ends?
>
> Eric Foner
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. Histor=
y.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 Oct 2001 21:45:50 +0100
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         =?iso-8859-1?Q?Juan_Jos=E9_Cruz?= 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Dear Professor Foner:

Thank you very much  for your introductory statement. As a teacher at a
Spanish university, I  approach Reconstruction in the light of contemporary
events taking place in Cuba, a place more familiar to us, more so if  one
lives in the Canary Islands. As you suggested,  that era can extended for
much longer than 1877 -otherwise  one should not feel legitimate  then to
discuss postbellum US in say, Huck Finn or The Birth of a Nation, to name
two cultural texts raised from that experience.

I would appreciate very much if you or anyone else in the forum could point
out books or articles that relate or compare US Reconstruction with the
aftermath of  the Ten-Year War in Cuba.

Thank you for your help.

Juan José Cruz
Univesity of La Laguna, Tenerife
Spain.

----- Original Message -----
From: Eric Foner 
To: 
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 3:47 PM
Subject: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner


> Welcome to the History Matters forum on teaching Reconstruction.  A
> century and a quarter after it came to a close, Reconstruction remains
> perhaps the most controversial and least understood era of American
> history.  The term itself applies both to a specific period of the
nation's
> past and to a prolonged and difficult process by which Americans
> sought to reunite a nation sundered by the Civil War, and come to
> terms with the destruction of slavery.  As a chronological period,
> Reconstruction is usually said to have begun in 1865, with the Union's
> victory in the Civil War, although in reality steps toward reuniting the
> nation and recasting Southern life began during the war itself.  In
> political terms, the era of Reconstruction ended in 1877, when the
> federal government irrevocably abandoned the idea of intervening in
> the South to protect the rights of black citizens.  As a historical
process
> through which sectional reconciliation was achieved and a new
> system of labor and race relations devised to replace the shattered
> world of slavery, Reconstruction lasted at least to the end of the
> nineteenth century.  If Reconstruction is defined as the effort of
> American society to come to terms with the legacy of slavery, it is still
> going on.  Certainly, in debates about racial equality, the interpretation
> of the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmative action, and the responsibility
> of the federal government for defining and enforcing the rights of
> American citizens, issues central to Reconstruction remain part of our
> lives today.
>
> Historical writing on Reconstruction began during the era itself, and
> continues to the present day.  Reconstruction scholarship, one
> historian has written, is a "dark and bloody ground"  a vast body of
> writing marked by sharp differences of opinion and radical changes in
> interpretation, especially in the last two generations.  Until the 1960s,
> the prevailing interpretation viewed Reconstruction as an era of
> unrelieved sordidness in political and social life.  The villains of the
> piece were vindictive Radical Republicans, who sabotaged Andrew
> Johnson's lenient plan for bringing the South back into the Union, and
> instead fastened black supremacy upon the defeated Confederacy.
> An orgy of corruption and misgovernment allegedly followed, only
> brought to a close when the South's white communities banded
> together to restore "home rule" (a polite euphemism for white
> supremacy).  Resting on the assumption that black suffrage was the
> gravest error of the entire Civil War period, this interpretation survived
> for decades because it accorded with and legitimated firmly
> entrenched political and social realities, including radical segregation
> and the disenfranchisement of southern black voters (which lasted
> from around 1900 to 1965).
>
> Although some scholars had already challenged elements of this
> point of view, it was not until the 1960s, the decade of the civil rights
> revolution or "second Reconstruction," that the traditional interpretation
> was entirely dismantled.  Once they discarded the assumption of
> black incapacity, historians came to view Reconstruction as a
> praiseworthy effort to build an interracial democracy from the ashes of
> slavery.  The era was portrayed as a time of extraordinary progress in
> the South; indeed, if Reconstruction was "tragic," it was because
> change did not go far enough, especially in the failure to distribute
> land to the former slaves.  But in the federal civil rights laws and
> Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments enacted during the period,
> Reconstruction laid the groundwork for future struggles for racial
> equality.  In this scholarship, African-Americans emerged as major
> historical actors, rather than victims of manipulation by others.  Their
> political and religious organizations, economic aspirations, and the
> social divisions among them attracted a new deal of scholarly
> attention.  The economic transformation of the South and the complex
> process by which various modes of free labor replaced the labor
> system of slavery, became the focal point of numerous studies,
> especially in the 1970s and 1980s.  Other historians sought to place
> this country's adjustment to emancipation in an international context,
> comparing Reconstruction in the United States with the aftermath of
> slavery in the Caribbean, Brazil, and elsewhere.  Most recently,
> Reconstruction scholars, like those studying many other periods of
> American history, have devoted close attention to the role of gender in
> Reconstruction the reconstitution of black families, how the Civil War
> affected ideologies of manhood, how freedom may have had different
> meanings for freed women than for their brothers and husbands.
>
> I look forward to discussing any of the issues raised by this body of
> historical literature, as well as relating to Reconstruction's relevance
> for our own times.  We live today in a "post-civil rights" era in some
> ways analogous to the early 20th century.  But so long as the issues
> central to Reconstruction remain unresolved -- the balance of power in
> the federal system, the place of black Americans in national life, the
> relationship between economic and political democracy -- an
> understanding of that period will remain central to our teaching of
> American history as a whole.
>
> I'd like to conclude with a few questions to start our discussion. How
> do you teach about Reconstruction and what resources do you use?
> What relevance do you see in the history of Reconstruction for our
> current politics and race relations? Should we think of Reconstruction
> as a failure and if so, how do we explain this? Do the cycles of
> Reconstruction historiography suggest that historical "truth" is
> unobtainable and that historical interpretation tends to serve
> immediate political ends?
>
> Eric Foner
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 Oct 2001 15:21:41 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         judy adnum 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
In-Reply-To:  <200110012126.OAA00699@albatross.prod.itd.earthlink.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Hello all and let me say how happy I am to be a part
of this month's forum. I am a Curriculum Adviser in
New South Wales, Australia specifically in the fields
of teaching Australian  Civics and Citizenship and
American History. I visited your country last year to
study the Civil Rights Movement in the south and went
to two wonderful Teacher Conferences in San Antonio
and Sacramento.
In Australia, whilst we have a wealth of material on
much of American history - through all sorts of media,
reconstruction is still more a 'terminology' than an
event
I am looking forward to learning from this forum and
thank the organisers for the concept.

Judy Adnum


=====
Judy Adnum.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone.
http://phone.yahoo.com

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 Oct 2001 17:36:41 -0500
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Suvi U. Vesala" 
Subject:      Response
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Dear Professor Foner and fellow scholars,

I am a graduate student at Tulane University where I have the pleasure of
teaching the Post Civil War portion of the U.S.survey for the second time.
My concerns with Reconstruction as a topic in class thus differ quite a bit
from those who spend an entire semester on the period.

Here at Tulane and in my classroom the student body is rather evenly split
between students from Louisiana and the surrounding areas on the one hand
and those from the Northeast on the other. I find the basic chronology very
easy to teach, in fact it is mostly review since many of them already know a
good bit.

The chief difficulty is in what I call the "unteaching" of Reconstruction:
students seem to hold extremely polarized and fixed opinions on the subject.
I have a good portion of students who think very much along the lines of the
Dunning School, while others have difficulty feeling any sympathy toward the
Southerners.

My attempt to mediate these antagonistic camps so far consist of playing the
game of naming the major players. I draw boxes on the blackboard for the
North and the South. I then begin inserting different categories of people
into each box as students call them out, pausing to define some of the
characteristics of each group. With Democrats and Republicans, former slaves
and  slaveowners gradually emerging in both boxes, confusion, debate and,
thankfully, some epiphanies ensue. Despite a measure of success achieved
this way, I wonder if there would not be a better way to do this. I would
very much like to hear suggestions on different things to try, as well as
just share views on this particular challenge.

Ursula Vesala
Tulane University
New Orleans, Louisiana

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 1 Oct 2001 16:27:39 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Jean Libby 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Dear Professor Foner,

My name is Jean Libby and I teach U.S. Survey History and African American
History at San Jose City College in California.  My textbook for U.S.
History is James Henretta, et al., America, A Concise History, Vol. 2 (Since
1865) and for African American History it is Herb Boyd, editor,
Autobiography of a People, Three Centuries of African American History Told
by Those Who Lived It.

The U.S. treatment of Reconstruction is comparative with the political
systems of Presidential Reconstruction, Radical Reconstruction, and
Redemption.  I usually do not teach these at all, concentrating on the
Amendments to the Constitution that occur during this time and the
development of the public education system with free education as a right to
citizens that was demanded by the freedmen.  We are in community college in
California, where classes cost $13 a unit.  I tell the students if they like
this system, they should thank the former slaves.  We have a large recent
immigrant population at the school, especially in the night class that I
teach.  I say that if people like the rights of protection of the 14th
Amendment they should thank the former slaves, too.  These students have not
studied the U.S. Civil War, and have trouble  understanding language.  I do
give open book and open note tests, and would appreciate some good short
explanations of Reconstruction.  I usually pass around a book of documents
that says what the freedmen were promised and didn't get, and also emphasize
sharecropping as an economic system that replaced slavery.

For the African American class, the time period for one semester is the
whole of the historical period of African beginnings to the present,
requiring great speed.  In the textbook, the period is John Mercer Langston,
John R. Lynch, and Samuel Larkin.  I add Susie King Taylor (have
successfully used her memoir in U.S. History as well) and Robert Smalls --
enjoying the drama of his career in slavery and in freedom -- and do a lot
with the Sea Islands population in many eras, as a continuum, with Julie
Dash's film Daughters of the Dust.

Your introduction today will be very helpful for my lecture on Wednesday, as
we are directly in the Civil War and Reconstruction period right now. The
Constitutional Amendments are also emphasized in this class, and in the same
manner -- to thank the former slaves for the public education system and the
definitions and written protections of the 14th Amendment.

My tall order:  I have to do this too fast, with a student population who
have not been adequately prepared with background either in San Jose high
schools or in foreign lands.  The great stories of people are fine, but I
really need succinct historical background that does not get into too much
political detail that requires lots of foreknowledge.

Thank you!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Foner" 
To: 
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 7:47 AM
Subject: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner


Welcome to the History Matters forum on teaching Reconstruction.  A
century and a quarter after it came to a close, Reconstruction remains
perhaps the most controversial and least understood era of American
history.  The term itself applies both to a specific period of the nation's
past and to a prolonged and difficult process by which Americans
sought to reunite a nation sundered by the Civil War, and come to
terms with the destruction of slavery.  As a chronological period,
Reconstruction is usually said to have begun in 1865, with the Union's
victory in the Civil War, although in reality steps toward reuniting the
nation and recasting Southern life began during the war itself.  In
political terms, the era of Reconstruction ended in 1877, when the
federal government irrevocably abandoned the idea of intervening in
the South to protect the rights of black citizens.  As a historical process
through which sectional reconciliation was achieved and a new
system of labor and race relations devised to replace the shattered
world of slavery, Reconstruction lasted at least to the end of the
nineteenth century.  If Reconstruction is defined as the effort of
American society to come to terms with the legacy of slavery, it is still
going on.  Certainly, in debates about racial equality, the interpretation
of the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmative action, and the responsibility
of the federal government for defining and enforcing the rights of
American citizens, issues central to Reconstruction remain part of our
lives today.

Historical writing on Reconstruction began during the era itself, and
continues to the present day.  Reconstruction scholarship, one
historian has written, is a "dark and bloody ground"  a vast body of
writing marked by sharp differences of opinion and radical changes in
interpretation, especially in the last two generations.  Until the 1960s,
the prevailing interpretation viewed Reconstruction as an era of
unrelieved sordidness in political and social life.  The villains of the
piece were vindictive Radical Republicans, who sabotaged Andrew
Johnson's lenient plan for bringing the South back into the Union, and
instead fastened black supremacy upon the defeated Confederacy.
An orgy of corruption and misgovernment allegedly followed, only
brought to a close when the South's white communities banded
together to restore "home rule" (a polite euphemism for white
supremacy).  Resting on the assumption that black suffrage was the
gravest error of the entire Civil War period, this interpretation survived
for decades because it accorded with and legitimated firmly
entrenched political and social realities, including radical segregation
and the disenfranchisement of southern black voters (which lasted
from around 1900 to 1965).

Although some scholars had already challenged elements of this
point of view, it was not until the 1960s, the decade of the civil rights
revolution or "second Reconstruction," that the traditional interpretation
was entirely dismantled.  Once they discarded the assumption of
black incapacity, historians came to view Reconstruction as a
praiseworthy effort to build an interracial democracy from the ashes of
slavery.  The era was portrayed as a time of extraordinary progress in
the South; indeed, if Reconstruction was "tragic," it was because
change did not go far enough, especially in the failure to distribute
land to the former slaves.  But in the federal civil rights laws and
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments enacted during the period,
Reconstruction laid the groundwork for future struggles for racial
equality.  In this scholarship, African-Americans emerged as major
historical actors, rather than victims of manipulation by others.  Their
political and religious organizations, economic aspirations, and the
social divisions among them attracted a new deal of scholarly
attention.  The economic transformation of the South and the complex
process by which various modes of free labor replaced the labor
system of slavery, became the focal point of numerous studies,
especially in the 1970s and 1980s.  Other historians sought to place
this country's adjustment to emancipation in an international context,
comparing Reconstruction in the United States with the aftermath of
slavery in the Caribbean, Brazil, and elsewhere.  Most recently,
Reconstruction scholars, like those studying many other periods of
American history, have devoted close attention to the role of gender in
Reconstruction the reconstitution of black families, how the Civil War
affected ideologies of manhood, how freedom may have had different
meanings for freed women than for their brothers and husbands.

I look forward to discussing any of the issues raised by this body of
historical literature, as well as relating to Reconstruction's relevance
for our own times.  We live today in a "post-civil rights" era in some
ways analogous to the early 20th century.  But so long as the issues
central to Reconstruction remain unresolved -- the balance of power in
the federal system, the place of black Americans in national life, the
relationship between economic and political democracy -- an
understanding of that period will remain central to our teaching of
American history as a whole.

I'd like to conclude with a few questions to start our discussion. How
do you teach about Reconstruction and what resources do you use?
What relevance do you see in the history of Reconstruction for our
current politics and race relations? Should we think of Reconstruction
as a failure and if so, how do we explain this? Do the cycles of
Reconstruction historiography suggest that historical "truth" is
unobtainable and that historical interpretation tends to serve
immediate political ends?

Eric Foner

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

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Date:         Tue, 2 Oct 2001 00:10:23 EDT
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Arica Coleman 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
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Dear Dr. Foner and fellow scholars:
     What a wonderful opportunity it is to share in this forum with you.  I
am looking forward to some vigorous dialogue on the issue of Reconstruction
and I certainly count it a privilege to have the opportunity to learn from
one of the greatest historians of our time --Dr. Eric Foner.  I have not yet
had the privilege to teach this subject, but I hope to do so in the near
future. Presently, I am a first year doctoral learner majoring in American
Studies with a concentration in Southern life and culture. I am a firm
believer in the saying, "Those who do not know their history are bound to
repeat it."  Thus, I was intrigued by Dr. Foner's question," What relevance
do you see in the history of Reconstruction for our current politics and race
relations?
     I believe much can be said concerning the present plight of African
American males in this country and Reconstruction.  It was during the years
immediately after emancipation that the assault on the black male image
began.  During colonial times colonizers supported the assumption that
without full submission to white authority blacks would run amuck and reap
havoc on themselves as well as society.  Fugitive slave testimony temporarily
dispelled this mind set; however, it was reasserted during the last two
decades of the nineteenth century as retrogressionist such as Philip Bruce
contended, "cut off from white society, [Blacks] had regressed to a primitive
and thus criminal state.  Bereft of the master's influence, Blacks were now
even closer to the African type than the slaves had been," (The Plantation
Negro as Freeman).  The black male was seen to be of particular risk to white
women whom Bruce asserted, "found something strangely alluring and seductive
in the appearance of white women," and his," sudden outbreak of barbarianism
included a penchant for rape."
    Simultaneously, with the creation of the black male rapist, came the
image of the inherent black male criminal.  Before emancipation, with the
exception of slaves being held over for auction, prisons were largely
occupied by whites. As Henry Bibb reported, "Most of the inmates of this
prison I have described were white men who had been sentenced there by the
law, for depredations committed by them."  In the event that a free colored
was found guilty of a crime, his or her sentence was the auction block, not
the prison cell.  However, post emancipation/reconstruction racist ideology
aided in converting the above ratio.  As Angela Davis pointed out, although
the ratification of the thirteenth amendment ended slavocracy as it was known
in antebellum American society, a loophole in the amendment provided for a
new system of slavery which simply transferred a large amount of blacks in
general, and black men in particular, from the prison of slavery to the
slavery of prison. The thirteenth amendment stated, " Neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party
shall be duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or anyplace
subject to their jurisdiction." Ironically, the very amendment which was
thought to have abolished slavery within the United States, sanctioned a new
form of slavery later known as the convict lease system.  With Black codes
replacing the former slave codes, blacks, particularly black males, found
themselves victims of the judicial system. " The prison system established
its authority as a major institution of discipline and control for black
communities during the last two decades of the nineteenth century...,"(Davis,
Angela Davis Reader 75).  During the post Civil War era, as criminality began
to take on a black face, " the percentage of black convicts in relation to
white was often higher than ninety percent," (Davis 79).  Once again,
retrogressionist explained away this phenomenon by stating:
    Freed from the control of his owner and wickedly put on civil equality
with him...his natural lawlessness and savagery were asserted...Everyone
knows that when freed from the compelling influence of the white man he
reverts by a law of nature to the natural barbarism in which he was created
in the jungles of Africa. (Herbert Gutman, Black Family in Slavery and in
Freedom  544)
    However, Frederick Douglass refuted these accusations.  Concerning the
charge of the black male rapist Douglass argued:
     It is a charge of recent origin; a charge never heard of in the time of
slavery or in any other time in our history all through the late war [Civil
War], while the slave masters of the South were absent from their
homes...their wives, their daughters, their sisters, and their mothers were
left in absolute custody of these Negroes and during all those long four
years of terrible conflict, when the Negro had every opportunity to commit
the abominable crime now alleged against him.  He was never accused of
assault, insult, or an attempt to commit an assault upon any white woman in
the whole South.  (FD Papers, P. Foner, ed 749, 752)
    Concerning the black male's inherent criminality, Douglass contended:
    A nation is not born in a day.  It is said that the leopard cannot change
his spots nor the Ethiopian his skin, and it may be as truly said that the
character of a people, established by long years of consistent life and
testimony, cannot be very suddenly reversed.  It is improbable that this
peaceful and inoffensive class has suddenly and all at once become changed
into a class of the most daring, and repulsive criminals. (749)
    Douglass's contestations largely went ignored as Northern and Southern
politicians, historians, scientist, novelist, anthropologist and every other
"ian" and "ist" that can be named, "all chimed in with volumes of heady
research papers, articles, and scholarly opinions that [supposedly] proved
that blacks were hopelessly inferior, crime- and violence- prone defectives
from which society had to be protected," (O. Hutchinson,  Assassination of
the Black Male Image 24).
    Consequently, by playing the, "trump card of the Big Black Scare,"
(Hutchinson) retrogressionists' were successful in promoting an image in the
minds of the American public that the black male was inhuman, bestial.
Although the North played its role in the creation of this image, it was the
South's exploitation of this perception that subjected blacks to a reign of
terror which spanned almost eight decades.  During the Pre-Civil Rights era,
many black men found themselves victims of white vigilantism and judicial
hijacking.  Mob lynchings, unjust incarcerations, and death sentences handed
down on the most flimsiest evidence was the order of the day.
     The retrogressionist theories (see Gutman Appendix) which began during
the early years of Reconstruction continues to persist in this modern era.
According to the NAACP, from 1880 to 1968 approximately 4,000 blacks were
lynched and burned. Although less than ten percent of those lynched had been
accused of raping white women, the practice became synonymous with rape and
thus remains a lasting taint on the black male image.  From 1930 to 1981 of
the 455 men who were executed for rape 405 were black.  In addition, Blacks
continue to be  incarcerated in disproportionate numbers.  They are eight
times more likely to receive prison sentences than whites. African Americans
make up twelve percent of the American population; yet, they make up
fifty-five percent of the prison population.  In addition, Blacks are eleven
times more likely to receive the death penalty than whites.  The recent rise
in the killings of unarmed black men by police officers, the hanging of a
seventeen year old Mississippi boy, and racial profiling is a reminder that
the not so distant past continues to haunt us in the present.

Respectfully submitted,
Arica L. Coleman
The Union Institute Graduate College



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Dear Dr. Foner and fellow scholars:

     What a wonderful opportunity it is to share in this forum with you.  I am looking forward to some vigorous dialogue on the issue of Reconstruction and I certainly count it a privilege to have the opportunity to learn from one of the greatest historians of our time --Dr. Eric Foner.  I have not yet had the privilege to teach this subject, but I hope to do so in the near future. Presently, I am a first year doctoral learner majoring in American Studies with a concentration in Southern life and culture. I am a firm believer in the saying, "Those who do not know their history are bound to repeat it."  Thus, I was intrigued by Dr. Foner's question," What relevance do you see in the history of Reconstruction for our current politics and race relations?

     I believe much can be said concerning the present plight of African American males in this country and Reconstruction.  It was during the years immediately after emancipation that the assault on the black male image began.  During colonial times colonizers supported the assumption that without full submission to white authority blacks would run amuck and reap havoc on themselves as well as society.  Fugitive slave testimony temporarily dispelled this mind set; however, it was reasserted during the last two decades of the nineteenth century as retrogressionist such as Philip Bruce contended, "cut off from white society, [Blacks] had regressed to a primitive and thus criminal state.  Bereft of the master's influence, Blacks were now even closer to the African type than the slaves had been," (The Plantation Negro as Freeman).  The black male was seen to be of particular risk to white women whom Bruce asserted, "found something strangely alluring and seductive in the appearance of white women," and his," sudden outbreak of barbarianism included a penchant for rape."

    Simultaneously, with the creation of the black male rapist, came the image of the inherent black male criminal.  Before emancipation, with the exception of slaves being held over for auction, prisons were largely occupied by whites. As Henry Bibb reported, "Most of the inmates of this prison I have described were white men who had been sentenced there by the law, for depredations committed by them."  In the event that a free colored was found guilty of a crime, his or her sentence was the auction block, not the prison cell.  However, post emancipation/reconstruction racist ideology aided in converting the above ratio.  As Angela Davis pointed out, although the ratification of the thirteenth amendment ended slavocracy as it was known in antebellum American society, a loophole in the amendment provided for a new system of slavery which simply transferred a large amount of blacks in general, and black men in particular, from the prison of slavery to the slavery of prison. The thirteenth amendment stated, " Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall be duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or anyplace subject to their jurisdiction." Ironically, the very amendment which was thought to have abolished slavery within the United States, sanctioned a new form of slavery later known as the convict lease system.  With Black codes replacing the former slave codes, blacks, particularly black males, found themselves victims of the judicial system. " The prison system established its authority as a major institution of discipline and control for black communities during the last two decades of the nineteenth century...,"(Davis, Angela Davis Reader 75).  During the post Civil War era, as criminality began to take on a black face, " the percentage of black convicts in relation to white was often higher than ninety percent," (Davis 79).  Once again, retrogressionist explained away this phenomenon by stating:

    Freed from the control of his owner and wickedly put on civil equality with him...his natural lawlessness and savagery were asserted...Everyone knows that when freed from the compelling influence of the white man he reverts by a law of nature to the natural barbarism in which he was created in the jungles of Africa. (Herbert Gutman, Black Family in Slavery and in Freedom  544)      

    However, Frederick Douglass refuted these accusations.  Concerning the charge of the black male rapist Douglass argued:

     It is a charge of recent origin; a charge never heard of in the time of slavery or in any other time in our history all through the late war [Civil War], while the slave masters of the South were absent from their homes...their wives, their daughters, their sisters, and their mothers were left in absolute custody of these Negroes and during all those long four years of terrible conflict, when the Negro had every opportunity to commit the abominable crime now alleged against him.  He was never accused of assault, insult, or an attempt to commit an assault upon any white woman in the whole South.  (FD Papers, P. Foner, ed 749, 752)

    Concerning the black male's inherent criminality, Douglass contended:

    A nation is not born in a day.  It is said that the leopard cannot change his spots nor the Ethiopian his skin, and it may be as truly said that the character of a people, established by long years of consistent life and testimony, cannot be very suddenly reversed.  It is improbable that this peaceful and inoffensive class has suddenly and all at once become changed into a class of the most daring, and repulsive criminals. (749)

    Douglass's contestations largely went ignored as Northern and Southern politicians, historians, scientist, novelist, anthropologist and every other "ian" and "ist" that can be named, "all chimed in with volumes of heady research papers, articles, and scholarly opinions that [supposedly] proved that blacks were hopelessly inferior, crime- and violence- prone defectives from which society had to be protected," (O. Hutchinson,  Assassination of the Black Male Image 24).       

    Consequently, by playing the, "trump card of the Big Black Scare," (Hutchinson) retrogressionists' were successful in promoting an image in the minds of the American public that the black male was inhuman, bestial.  Although the North played its role in the creation of this image, it was the South's exploitation of this perception that subjected blacks to a reign of terror which spanned almost eight decades.  During the Pre-Civil Rights era, many black men found themselves victims of white vigilantism and judicial hijacking.  Mob lynchings, unjust incarcerations, and death sentences handed down on the most flimsiest evidence was the order of the day.

     The retrogressionist theories (see Gutman Appendix) which began during the early years of Reconstruction continues to persist in this modern era.  According to the NAACP, from 1880 to 1968 approximately 4,000 blacks were lynched and burned. Although less than ten percent of those lynched had been accused of raping white women, the practice became synonymous with rape and thus remains a lasting taint on the black male image.  From 1930 to 1981 of the 455 men who were executed for rape 405 were black.  In addition, Blacks continue to be  incarcerated in disproportionate numbers.  They are eight times more likely to receive prison sentences than whites. African Americans make up twelve percent of the American population; yet, they make up fifty-five percent of the prison population.  In addition, Blacks are eleven times more likely to receive the death penalty than whites.  The recent rise in the killings of unarmed black men by police officers, the hanging of a seventeen year old Mississippi boy, and racial profiling is a reminder that the not so distant past continues to haunt us in the present.



Respectfully submitted,

Arica L. Coleman

The Union Institute Graduate College  

     



--part1_13e.24eac7e.28ea982f_boundary--

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 Oct 2001 09:52:47 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Nancy L. Zens" 
Subject:      Introductory Statement from Erik Foner

I really look forward to having the opportunity to discuss Reconstruction
with such an expert in the field and with world wide colleagues puzzling
over the issues.  I teach the U.S. history sequence and a lower division
level course on the Civil War and Reconstruction at Central Oregon
Community College, Bend, Oregon (in the high desert, eastern side of
Oregon).
Besides the provocative questions posed by Erik Foner, there are a few
additional ones that continue to puzzle me.
1.  Although the old interpretation of Reconstruction painted the period as
one filled with scandal and political manipulations that lined pockets
rather than solving problems, there seem to be enough examples of this type
of behavior to justify presenting this interpretation as one side of
Reconstruction.  Has new scholarship completely debunked the shadier side
of Reconstruction?
2.  The postwar years in the north were also scandal ridden, to the point
that the Grant Administration still seems to hold the worst reputation in
the nation's history for widespread graft and corruption.  Does this mean
that the there is a real similarity between the northern and southern
experiences during the postwar atmosphere? Were so many citizens paying
attention to their own personal success rather than government policy, that
unusual opportunities presented themselves to the unscrupulous to
manipulate laws and federal funding to foster their own ends?
3. The post WWI years seem to be similar as a war weary public turned its
attention inward?  Can we realistically draw comparisons between post Civil
War and post WWI?  The postwar period for WWII seems to be quite different,
but I wonder if that is because the country moved into the Cold War.  Is
there a chance that national problems that arose after the Vietnam War are
comparable to Reconstruction?
4. Are there any world-wide situations that demonstrate any of the problems
that arose in the US during Reconstruction, or is this a uniquely USA
response?
5.  Lincoln's assassination meant that he would never have to answer to
history for the success or failure of his Reconstruction plans.  Is it safe
to conclude that Andrew Johnson has received so much criticism for his
leadership during Reconstruction because he was not Lincoln?  During the
war, Lincoln managed to keep enough of a balance between the various
northern party interests to hold the union together long enough to win the
war.  His political skills seem highly superior to Johnson's, suggesting
that Reconstruction would have been different enough under his leadership
that more of the problems would have been solved. Could the political
skills used during wartime be useful during peace time?
6.  Did the drain of talent that resulted in such rapid western development
doom Reconstruction to failure (i.e. did opportunity to start a new life
elsewhere lure so many of the returning veterans that few of the "best and
brightest" were left to deal with the serious postwar problems north or
south)?

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Date:         Tue, 2 Oct 2001 07:24:27 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Austin Manghan 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
In-Reply-To:  
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Dear Friends,

I suspect this question does relate to the topic...

Can any of you tell me how many  people were killed
during the NY draft riots in the 1860's?  Perhaps this
was the single worst terrorist attack in NYC history.

Thanks,
Austin Manghan

--- Eric Foner  wrote:
> Welcome to the History Matters forum on teaching
> Reconstruction.  A
> century and a quarter after it came to a close,
> Reconstruction remains
> perhaps the most controversial and least understood
> era of American
> history.  The term itself applies both to a specific
> period of the nation's
> past and to a prolonged and difficult process by
> which Americans
> sought to reunite a nation sundered by the Civil
> War, and come to
> terms with the destruction of slavery.  As a
> chronological period,
> Reconstruction is usually said to have begun in
> 1865, with the Union's
> victory in the Civil War, although in reality steps
> toward reuniting the
> nation and recasting Southern life began during the
> war itself.  In
> political terms, the era of Reconstruction ended in
> 1877, when the
> federal government irrevocably abandoned the idea of
> intervening in
> the South to protect the rights of black citizens.
> As a historical process
> through which sectional reconciliation was achieved
> and a new
> system of labor and race relations devised to
> replace the shattered
> world of slavery, Reconstruction lasted at least to
> the end of the
> nineteenth century.  If Reconstruction is defined as
> the effort of
> American society to come to terms with the legacy of
> slavery, it is still
> going on.  Certainly, in debates about racial
> equality, the interpretation
> of the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmative action, and
> the responsibility
> of the federal government for defining and enforcing
> the rights of
> American citizens, issues central to Reconstruction
> remain part of our
> lives today.
>
> Historical writing on Reconstruction began during
> the era itself, and
> continues to the present day.  Reconstruction
> scholarship, one
> historian has written, is a "dark and bloody ground"
>  a vast body of
> writing marked by sharp differences of opinion and
> radical changes in
> interpretation, especially in the last two
> generations.  Until the 1960s,
> the prevailing interpretation viewed Reconstruction
> as an era of
> unrelieved sordidness in political and social life.
> The villains of the
> piece were vindictive Radical Republicans, who
> sabotaged Andrew
> Johnson's lenient plan for bringing the South back
> into the Union, and
> instead fastened black supremacy upon the defeated
> Confederacy.
> An orgy of corruption and misgovernment allegedly
> followed, only
> brought to a close when the South's white
> communities banded
> together to restore "home rule" (a polite euphemism
> for white
> supremacy).  Resting on the assumption that black
> suffrage was the
> gravest error of the entire Civil War period, this
> interpretation survived
> for decades because it accorded with and legitimated
> firmly
> entrenched political and social realities, including
> radical segregation
> and the disenfranchisement of southern black voters
> (which lasted
> from around 1900 to 1965).
>
> Although some scholars had already challenged
> elements of this
> point of view, it was not until the 1960s, the
> decade of the civil rights
> revolution or "second Reconstruction," that the
> traditional interpretation
> was entirely dismantled.  Once they discarded the
> assumption of
> black incapacity, historians came to view
> Reconstruction as a
> praiseworthy effort to build an interracial
> democracy from the ashes of
> slavery.  The era was portrayed as a time of
> extraordinary progress in
> the South; indeed, if Reconstruction was "tragic,"
> it was because
> change did not go far enough, especially in the
> failure to distribute
> land to the former slaves.  But in the federal civil
> rights laws and
> Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments enacted during
> the period,
> Reconstruction laid the groundwork for future
> struggles for racial
> equality.  In this scholarship, African-Americans
> emerged as major
> historical actors, rather than victims of
> manipulation by others.  Their
> political and religious organizations, economic
> aspirations, and the
> social divisions among them attracted a new deal of
> scholarly
> attention.  The economic transformation of the South
> and the complex
> process by which various modes of free labor
> replaced the labor
> system of slavery, became the focal point of
> numerous studies,
> especially in the 1970s and 1980s.  Other historians
> sought to place
> this country's adjustment to emancipation in an
> international context,
> comparing Reconstruction in the United States with
> the aftermath of
> slavery in the Caribbean, Brazil, and elsewhere.
> Most recently,
> Reconstruction scholars, like those studying many
> other periods of
> American history, have devoted close attention to
> the role of gender in
> Reconstruction the reconstitution of black families,
> how the Civil War
> affected ideologies of manhood, how freedom may have
> had different
> meanings for freed women than for their brothers and
> husbands.
>
> I look forward to discussing any of the issues
> raised by this body of
> historical literature, as well as relating to
> Reconstruction's relevance
> for our own times.  We live today in a "post-civil
> rights" era in some
> ways analogous to the early 20th century.  But so
> long as the issues
> central to Reconstruction remain unresolved -- the
> balance of power in
> the federal system, the place of black Americans in
> national life, the
> relationship between economic and political
> democracy -- an
> understanding of that period will remain central to
> our teaching of
> American history as a whole.
>
> I’d like to conclude with a few questions to start
> our discussion. How
> do you teach about Reconstruction and what resources
> do you use?
> What relevance do you see in the history of
> Reconstruction for our
> current politics and race relations? Should we think
> of Reconstruction
> as a failure and if so, how do we explain this? Do
> the cycles of
> Reconstruction historiography suggest that
> historical "truth" is
> unobtainable and that historical interpretation
> tends to serve
> immediate political ends?
>
> Eric Foner
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please
> visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu
> for more resources for teaching U.S. History.


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Date:         Tue, 2 Oct 2001 09:43:19 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Jonathan M. Bryant" 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

All,

My name is Jonathan Bryant and I teach at Georgia Southern
University.  When I arrived here in 1996, a colleague who does the Civil
War and Reconstruction class refused to let me teach it.  So, I had to find
more creative ways to teach the Reconstruction era.  In a way, that
colleague did me a favor, for the course I came up with is far more
interesting than the traditional course.

Reflecting my own interests and work I had done with Phil Curtin, I put
together a course called "The Destruction of Slavery in the 19th Century
Atlantic World."  While fully half the course focuses on emancipation and
Reconstruction in the United States, we began with the Haitian Revolution
and ended with Emancipation in Cuba.  (I had wanted to get to Brazil and
the Suppression of Slavery in Africa, but there was just not enough
time)   If people wish, I would be more than glad to post the syllabus to
the list.

Only 12 students signed up for the course, which meant I was able to run it
in a seminar format.  Students read portions of works by David Geggus on
Haiti, Ira Berlin on the death of Slavery in the Northern US, Robin
Blackburn on British Emancipation, some of my own work on Emancipation in
Georgia, and Rebecca Scott on Emancipation in Cuba.  They also read
completely Philip Curtin's _Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex_, Ira
Berlin et al, _Free at Last_, Eric Foner's _Nothing but Freedom_ and
finally the old Howard Fast Novel, _Freedom Road_.

I usually feel trapped at Georgia Southern, and find myself very frustrated
by the students' lack of interest in really thinking about history.  But
this course was completely different.  The student's varied in ability,
mostly were southern, and largely accepted the Dunning understanding of
Reconstruction, yet before long they were on fire about the class.

The comparative context fascinated them, and classroom discussion included
their reading aloud short essays about their responses to the
readings.  Berlin's story of emanciaption in the North was revelatory for
many of the white students, and seemed to free them from lurking
"guilt"(I'm not sure that is the right word) about slavery.  The black
students felt they were in a class that for the first time attributed
agency to the emancipated slaves, and this seemed to open them up as
well.  By the time we reached the third chapter of Foner's _Nothing but
Freedom_ I literally had trouble getting in my own comments.  Finally,
Howard Fast's novel worked very well both as an initiator for discussion of
whether emancipation was a failure in the Atlantic world and for the "what
if?" considerations of could things have gone differently.  Of the works we
read their favorites were Fast, the primary materials in _Free at Last_,
and the third chapter of _Nothing but Freedom_.  In many ways the class
allowed American students to use broader considerations to reflect upon
American events.

I could go on and on.  While my idea was not new, (see Foner's 1st chapter
in Nothing But Freedom) it was new to the students, and they loved it.  If
student evaluations mean anything, the class got straight fives (the
highest mark) from all eleven students that stuck it out to the end.  This
being Georgia Southern, I have not been allowed to teach the course again.

I am very excited about the opportunity to talk about teaching
Reconstruction with the group, and I am looking forward to a diversity of
ideas about materials and teaching methods.  I think this sort of
discussion is very important for both the field and for the larger concept
of civic education.  Susan O'Donovan and I recently put together a panel
proposal for the Southern Historical Association on new work in the field
of American Reconstruction.  As we talked with and e-mailed other
historians the consensus seemed to be, "Why bother?  Eric Foner figured it
out, and the field is moribund."  Yet, when I speak to the public or deal
with my students, the old _Gone With the Wind_ understanding of
Reconstruction still prevails.  Intellegent, well educated adults will even
use it as an example of why any Government effort to change society is
inevitably oppressive and will fail.

Thus, I wish to modify one of Professor Foner's questions.  While we may
debate forever whether Reconstruction was a failure, I think it is more
important to ask whether our teaching (and writing) about Reconstruction is
also a failure?  Begining more than thirty years ago scholars like Eric
Foner, Bill McFeely, Willie Lee Rose and others have shown us new ways to
understand the period.  Why hasn't this trickled out into the popular
consciousness?  It's more than T.B.S.'s continual re-showing of Gone With
the Wind.  Does it, in fact, reflect back on the "failure" of
Reconstruction itself?

Jonathan M. Bryant
Professor Jonathan  M.  Bryant
Department of History, Box 8054
Georgia Southern University
Statesboro, Ga. 30460-8054
jbryant@ gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
Tel.: (912) 681-5818
Fax:  (912) 681-0377

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 Oct 2001 12:00:52 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Ellen Noonan 
Subject:      upcoming NYC lecture on Reconstruction

Reconstruction Forum subscribers in the New York City area might be
interested in this upcoming lecture sponsored by the CUNY Graduate
Center:

The Center for the Humanities presents

The Herbert G. Gutman Memorial Lecture

DAVID MONTGOMERY
Yale University

"American Workers' Civil War and Reconstruction Revisited"

Tuesday, October 9, 2001, 6:00 P.M.
Elebash Recital Hall
CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, at 34th Street

Free and Open to the Public

Co-Sponsored by Continuing Education and Public Programs

For more info, call 212-817-2005 or email ch@gc.cuny.edu.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 Oct 2001 11:46:30 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Pete Haro 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
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Professor Bryant: What was the comparative text that you referred to? The
one that you use for your class? I would be interested to read it.
Sincerely, Pete Haro.

----------
>From: "Jonathan M. Bryant" 
>To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
>Date: Tue, Oct 2, 2001, 6:43 AM
>

> All,
>
> My name is Jonathan Bryant and I teach at Georgia Southern
> University.  When I arrived here in 1996, a colleague who does the Civil
> War and Reconstruction class refused to let me teach it.  So, I had to find
> more creative ways to teach the Reconstruction era.  In a way, that
> colleague did me a favor, for the course I came up with is far more
> interesting than the traditional course.
>
> Reflecting my own interests and work I had done with Phil Curtin, I put
> together a course called "The Destruction of Slavery in the 19th Century
> Atlantic World."  While fully half the course focuses on emancipation and
> Reconstruction in the United States, we began with the Haitian Revolution
> and ended with Emancipation in Cuba.  (I had wanted to get to Brazil and
> the Suppression of Slavery in Africa, but there was just not enough
> time)   If people wish, I would be more than glad to post the syllabus to
> the list.
>
> Only 12 students signed up for the course, which meant I was able to run it
> in a seminar format.  Students read portions of works by David Geggus on
> Haiti, Ira Berlin on the death of Slavery in the Northern US, Robin
> Blackburn on British Emancipation, some of my own work on Emancipation in
> Georgia, and Rebecca Scott on Emancipation in Cuba.  They also read
> completely Philip Curtin's _Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex_, Ira
> Berlin et al, _Free at Last_, Eric Foner's _Nothing but Freedom_ and
> finally the old Howard Fast Novel, _Freedom Road_.
>
> I usually feel trapped at Georgia Southern, and find myself very frustrated
> by the students' lack of interest in really thinking about history.  But
> this course was completely different.  The student's varied in ability,
> mostly were southern, and largely accepted the Dunning understanding of
> Reconstruction, yet before long they were on fire about the class.
>
> The comparative context fascinated them, and classroom discussion included
> their reading aloud short essays about their responses to the
> readings.  Berlin's story of emanciaption in the North was revelatory for
> many of the white students, and seemed to free them from lurking
> "guilt"(I'm not sure that is the right word) about slavery.  The black
> students felt they were in a class that for the first time attributed
> agency to the emancipated slaves, and this seemed to open them up as
> well.  By the time we reached the third chapter of Foner's _Nothing but
> Freedom_ I literally had trouble getting in my own comments.  Finally,
> Howard Fast's novel worked very well both as an initiator for discussion of
> whether emancipation was a failure in the Atlantic world and for the "what
> if?" considerations of could things have gone differently.  Of the works we
> read their favorites were Fast, the primary materials in _Free at Last_,
> and the third chapter of _Nothing but Freedom_.  In many ways the class
> allowed American students to use broader considerations to reflect upon
> American events.
>
> I could go on and on.  While my idea was not new, (see Foner's 1st chapter
> in Nothing But Freedom) it was new to the students, and they loved it.  If
> student evaluations mean anything, the class got straight fives (the
> highest mark) from all eleven students that stuck it out to the end.  This
> being Georgia Southern, I have not been allowed to teach the course again.
>
> I am very excited about the opportunity to talk about teaching
> Reconstruction with the group, and I am looking forward to a diversity of
> ideas about materials and teaching methods.  I think this sort of
> discussion is very important for both the field and for the larger concept
> of civic education.  Susan O'Donovan and I recently put together a panel
> proposal for the Southern Historical Association on new work in the field
> of American Reconstruction.  As we talked with and e-mailed other
> historians the consensus seemed to be, "Why bother?  Eric Foner figured it
> out, and the field is moribund."  Yet, when I speak to the public or deal
> with my students, the old _Gone With the Wind_ understanding of
> Reconstruction still prevails.  Intellegent, well educated adults will even
> use it as an example of why any Government effort to change society is
> inevitably oppressive and will fail.
>
> Thus, I wish to modify one of Professor Foner's questions.  While we may
> debate forever whether Reconstruction was a failure, I think it is more
> important to ask whether our teaching (and writing) about Reconstruction is
> also a failure?  Begining more than thirty years ago scholars like Eric
> Foner, Bill McFeely, Willie Lee Rose and others have shown us new ways to
> understand the period.  Why hasn't this trickled out into the popular
> consciousness?  It's more than T.B.S.'s continual re-showing of Gone With
> the Wind.  Does it, in fact, reflect back on the "failure" of
> Reconstruction itself?
>
> Jonathan M. Bryant
> Professor Jonathan  M.  Bryant
> Department of History, Box 8054
> Georgia Southern University
> Statesboro, Ga. 30460-8054
> jbryant@ gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
> Tel.: (912) 681-5818
> Fax:  (912) 681-0377
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 Oct 2001 12:10:08 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Pete Haro 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
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Dear Arica: I found your posting to be provocative and relevant. I would
like to pose a question to the you and the forum participants. You point out
that in the wake of Reconstruction, efforts were made to ensure that the
black male was viewed as barbaric and predatory. White women were seen as
objects of lust for black males. Do you believe that popular culture today
serves the same role? In other words, to stereotype black males as
"gangstas" or other social undesirables? Furthermore, to what extent does
the African American community play a willing role in this stereotype? I
have spoken with several of my African American students and they often
refer to rap or hip hop as "our thing" or "for us, by us" Often, there is a
lack of introspection as to how popular culture continues to stereotype the
black male. Are rap and hip-hop the "new minstrelsy"? Should we view this as
a "white hang-up" or should society (African Americans in particular) be
more concerned about the images that continue to be shown? I look forward to
hearing from you all.

Sincerely,


Peter D. Haro, MA

----------
From: Arica Coleman 
To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
Date: Mon, Oct 1, 2001, 9:10 PM


Dear Dr. Foner and fellow scholars:
     What a wonderful opportunity it is to share in this forum with you.  I
am looking forward to some vigorous dialogue on the issue of Reconstruction
and I certainly count it a privilege to have the opportunity to learn from
one of the greatest historians of our time --Dr. Eric Foner.  I have not yet
had the privilege to teach this subject, but I hope to do so in the near
future. Presently, I am a first year doctoral learner majoring in American
Studies with a concentration in Southern life and culture. I am a firm
believer in the saying, "Those who do not know their history are bound to
repeat it."  Thus, I was intrigued by Dr. Foner's question," What relevance
do you see in the history of Reconstruction for our current politics and
race relations?
     I believe much can be said concerning the present plight of African
American males in this country and Reconstruction.  It was during the years
immediately after emancipation that the assault on the black male image
began.  During colonial times colonizers supported the assumption that
without full submission to white authority blacks would run amuck and reap
havoc on themselves as well as society.  Fugitive slave testimony
temporarily dispelled this mind set; however, it was reasserted during the
last two decades of the nineteenth century as retrogressionist such as
Philip Bruce contended, "cut off from white society, [Blacks] had regressed
to a primitive and thus criminal state.  Bereft of the master's influence,
Blacks were now even closer to the African type than the slaves had been,"
(The Plantation Negro as Freeman).  The black male was seen to be of
particular risk to white women whom Bruce asserted, "found something
strangely alluring and seductive in the appearance of white women," and
his," sudden outbreak of barbarianism included a penchant for rape."
    Simultaneously, with the creation of the black male rapist, came the
image of the inherent black male criminal.  Before emancipation, with the
exception of slaves being held over for auction, prisons were largely
occupied by whites. As Henry Bibb reported, "Most of the inmates of this
prison I have described were white men who had been sentenced there by the
law, for depredations committed by them."  In the event that a free colored
was found guilty of a crime, his or her sentence was the auction block, not
the prison cell.  However, post emancipation/reconstruction racist ideology
aided in converting the above ratio.  As Angela Davis pointed out, although
the ratification of the thirteenth amendment ended slavocracy as it was
known in antebellum American society, a loophole in the amendment provided
for a new system of slavery which simply transferred a large amount of
blacks in general, and black men in particular, from the prison of slavery
to the slavery of prison. The thirteenth amendment stated, " Neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the
party shall be duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or
anyplace subject to their jurisdiction." Ironically, the very amendment
which was thought to have abolished slavery within the United States,
sanctioned a new form of slavery later known as the convict lease system.
With Black codes replacing the former slave codes, blacks, particularly
black males, found themselves victims of the judicial system. " The prison
system established its authority as a major institution of discipline and
control for black communities during the last two decades of the nineteenth
century...,"(Davis, Angela Davis Reader 75).  During the post Civil War era,
as criminality began to take on a black face, " the percentage of black
convicts in relation to white was often higher than ninety percent," (Davis
79).  Once again, retrogressionist explained away this phenomenon by
stating:
    Freed from the control of his owner and wickedly put on civil equality
with him...his natural lawlessness and savagery were asserted...Everyone
knows that when freed from the compelling influence of the white man he
reverts by a law of nature to the natural barbarism in which he was created
in the jungles of Africa. (Herbert Gutman, Black Family in Slavery and in
Freedom  544)
    However, Frederick Douglass refuted these accusations.  Concerning the
charge of the black male rapist Douglass argued:
     It is a charge of recent origin; a charge never heard of in the time of
slavery or in any other time in our history all through the late war [Civil
War], while the slave masters of the South were absent from their
homes...their wives, their daughters, their sisters, and their mothers were
left in absolute custody of these Negroes and during all those long four
years of terrible conflict, when the Negro had every opportunity to commit
the abominable crime now alleged against him.  He was never accused of
assault, insult, or an attempt to commit an assault upon any white woman in
the whole South.  (FD Papers, P. Foner, ed 749, 752)
    Concerning the black male's inherent criminality, Douglass contended:
    A nation is not born in a day.  It is said that the leopard cannot
change his spots nor the Ethiopian his skin, and it may be as truly said
that the character of a people, established by long years of consistent life
and testimony, cannot be very suddenly reversed.  It is improbable that this
peaceful and inoffensive class has suddenly and all at once become changed
into a class of the most daring, and repulsive criminals. (749)
    Douglass's contestations largely went ignored as Northern and Southern
politicians, historians, scientist, novelist, anthropologist and every other
"ian" and "ist" that can be named, "all chimed in with volumes of heady
research papers, articles, and scholarly opinions that [supposedly] proved
that blacks were hopelessly inferior, crime- and violence- prone defectives
from which society had to be protected," (O. Hutchinson,  Assassination of
the Black Male Image 24).
    Consequently, by playing the, "trump card of the Big Black Scare,"
(Hutchinson) retrogressionists' were successful in promoting an image in the
minds of the American public that the black male was inhuman, bestial.
Although the North played its role in the creation of this image, it was the
South's exploitation of this perception that subjected blacks to a reign of
terror which spanned almost eight decades.  During the Pre-Civil Rights era,
many black men found themselves victims of white vigilantism and judicial
hijacking.  Mob lynchings, unjust incarcerations, and death sentences handed
down on the most flimsiest evidence was the order of the day.
     The retrogressionist theories (see Gutman Appendix) which began during
the early years of Reconstruction continues to persist in this modern era.
According to the NAACP, from 1880 to 1968 approximately 4,000 blacks were
lynched and burned. Although less than ten percent of those lynched had been
accused of raping white women, the practice became synonymous with rape and
thus remains a lasting taint on the black male image.  From 1930 to 1981 of
the 455 men who were executed for rape 405 were black.  In addition, Blacks
continue to be  incarcerated in disproportionate numbers.  They are eight
times more likely to receive prison sentences than whites. African Americans
make up twelve percent of the American population; yet, they make up
fifty-five percent of the prison population.  In addition, Blacks are eleven
times more likely to receive the death penalty than whites.  The recent rise
in the killings of unarmed black men by police officers, the hanging of a
seventeen year old Mississippi boy, and racial profiling is a reminder that
the not so distant past continues to haunt us in the present.

Respectfully submitted,
Arica L. Coleman
The Union Institute Graduate College



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Dear Arica: I found your posting to be provocative and relevant. I would li=
ke to pose a question to the you and the forum participants. You point out t=
hat in the wake of Reconstruction, efforts were made to ensure that the blac=
k male was viewed as barbaric and predatory. White women were seen as object=
s of lust for black males. Do you believe that popular culture today serves =
the same role? In other words, to stereotype black males as "gangstas&q=
uot; or other social undesirables? Furthermore, to what extent does the Afri=
can American community play a willing role in this stereotype? I have spoken=
 with several of my African American students and they often refer to rap or=
 hip hop as "our thing" or "for us, by us" Often, there =
is a lack of introspection as to how popular culture continues to stereotype=
 the black male. Are rap and hip-hop the "new minstrelsy"? Should =
we view this as a "white hang-up" or should society (African Ameri=
cans in particular) be more concerned about the images that continue to be s=
hown? I look forward to hearing from you all. 



Sincerely, 





Peter D. Haro, MA



----------

From: Arica Coleman <Makeda4@AOL.COM>

To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU

Subject: Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner

Date: Mon, Oct 1, 2001, 9:10 PM





Dear Dr. Foner and fellow scholars: 

     What a wonderful opportunity it is to share i=
n this forum with you.  I am looking forward to some vigorous dialogue =
on the issue of Reconstruction and I certainly count it a privilege to have =
the opportunity to learn from one of the greatest historians of our time --D=
r. Eric Foner.  I have not yet had the privilege to teach this subject,=
 but I hope to do so in the near future. Presently, I am a first year doctor=
al learner majoring in American Studies with a concentration in Southern lif=
e and culture. I am a firm believer in the saying, "Those who do not kn=
ow their history are bound to repeat it."  Thus, I was intrigued b=
y Dr. Foner's question," What relevance do you see in the history of Re=
construction for our current politics and race relations? 

     I believe much can be said concerning the pre=
sent plight of African American males in this country and Reconstruction. &n=
bsp;It was during the years immediately after emancipation that the assault =
on the black male image began.  During colonial times colonizers suppor=
ted the assumption that without full submission to white authority blacks wo=
uld run amuck and reap havoc on themselves as well as society.  Fugitiv=
e slave testimony temporarily dispelled this mind set; however, it was reass=
erted during the last two decades of the nineteenth century as retrogression=
ist such as Philip Bruce contended, "cut off from white society, [Black=
s] had regressed to a primitive and thus criminal state.  Bereft of the=
 master's influence, Blacks were now even closer to the African type than th=
e slaves had been," (The Plantation Negro as Freeman).  The black =
male was seen to be of particular risk to white women whom Bruce asserted, &=
quot;found something strangely alluring and seductive in the appearance of w=
hite women," and his," sudden outbreak of barbarianism included a =
penchant for rape." 

    Simultaneously, with the creation of the black male=
 rapist, came the image of the inherent black male criminal.  Before em=
ancipation, with the exception of slaves being held over for auction, prison=
s were largely occupied by whites. As Henry Bibb reported, "Most of the=
 inmates of this prison I have described were white men who had been sentenc=
ed there by the law, for depredations committed by them."  In the =
event that a free colored was found guilty of a crime, his or her sentence w=
as the auction block, not the prison cell.  However, post emancipation/=
reconstruction racist ideology aided in converting the above ratio.  As=
 Angela Davis pointed out, although the ratification of the thirteenth amend=
ment ended slavocracy as it was known in antebellum American society, a loop=
hole in the amendment provided for a new system of slavery which simply tran=
sferred a large amount of blacks in general, and black men in particular, fr=
om the prison of slavery to the slavery of prison. The thirteenth amendment =
stated, " Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punish=
ment for crime, whereof the party shall be duly convicted, shall exist withi=
n the United States, or anyplace subject to their jurisdiction." Ironic=
ally, the very amendment which was thought to have abolished slavery within =
the United States, sanctioned a new form of slavery later known as the convi=
ct lease system.  With Black codes replacing the former slave codes, bl=
acks, particularly black males, found themselves victims of the judicial sys=
tem. " The prison system established its authority as a major instituti=
on of discipline and control for black communities during the last two decad=
es of the nineteenth century...,"(Davis, Angela Davis Reader 75).  =
;During the post Civil War era, as criminality began to take on a black face=
, " the percentage of black convicts in relation to white was often hig=
her than ninety percent," (Davis 79).  Once again, retrogressionis=
t explained away this phenomenon by stating: 

    Freed from the control of his owner and wickedly pu=
t on civil equality with him...his natural lawlessness and savagery were ass=
erted...Everyone knows that when freed from the compelling influence of the =
white man he reverts by a law of nature to the natural barbarism in which he=
 was created in the jungles of Africa. (Herbert Gutman, Black Family in Slav=
ery and in Freedom  544)      

    However, Frederick Douglass refuted these accusatio=
ns.  Concerning the charge of the black male rapist Douglass argued: 
     It is a charge of recent origin; a charge nev=
er heard of in the time of slavery or in any other time in our history all t=
hrough the late war [Civil War], while the slave masters of the South were a=
bsent from their homes...their wives, their daughters, their sisters, and th=
eir mothers were left in absolute custody of these Negroes and during all th=
ose long four years of terrible conflict, when the Negro had every opportuni=
ty to commit the abominable crime now alleged against him.  He was neve=
r accused of assault, insult, or an attempt to commit an assault upon any wh=
ite woman in the whole South.  (FD Papers, P. Foner, ed 749, 752) 

    Concerning the black male's inherent criminality, D=
ouglass contended: 

    A nation is not born in a day.  It is said tha=
t the leopard cannot change his spots nor the Ethiopian his skin, and it may=
 be as truly said that the character of a people, established by long years =
of consistent life and testimony, cannot be very suddenly reversed.  It=
 is improbable that this peaceful and inoffensive class has suddenly and all=
 at once become changed into a class of the most daring, and repulsive crimi=
nals. (749) 

    Douglass's contestations largely went ignored as No=
rthern and Southern politicians, historians, scientist, novelist, anthropolo=
gist and every other "ian" and "ist" that can be named, =
"all chimed in with volumes of heady research papers, articles, and sch=
olarly opinions that [supposedly] proved that blacks were hopelessly inferio=
r, crime- and violence- prone defectives from which society had to be protec=
ted," (O. Hutchinson,  Assassination of the Black Male Image 24). =
      

    Consequently, by playing the, "trump card of t=
he Big Black Scare," (Hutchinson) retrogressionists' were successful in=
 promoting an image in the minds of the American public that the black male =
was inhuman, bestial.  Although the North played its role in the creati=
on of this image, it was the South's exploitation of this perception that su=
bjected blacks to a reign of terror which spanned almost eight decades. &nbs=
p;During the Pre-Civil Rights era, many black men found themselves victims o=
f white vigilantism and judicial hijacking.  Mob lynchings, unjust inca=
rcerations, and death sentences handed down on the most flimsiest evidence w=
as the order of the day. 

     The retrogressionist theories (see Gutman App=
endix) which began during the early years of Reconstruction continues to per=
sist in this modern era.  According to the NAACP, from 1880 to 1968 app=
roximately 4,000 blacks were lynched and burned. Although less than ten perc=
ent of those lynched had been accused of raping white women, the practice be=
came synonymous with rape and thus remains a lasting taint on the black male=
 image.  From 1930 to 1981 of the 455 men who were executed for rape 40=
5 were black.  In addition, Blacks continue to be  incarcerated in=
 disproportionate numbers.  They are eight times more likely to receive=
 prison sentences than whites. African Americans make up twelve percent of t=
he American population; yet, they make up fifty-five percent of the prison p=
opulation.  In addition, Blacks are eleven times more likely to receive=
 the death penalty than whites.  The recent rise in the killings of una=
rmed black men by police officers, the hanging of a seventeen year old Missi=
ssippi boy, and racial profiling is a reminder that the not so distant past =
continues to haunt us in the present. 



Respectfully submitted, 

Arica L. Coleman 

The Union Institute Graduate College  

     







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This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 Oct 2001 12:16:20 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Pete Haro 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
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Jean Libby: You are fortunate to live in the bay area because one of the
most authoritative historians on the Reconstruction era is right up the road
at Berkeley. Leon Litwack is an incredible teacher and scholar and won the
Pulitzer Prize for his work on Reconstruction, Been in the Storm So Long.
I'm probably biased because I took two of his classes when I was there.
Furthermore, he is a nice man who always seems to be able to make time for
students and individuals interested in history. You should contact him for
further ideas on Reconstruction.

Sincerely,


Peter Haro, MA.

----------
>From: Jean Libby 
>To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
>Date: Mon, Oct 1, 2001, 4:27 PM
>

> Dear Professor Foner,
>
> My name is Jean Libby and I teach U.S. Survey History and African American
> History at San Jose City College in California.  My textbook for U.S.
> History is James Henretta, et al., America, A Concise History, Vol. 2 (Since
> 1865) and for African American History it is Herb Boyd, editor,
> Autobiography of a People, Three Centuries of African American History Told
> by Those Who Lived It.
>
> The U.S. treatment of Reconstruction is comparative with the political
> systems of Presidential Reconstruction, Radical Reconstruction, and
> Redemption.  I usually do not teach these at all, concentrating on the
> Amendments to the Constitution that occur during this time and the
> development of the public education system with free education as a right to
> citizens that was demanded by the freedmen.  We are in community college in
> California, where classes cost $13 a unit.  I tell the students if they like
> this system, they should thank the former slaves.  We have a large recent
> immigrant population at the school, especially in the night class that I
> teach.  I say that if people like the rights of protection of the 14th
> Amendment they should thank the former slaves, too.  These students have not
> studied the U.S. Civil War, and have trouble  understanding language.  I do
> give open book and open note tests, and would appreciate some good short
> explanations of Reconstruction.  I usually pass around a book of documents
> that says what the freedmen were promised and didn't get, and also emphasize
> sharecropping as an economic system that replaced slavery.
>
> For the African American class, the time period for one semester is the
> whole of the historical period of African beginnings to the present,
> requiring great speed.  In the textbook, the period is John Mercer Langston,
> John R. Lynch, and Samuel Larkin.  I add Susie King Taylor (have
> successfully used her memoir in U.S. History as well) and Robert Smalls --
> enjoying the drama of his career in slavery and in freedom -- and do a lot
> with the Sea Islands population in many eras, as a continuum, with Julie
> Dash's film Daughters of the Dust.
>
> Your introduction today will be very helpful for my lecture on Wednesday, as
> we are directly in the Civil War and Reconstruction period right now. The
> Constitutional Amendments are also emphasized in this class, and in the same
> manner -- to thank the former slaves for the public education system and the
> definitions and written protections of the 14th Amendment.
>
> My tall order:  I have to do this too fast, with a student population who
> have not been adequately prepared with background either in San Jose high
> schools or in foreign lands.  The great stories of people are fine, but I
> really need succinct historical background that does not get into too much
> political detail that requires lots of foreknowledge.
>
> Thank you!
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Eric Foner" 
> To: 
> Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 7:47 AM
> Subject: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
>
>
> Welcome to the History Matters forum on teaching Reconstruction.  A
> century and a quarter after it came to a close, Reconstruction remains
> perhaps the most controversial and least understood era of American
> history.  The term itself applies both to a specific period of the nation's
> past and to a prolonged and difficult process by which Americans
> sought to reunite a nation sundered by the Civil War, and come to
> terms with the destruction of slavery.  As a chronological period,
> Reconstruction is usually said to have begun in 1865, with the Union's
> victory in the Civil War, although in reality steps toward reuniting the
> nation and recasting Southern life began during the war itself.  In
> political terms, the era of Reconstruction ended in 1877, when the
> federal government irrevocably abandoned the idea of intervening in
> the South to protect the rights of black citizens.  As a historical process
> through which sectional reconciliation was achieved and a new
> system of labor and race relations devised to replace the shattered
> world of slavery, Reconstruction lasted at least to the end of the
> nineteenth century.  If Reconstruction is defined as the effort of
> American society to come to terms with the legacy of slavery, it is still
> going on.  Certainly, in debates about racial equality, the interpretation
> of the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmative action, and the responsibility
> of the federal government for defining and enforcing the rights of
> American citizens, issues central to Reconstruction remain part of our
> lives today.
>
> Historical writing on Reconstruction began during the era itself, and
> continues to the present day.  Reconstruction scholarship, one
> historian has written, is a "dark and bloody ground"  a vast body of
> writing marked by sharp differences of opinion and radical changes in
> interpretation, especially in the last two generations.  Until the 1960s,
> the prevailing interpretation viewed Reconstruction as an era of
> unrelieved sordidness in political and social life.  The villains of the
> piece were vindictive Radical Republicans, who sabotaged Andrew
> Johnson's lenient plan for bringing the South back into the Union, and
> instead fastened black supremacy upon the defeated Confederacy.
> An orgy of corruption and misgovernment allegedly followed, only
> brought to a close when the South's white communities banded
> together to restore "home rule" (a polite euphemism for white
> supremacy).  Resting on the assumption that black suffrage was the
> gravest error of the entire Civil War period, this interpretation survived
> for decades because it accorded with and legitimated firmly
> entrenched political and social realities, including radical segregation
> and the disenfranchisement of southern black voters (which lasted
> from around 1900 to 1965).
>
> Although some scholars had already challenged elements of this
> point of view, it was not until the 1960s, the decade of the civil rights
> revolution or "second Reconstruction," that the traditional interpretation
> was entirely dismantled.  Once they discarded the assumption of
> black incapacity, historians came to view Reconstruction as a
> praiseworthy effort to build an interracial democracy from the ashes of
> slavery.  The era was portrayed as a time of extraordinary progress in
> the South; indeed, if Reconstruction was "tragic," it was because
> change did not go far enough, especially in the failure to distribute
> land to the former slaves.  But in the federal civil rights laws and
> Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments enacted during the period,
> Reconstruction laid the groundwork for future struggles for racial
> equality.  In this scholarship, African-Americans emerged as major
> historical actors, rather than victims of manipulation by others.  Their
> political and religious organizations, economic aspirations, and the
> social divisions among them attracted a new deal of scholarly
> attention.  The economic transformation of the South and the complex
> process by which various modes of free labor replaced the labor
> system of slavery, became the focal point of numerous studies,
> especially in the 1970s and 1980s.  Other historians sought to place
> this country's adjustment to emancipation in an international context,
> comparing Reconstruction in the United States with the aftermath of
> slavery in the Caribbean, Brazil, and elsewhere.  Most recently,
> Reconstruction scholars, like those studying many other periods of
> American history, have devoted close attention to the role of gender in
> Reconstruction the reconstitution of black families, how the Civil War
> affected ideologies of manhood, how freedom may have had different
> meanings for freed women than for their brothers and husbands.
>
> I look forward to discussing any of the issues raised by this body of
> historical literature, as well as relating to Reconstruction's relevance
> for our own times.  We live today in a "post-civil rights" era in some
> ways analogous to the early 20th century.  But so long as the issues
> central to Reconstruction remain unresolved -- the balance of power in
> the federal system, the place of black Americans in national life, the
> relationship between economic and political democracy -- an
> understanding of that period will remain central to our teaching of
> American history as a whole.
>
> I'd like to conclude with a few questions to start our discussion. How
> do you teach about Reconstruction and what resources do you use?
> What relevance do you see in the history of Reconstruction for our
> current politics and race relations? Should we think of Reconstruction
> as a failure and if so, how do we explain this? Do the cycles of
> Reconstruction historiography suggest that historical "truth" is
> unobtainable and that historical interpretation tends to serve
> immediate political ends?
>
> Eric Foner
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 Oct 2001 17:26:55 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Margaret S. Thompson" 
Organization: Syracuse University
Subject:      Posting messages to this forum
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

First, a brief introduction. I teach history and political science at
Syracuse University and, although I don't focus exclusively (or even
primarily) on Reconstruction in my teaching, I've published a book and
some articles in that area and am particularly interested in questions
of governance and modernization, though my more current research
interests are in the areas of women and religion (specifically, Catholic
sisters). As is the case with many others, I'm sure, I'm looking forward
to interesting discussion in this venue.

Could I make a request (ok, 2)?  So far, I think all messages have come
through with the subject header "RE: Introductory statement from Eric
Foner." And virtually all have appended the full text of EF's remarks,
and perhaps the full text of initial responses, as well. ARGH!  For
those of us who would like to save the substantive material from this
list, might I suggest 2 procedures? 1) Please change subject headers so
that they reflect the *actual* content of one's messages.  2) Please
delete everything except what is necessary to provide context for one's
remarks in sending material to this list.  Two new lines appended to 8
repeated screens seems disproportionate....

Obviously, I have no formal role here, but I think this might make the
forum more useful and manageable.  In any event, unless those in charge
have an objection, may I offer these friendly suggestions?

Thanks, and I hope to participate more substantively in the future.

Peggy Thompson
--
Prof. Margaret Susan Thompson--msthomps@twcny.rr.com
History Department--145 Eggers Hall
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244
(315) 443-2210 (voice), 443-5876 (fax)
MODPREZ website: http://classes.maxwell.syr.edu/hst341/
SisterSite: http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/1114/

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 Oct 2001 19:30:46 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Roger Grande 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

My name is Roger Grande, I teach history at Brookline High School in
Massachusetts.

The most compelling thing about Reconstruction for me is its legacy--I
spend a good deal of time when I teach this unit discussing the extent to
which equality has or has not been achieved.  Arica Coleman's comments
spoke to this issue a lot.  However, I'm increasinly ambivelant about
presenting the issue as an African American issue; rather inequality
today--despite the fact that being Black makes you disproportionately
likely to be in some form of custody or poor--functions more as a class
issue.  Race is a convenient means to distract us from class inequality.

One article I give to students include a Boston Globe piece debating the
raising of the Confederate flat over the South Carolina statehouse
(2/20/97).  The article points to the 1960s and 1970s as the origin of the
debate, associating it with the rise of the civil rights movement, thus
complicating the significance of 'preserving Southern heritage.'  In
particular the flag seemed to have taken on an anti-affirmative action
symbolism, suggesting the conflation of race and class (fear over jobs).

I also use an article from the Progressive Populist (6/15/2000) that
describes the recent lawsuit against the USDA by black farmers who have
disproportionately not recieved subsidies, resulting in the loss of
black-owned farm land:  40 acres and a mule-redux.  In 1999 there were
18,000 black farmers, down from 925,000 in 1920.  In 1990, according to a
congressional committee, black-owned farms were going out of business at a
rate 5 times that of white farmers, predicting that by 2000 there would be
no black owned farm land in the US.  [Contact Food First.org and BFAA at
www.coax.net/people/lwf/bfaa.htm for more info.).

The unit is completed with a research project on contemporary
inequality.  Students research political equality (suffrage,
representation), legal equality (due process, sentencing.) and economic
equality (housing, income, education).  In particular they analyze
sentencing patterns and the correlation to disenfranchisement--clearly a
step backwards from Reconstruction, etc.  One might argue that the
disparity in death sentencing is a form of--to borrow from Clarence
Thomas--"legal lynching."  If people are interested I can post the web
sites my students use for research (they include the Sentencing Project,
Human Rights Watch, Census, MA department of Education and Bureau of
Justice).

Lastly I'd appreciate more information about reconstruction/post-slavery
initiatives beyond our borders that others have referred to--I know little
about what happened outside of the US.

Roger Grande


A great resource for disenfranchisement is the 1965 Alabama Literacy
Test--I'd be surprised if 5% of Americans could pass it.  Available from
Social Education.

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=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 Oct 2001 17:45:45 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         M Drago 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

"Jonathan M. Bryant" wrote:

> All,
>
> My name is Jonathan Bryant and I teach at Georgia Southern
> University.  When I arrived here in 1996, a colleague who does the Civil
> War and Reconstruction class refused to let me teach it.  So, I had to find
> more creative ways to teach the Reconstruction era.  In a way, that
> colleague did me a favor, for the course I came up with is far more
> interesting than the traditional course.
>
> Reflecting my own interests and work I had done with Phil Curtin, I put
> together a course called "The Destruction of Slavery in the 19th Century
> Atlantic World."  While fully half the course focuses on emancipation and
> Reconstruction in the United States, we began with the Haitian Revolution
> and ended with Emancipation in Cuba.  (I had wanted to get to Brazil and
> the Suppression of Slavery in Africa, but there was just not enough
> time)   If people wish, I would be more than glad to post the syllabus to
> the list.
>
> Only 12 students signed up for the course, which meant I was able to run it
> in a seminar format.  Students read portions of works by David Geggus on
> Haiti, Ira Berlin on the death of Slavery in the Northern US, Robin
> Blackburn on British Emancipation, some of my own work on Emancipation in
> Georgia, and Rebecca Scott on Emancipation in Cuba.  They also read
> completely Philip Curtin's _Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex_, Ira
> Berlin et al, _Free at Last_, Eric Foner's _Nothing but Freedom_ and
> finally the old Howard Fast Novel, _Freedom Road_.
>
> I usually feel trapped at Georgia Southern, and find myself very frustrated
> by the students' lack of interest in really thinking about history.  But
> this course was completely different.  The student's varied in ability,
> mostly were southern, and largely accepted the Dunning understanding of
> Reconstruction, yet before long they were on fire about the class.
>
> The comparative context fascinated them, and classroom discussion included
> their reading aloud short essays about their responses to the
> readings.  Berlin's story of emanciaption in the North was revelatory for
> many of the white students, and seemed to free them from lurking
> "guilt"(I'm not sure that is the right word) about slavery.  The black
> students felt they were in a class that for the first time attributed
> agency to the emancipated slaves, and this seemed to open them up as
> well.  By the time we reached the third chapter of Foner's _Nothing but
> Freedom_ I literally had trouble getting in my own comments.  Finally,
> Howard Fast's novel worked very well both as an initiator for discussion of
> whether emancipation was a failure in the Atlantic world and for the "what
> if?" considerations of could things have gone differently.  Of the works we
> read their favorites were Fast, the primary materials in _Free at Last_,
> and the third chapter of _Nothing but Freedom_.  In many ways the class
> allowed American students to use broader considerations to reflect upon
> American events.
>
> I could go on and on.  While my idea was not new, (see Foner's 1st chapter
> in Nothing But Freedom) it was new to the students, and they loved it.  If
> student evaluations mean anything, the class got straight fives (the
> highest mark) from all eleven students that stuck it out to the end.  This
> being Georgia Southern, I have not been allowed to teach the course again.
>
> I am very excited about the opportunity to talk about teaching
> Reconstruction with the group, and I am looking forward to a diversity of
> ideas about materials and teaching methods.  I think this sort of
> discussion is very important for both the field and for the larger concept
> of civic education.  Susan O'Donovan and I recently put together a panel
> proposal for the Southern Historical Association on new work in the field
> of American Reconstruction.  As we talked with and e-mailed other
> historians the consensus seemed to be, "Why bother?  Eric Foner figured it
> out, and the field is moribund."  Yet, when I speak to the public or deal
> with my students, the old _Gone With the Wind_ understanding of
> Reconstruction still prevails.  Intellegent, well educated adults will even
> use it as an example of why any Government effort to change society is
> inevitably oppressive and will fail.
>
> Thus, I wish to modify one of Professor Foner's questions.  While we may
> debate forever whether Reconstruction was a failure, I think it is more
> important to ask whether our teaching (and writing) about Reconstruction is
> also a failure?  Begining more than thirty years ago scholars like Eric
> Foner, Bill McFeely, Willie Lee Rose and others have shown us new ways to
> understand the period.  Why hasn't this trickled out into the popular
> consciousness?  It's more than T.B.S.'s continual re-showing of Gone With
> the Wind.  Does it, in fact, reflect back on the "failure" of
> Reconstruction itself?
>
> Jonathan M. Bryant
> Professor Jonathan  M.  Bryant
> Department of History, Box 8054
> Georgia Southern University
> Statesboro, Ga. 30460-8054
> jbryant@ gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
> Tel.: (912) 681-5818
> Fax:  (912) 681-0377
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

Professor Bryant,

Could you please email the syllabus? I read your posting and your course
on Reconstruction sounds interesting.
Mike Drago

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 2 Oct 2001 18:49:29 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Donna L Sharer 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I teach high school social studies.  Reconstruction, at least in
Pennsylvania, is generally left for 10th or 11th grade U.S. history
(Reconstruction - present).  One reason you may find your college
students have  little knowledge of Reconstruction is it isn't covered -
or isn't covered in its complexities  - in high school.  As you know,
most high school text books are inadequate, often outdated,  surveys.  It
would be helpful if college professors would give suggestions for high
school teachers. I'm especially interested in historical fiction that
could be used in a high school class.

I'm also interested in how reparations are connected to the study of
Reconstruction.  Many of my students are interested in looking at the
issues of reparations.  It also brings history to the "present."

Thank you,

Donna Sharer

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 Oct 2001 06:46:06 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Jonathan M. Bryant" 
Subject:      Text for Comparative Emancipations, response to Pete Haro
In-Reply-To:  <200110021841.LAA08425@swan.mail.pas.earthlink.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

Pete and all,

The only really comparative Text is Philip Curtin, The Rise and Fall of the
Plantation Complex, 2nd Edition.  While there may be some problems in
certain areas with this book (even Curtin now feels he made too much of the
medieval roots of plantation slavery) it is none the less provocative and
gets students thinking.  Other books that have comparative essays but would
not function well as texts are Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial
Slavery, Fraganals et al, Between Slavery and Free Labor, and Knight and
Palmer, eds., The Modern Caribbean.

Jon Bryant

Professor Jonathan  M.  Bryant
Department of History, Box 8054
Georgia Southern University
Statesboro, Ga. 30460-8054
jbryant@ gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
Tel.: (912) 681-5818
Fax:  (912) 681-0377

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 Oct 2001 04:57:17 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "A. Carl Duncan" 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
Comments: To: ARNETT DUNCAN 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
              boundary="------------E135F07683994A0FBDF399C9"

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My name is Carl Duncan. I teach 8th grade social studies at Kucera Middle School in Rialto, California, about 65 miles east of Los Angeles. I teach U.
S. History (colonial period to W.W.I). I am teaching and developing an Ethnic Studies course. This class is a very rare opportunity at the secondary
level. Even more so at the middle school level. Using internet resources I have not been able to find another middle school that offers such a class. I
have found only a very few high schools that offer an ethnic studies class in any form. Consequently, there are no textbooks. It is also important to
note that I am living and working in what the census bureau calls the most integrated and culturally diverse area in the country, probably the world. I
am also the coordinator of a college prep program at Kucera.

I have degrees (BS, MA) in Sociology. I am ABD in Sociology. I withdrew form UC, Riverside over 10 years ago after my home was attacked after several
years of plain talk about racism on campus and in the community. In this case the truth set me free. I have taught Race Relations and other sociology
courses at local community colleges. I am also an ordained and active minister.

I consider Reconstruction/Post Reconstruction as the seminal period in US history, and the Compromise of 1877 as the  crucial event. It is here that the
contradiction between the founding documents and the founding fathers intersect. At this crossroads the US is pushed, by what appears to be a logical
evolution, into the real conflict with itself. The Civil War was the culmination of the nations attempts to not deal with its contradictions. Lee's
surrender did not end the civil war, it just signaled the end of the legal bloodshed. The Civil War ended in 1865, but the civil war that seeks to bring
together the promise and ideals of a republican democracy, with the political stresses exacerbated by class concentrated capital, was just beginning.

Now our "free" society with its "open" borders must allow for more that just the coming together of two cultures conveniently identified by spurious
racial definitions that legitimized separation. We (in my school district at least) must deal with the diversity of three major Asian ethnicities, at
least two Latino ethnicities, three African American ethnicities, undefined and not understood Native American ethnicities, and one large and
economically dominant racial group - whites, who have little realization ethnicity except for "American". When we teach about Reconstruction we are
teaching about the United States that has come to be.

I use a standard 8th grade US history text, The American Nation. I offer that the real threat in the South was the potential of cooperation between the
whites of a destroyed (physically and culturally) South, and the resource-less but resourceful, hopeful, and highly skilled freed persons. I add a
history of the KKK, an examination of propaganda as tool of race hatred and social education, and culminate the unit with Plessy vs. Ferguson as the
ultimate victory of the Jeffersonian contradiction. (Jefferson would win again in 1954 and 1965.)

I may be relegated to the role of listen/reader in this conversation. Time may not allow me to give up the little more than an hour that it took for me
to read your stimulating comments and provide this one of my own. Arica, I appreciate your scholarship. It has all the earmarks of a student engaged.
Dr. Foner, thanks for your time and this opportunity. I hope to chime in from time to time this month.

Carl Duncan
AVID Coordinator
Kucera Middle School
Rialto, CA 92377
kweliace@earthlink.net
aduncan@rialto.k12.ca.us

Eric Foner wrote:

> Welcome to the History Matters forum on teaching Reconstruction.  A
> century and a quarter after it came to a close, Reconstruction remains
> perhaps the most controversial and least understood era of American
> history.  The term itself applies both to a specific period of the nation's
> past and to a prolonged and difficult process by which Americans
> sought to reunite a nation sundered by the Civil War, and come to
> terms with the destruction of slavery.  As a chronological period,
> Reconstruction is usually said to have begun in 1865, with the Union's
> victory in the Civil War, although in reality steps toward reuniting the
> nation and recasting Southern life began during the war itself.  In
> political terms, the era of Reconstruction ended in 1877, when the
> federal government irrevocably abandoned the idea of intervening in
> the South to protect the rights of black citizens.  As a historical process
> through which sectional reconciliation was achieved and a new
> system of labor and race relations devised to replace the shattered
> world of slavery, Reconstruction lasted at least to the end of the
> nineteenth century.  If Reconstruction is defined as the effort of
> American society to come to terms with the legacy of slavery, it is still
> going on.  Certainly, in debates about racial equality, the interpretation
> of the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmative action, and the responsibility
> of the federal government for defining and enforcing the rights of
> American citizens, issues central to Reconstruction remain part of our
> lives today.
>
> Historical writing on Reconstruction began during the era itself, and
> continues to the present day.  Reconstruction scholarship, one
> historian has written, is a "dark and bloody ground"  a vast body of
> writing marked by sharp differences of opinion and radical changes in
> interpretation, especially in the last two generations.  Until the 1960s,
> the prevailing interpretation viewed Reconstruction as an era of
> unrelieved sordidness in political and social life.  The villains of the
> piece were vindictive Radical Republicans, who sabotaged Andrew
> Johnson's lenient plan for bringing the South back into the Union, and
> instead fastened black supremacy upon the defeated Confederacy.
> An orgy of corruption and misgovernment allegedly followed, only
> brought to a close when the South's white communities banded
> together to restore "home rule" (a polite euphemism for white
> supremacy).  Resting on the assumption that black suffrage was the
> gravest error of the entire Civil War period, this interpretation survived
> for decades because it accorded with and legitimated firmly
> entrenched political and social realities, including radical segregation
> and the disenfranchisement of southern black voters (which lasted
> from around 1900 to 1965).
>
> Although some scholars had already challenged elements of this
> point of view, it was not until the 1960s, the decade of the civil rights
> revolution or "second Reconstruction," that the traditional interpretation
> was entirely dismantled.  Once they discarded the assumption of
> black incapacity, historians came to view Reconstruction as a
> praiseworthy effort to build an interracial democracy from the ashes of
> slavery.  The era was portrayed as a time of extraordinary progress in
> the South; indeed, if Reconstruction was "tragic," it was because
> change did not go far enough, especially in the failure to distribute
> land to the former slaves.  But in the federal civil rights laws and
> Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments enacted during the period,
> Reconstruction laid the groundwork for future struggles for racial
> equality.  In this scholarship, African-Americans emerged as major
> historical actors, rather than victims of manipulation by others.  Their
> political and religious organizations, economic aspirations, and the
> social divisions among them attracted a new deal of scholarly
> attention.  The economic transformation of the South and the complex
> process by which various modes of free labor replaced the labor
> system of slavery, became the focal point of numerous studies,
> especially in the 1970s and 1980s.  Other historians sought to place
> this country's adjustment to emancipation in an international context,
> comparing Reconstruction in the United States with the aftermath of
> slavery in the Caribbean, Brazil, and elsewhere.  Most recently,
> Reconstruction scholars, like those studying many other periods of
> American history, have devoted close attention to the role of gender in
> Reconstruction the reconstitution of black families, how the Civil War
> affected ideologies of manhood, how freedom may have had different
> meanings for freed women than for their brothers and husbands.
>
> I look forward to discussing any of the issues raised by this body of
> historical literature, as well as relating to Reconstruction's relevance
> for our own times.  We live today in a "post-civil rights" era in some
> ways analogous to the early 20th century.  But so long as the issues
> central to Reconstruction remain unresolved -- the balance of power in
> the federal system, the place of black Americans in national life, the
> relationship between economic and political democracy -- an
> understanding of that period will remain central to our teaching of
> American history as a whole.
>
> I’d like to conclude with a few questions to start our discussion. How
> do you teach about Reconstruction and what resources do you use?
> What relevance do you see in the history of Reconstruction for our
> current politics and race relations? Should we think of Reconstruction
> as a failure and if so, how do we explain this? Do the cycles of
> Reconstruction historiography suggest that historical "truth" is
> unobtainable and that historical interpretation tends to serve
> immediate political ends?
>
> Eric Foner
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

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Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
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My name is Carl Duncan. I teach 8th grade social studies at Kucera Middle
School in Rialto, California, about 65 miles east of Los Angeles. I teach
U. S. History (colonial period to W.W.I). I am teaching and developing
an Ethnic Studies course. This class is a very rare opportunity at the
secondary level. Even more so at the middle school level. Using internet
resources I have not been able to find another middle school that offers
such a class. I have found only a very few high schools that offer an ethnic
studies class in any form. Consequently, there are no textbooks. It is
also important to note that I am living and working in what the census
bureau calls the most integrated and culturally diverse area in the country,
probably the world. I am also the coordinator of a college prep program
at Kucera.
I have degrees (BS, MA) in Sociology. I am ABD in Sociology. I withdrew
form UC, Riverside over 10 years ago after my home was attacked after several
years of plain talk about racism on campus and in the community. In this
case the truth set me free. I have taught Race Relations and other sociology
courses at local community colleges. I am also an ordained and active minister.
I consider Reconstruction/Post Reconstruction as the seminal period
in US history, and the Compromise of 1877 as the  crucial event. It
is here that the contradiction between the founding documents and the founding
fathers intersect. At this crossroads the US is pushed, by what appears
to be a logical evolution, into the real conflict with itself. The Civil
War was the culmination of the nations attempts to not deal
with its contradictions. Lee's surrender did not end the civil war, it
just signaled the end of the legal bloodshed. The Civil War ended in 1865,
but the civil war that seeks to bring together the promise and ideals of
a republican democracy, with the political stresses exacerbated by class
concentrated capital, was just beginning.
Now our "free" society with its "open" borders must allow for more that
just the coming together of two cultures conveniently identified by spurious
racial definitions that legitimized separation. We (in my school district
at least) must deal with the diversity of three major Asian ethnicities,
at least two Latino ethnicities, three African American ethnicities, undefined
and not understood Native American ethnicities, and one large and economically
dominant racial group - whites, who have little realization ethnicity except
for "American". When we teach about Reconstruction we are teaching about
the United States that has come to be.
I use a standard 8th grade US history text, The American Nation.
I offer that the real threat in the South was the potential of cooperation
between the whites of a destroyed (physically and culturally) South, and
the resource-less but resourceful, hopeful, and highly skilled freed persons.
I add a history of the KKK, an examination of propaganda as tool of race
hatred and social education, and culminate the unit with Plessy vs. Ferguson
as the ultimate victory of the Jeffersonian contradiction. (Jefferson would
win again in 1954 and 1965.)
I may be relegated to the role of listen/reader in this conversation.
Time may not allow me to give up the little more than an hour that it took
for me to read your stimulating comments and provide this one of my own.
Arica, I appreciate your scholarship. It has all the earmarks of a student
engaged. Dr. Foner, thanks for your time and this opportunity. I hope to
chime in from time to time this month.  
Carl Duncan

AVID Coordinator

Kucera Middle School

Rialto, CA 92377

kweliace@earthlink.net

aduncan@rialto.k12.ca.us
Eric Foner wrote:
Welcome to the History Matters forum on teaching
Reconstruction.  A

century and a quarter after it came to a close, Reconstruction remains

perhaps the most controversial and least understood era of American

history.  The term itself applies both to a specific period of
the nation's

past and to a prolonged and difficult process by which Americans

sought to reunite a nation sundered by the Civil War, and come to

terms with the destruction of slavery.  As a chronological period,

Reconstruction is usually said to have begun in 1865, with the Union's

victory in the Civil War, although in reality steps toward reuniting
the

nation and recasting Southern life began during the war itself. 
In

political terms, the era of Reconstruction ended in 1877, when the

federal government irrevocably abandoned the idea of intervening in

the South to protect the rights of black citizens.  As a historical
process

through which sectional reconciliation was achieved and a new

system of labor and race relations devised to replace the shattered

world of slavery, Reconstruction lasted at least to the end of the

nineteenth century.  If Reconstruction is defined as the effort
of

American society to come to terms with the legacy of slavery, it is
still

going on.  Certainly, in debates about racial equality, the interpretation

of the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmative action, and the responsibility

of the federal government for defining and enforcing the rights of

American citizens, issues central to Reconstruction remain part of
our

lives today.
Historical writing on Reconstruction began during the era itself, and

continues to the present day.  Reconstruction scholarship, one

historian has written, is a "dark and bloody ground"  a vast body
of

writing marked by sharp differences of opinion and radical changes
in

interpretation, especially in the last two generations.  Until
the 1960s,

the prevailing interpretation viewed Reconstruction as an era of

unrelieved sordidness in political and social life.  The villains
of the

piece were vindictive Radical Republicans, who sabotaged Andrew

Johnson's lenient plan for bringing the South back into the Union,
and

instead fastened black supremacy upon the defeated Confederacy.

An orgy of corruption and misgovernment allegedly followed, only

brought to a close when the South's white communities banded

together to restore "home rule" (a polite euphemism for white

supremacy).  Resting on the assumption that black suffrage was
the

gravest error of the entire Civil War period, this interpretation survived

for decades because it accorded with and legitimated firmly

entrenched political and social realities, including radical segregation

and the disenfranchisement of southern black voters (which lasted

from around 1900 to 1965).
Although some scholars had already challenged elements of this

point of view, it was not until the 1960s, the decade of the civil
rights

revolution or "second Reconstruction," that the traditional interpretation

was entirely dismantled.  Once they discarded the assumption of

black incapacity, historians came to view Reconstruction as a

praiseworthy effort to build an interracial democracy from the ashes
of

slavery.  The era was portrayed as a time of extraordinary progress
in

the South; indeed, if Reconstruction was "tragic," it was because

change did not go far enough, especially in the failure to distribute

land to the former slaves.  But in the federal civil rights laws
and

Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments enacted during the period,

Reconstruction laid the groundwork for future struggles for racial

equality.  In this scholarship, African-Americans emerged as major

historical actors, rather than victims of manipulation by others. 
Their

political and religious organizations, economic aspirations, and the

social divisions among them attracted a new deal of scholarly

attention.  The economic transformation of the South and the complex

process by which various modes of free labor replaced the labor

system of slavery, became the focal point of numerous studies,

especially in the 1970s and 1980s.  Other historians sought to
place

this country's adjustment to emancipation in an international context,

comparing Reconstruction in the United States with the aftermath of

slavery in the Caribbean, Brazil, and elsewhere.  Most recently,

Reconstruction scholars, like those studying many other periods of

American history, have devoted close attention to the role of gender
in

Reconstruction the reconstitution of black families, how the Civil
War

affected ideologies of manhood, how freedom may have had different

meanings for freed women than for their brothers and husbands.
I look forward to discussing any of the issues raised by this body of

historical literature, as well as relating to Reconstruction's relevance

for our own times.  We live today in a "post-civil rights" era
in some

ways analogous to the early 20th century.  But so long as the
issues

central to Reconstruction remain unresolved -- the balance of power
in

the federal system, the place of black Americans in national life,
the

relationship between economic and political democracy -- an

understanding of that period will remain central to our teaching of

American history as a whole.
I’d like to conclude with a few questions to start our discussion. How

do you teach about Reconstruction and what resources do you use?

What relevance do you see in the history of Reconstruction for our

current politics and race relations? Should we think of Reconstruction

as a failure and if so, how do we explain this? Do the cycles of

Reconstruction historiography suggest that historical "truth" is

unobtainable and that historical interpretation tends to serve

immediate political ends?
Eric Foner
This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site
at http://historymatters.gmu.edu
for more resources for teaching U.S. History.


--------------E135F07683994A0FBDF399C9--

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=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 Oct 2001 08:12:26 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Jonathan M. Bryant" 
Subject:      Re: Arica Coleman's posting on law and emancipation
In-Reply-To:  <13e.24eac7e.28ea982f@aol.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

Arica,

Others will probably comment on this as well, but slaves were largely kept
outside the formal legal system in most slave societies, and certainly in
the American South.   Thus, very few blacks would be found in any southern
penitentary prior to the Civil War because the process of plantation
discipline kept punishment of crimes by slaves within the private
sphere.   In other words, if a slave stole, punishment was under the
control of the master, not of the state.  If someone's slave stole from
you, you sued his or her owner, you did not prosecute the slave.

With emancipation white elites realized that what had been handled by
plantation discipline would now have to be handled in the public sphere
through the formal legal system.  In fact, many states created special
courts to handle the flood of criminal and civil litigation they expected
would follow this change, and even the Freedmen's Bureau Courts to some
extent responded to this transformation.  The legal system replaced the
plantation as the means by which many white elites hoped to control the
freed people.  The story actually becomes quite complex, and you can learn
more of how this played out in a plantation community in my book, How
Curious a Land, (UNC Press, 1996).

Jonathan Bryant
Professor Jonathan  M.  Bryant
Department of History, Box 8054
Georgia Southern University
Statesboro, Ga. 30460-8054
jbryant@ gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
Tel.: (912) 681-5818
Fax:  (912) 681-0377

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 Oct 2001 06:40:39 -0700
Reply-To:     holton@gwu.edu
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Jim Holton 
Subject:      Reconstruction in the schools
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Greetings,
I am Jim Holton, a Ph.D. candidate at the George Washington
University and an adjunct professor at two colleges in
central Florida.

As per the question:
"What relevance do you see in the history of Reconstruction
for our current politics and race relations?

I have a self-serving example. I am currently completing my
dissertation, a social history of school integration in
Polk County, Florida. I have seen a lot of parallels
between Reconstruction in the late 1800s and the effort to
ensure integration in American schools in the 1960s to the
present.

First of all, we see an effort to reconstruct the way
Americans think of education. Southern school districts and
many outside the South predicated their staff and student
assignments on the assumption that blacks and whites
couldn't share a classroom. Allocation of resources was
made likewise, primarily favored whites despite "separate
but equal."

Second, desegregation and integration involved the
intervention of the federal courts and the support of
federal authority. Under Kennedy and LBJ, integration
became enshrined in federal policy. Nixon tried to reverse
or limit this ability, but the case law became a force unto
itself. The first few years of desegregation were largely
under local control, and largely a joke. School systems
enacted policies that allowed white students to opt out of
integrated schools, for example. Only after important court
cases in 1967-1968 did the court system require effective
programs to integrate.

Third, the fight for integration involved a belief that it
was the best way to ensure equal rights and opportunity. On
the reverse side, anti-integrationists condemned
court-sponsored integration as an unlawful interference in
local authority, and contributing to a decline in
educational standards. My research for this county shows
that the local white backlash against integration revolved
around three major point: complaints about federal courts
overreaching their authority; fears that the effective
integration of black students into formerly all-white
schools would lead to a decline in educational standards;
and the fear that the black cultural presence would
necessarily lead to a decline in morality.

One of the most prominent concerns was that white girls
would be victimized by lusty black boys. Some whites argued
that blacks needed to remain segregated until their
educational standards "caught up" to white standards.
Integration of faculty led to the dispersal of black
teachers and the destruction of black leadership in
administration--black principals were demoted to vice
principals or "kicked upstairs" to dead-end jobs. Black
students found themselves tracked to lower-performing
classes. And few in the formerly all-white school system
considered that black teachers might have anything new or
innovative in a pedagogical sense to contribute.

Fourth and lastly, I see eerie similarities in the legal
and political movement to end court-ordered integration or
to ensure that schools are not resegregated (this time by
class as well as race). Many people, even well-meaning
liberals, consider "forced" integration or "forced" busing
a mistake. They want a return to local control, even if
that means black and white kids may not go to school
together. Conservatives have always believed so, and do not
recognize how integration forced many school districts
(including the one I'm studying) to equalize funding and
make sure that no school has an inherent advantage. We also
see similarities in criticisms about integration and
Reconstruction. The myth of "gleaming bayonets" for
example, translates into criticisms of "forced" busing.
However, most school children were already on school buses;
only now they were driving one or two miles further (in
your smaller districts) to reach schools in black
neighborhoods. And then there's the fear of black male
sexuality and overzealous disciplne that singled out black
students.

Even many blacks find comfort in the thought that "separate
but equal" might work in the 21st century. There's s sort
of moral exhaustion with the process and a rethinking about
what was once a noble goal. School vouchers, "freedom of
choice" demands for standardized testing to separate good
schools from bad, are not good signs for the future of
equal opportunity in education.

Regards,
...Jim Holton
holton@gwu.edu




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=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 Oct 2001 11:11:43 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Brown, Joshua" 
Subject:      Re: 1863 Draft Riot
In-Reply-To:  <20011002142427.10874.qmail@web20006.mail.yahoo.com>
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

Contemporary accounts of the 1863 Draft Riot claimed that the violence
claimed nearly one thousand lives.  But combing official records and news
accounts, subsequent scholarship has documented 119 deaths.  The riot was
the worst and most extensive civil disorder in U.S. history.

A new Web site called "Virtual New York," produced at the City University
Graduate Center, will feature an extensive and detailed account of the 1863
riot, including many primary visual and text resources.  The site will be
inaugurated later this month and will be accessible through the American
Social History Project's Web site (http://www.ashp.cuny.edu -- click on the
"New Media Lab" button).

Josh Brown
American Social History Project

> From: Austin Manghan 
> Reply-To: Reconstruction Forum 
> Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 07:24:27 -0700
> To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> Subject: Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
>
> Dear Friends,
>
> I suspect this question does relate to the topic...
>
> Can any of you tell me how many  people were killed
> during the NY draft riots in the 1860's?  Perhaps this
> was the single worst terrorist attack in NYC history.
>
> Thanks,
> Austin Manghan
>
> --- Eric Foner  wrote:
>> Welcome to the History Matters forum on teaching
>> Reconstruction.  A
>> century and a quarter after it came to a close,
>> Reconstruction remains
>> perhaps the most controversial and least understood
>> era of American
>> history.  The term itself applies both to a specific
>> period of the nation's
>> past and to a prolonged and difficult process by
>> which Americans
>> sought to reunite a nation sundered by the Civil
>> War, and come to
>> terms with the destruction of slavery.  As a
>> chronological period,
>> Reconstruction is usually said to have begun in
>> 1865, with the Union's
>> victory in the Civil War, although in reality steps
>> toward reuniting the
>> nation and recasting Southern life began during the
>> war itself.  In
>> political terms, the era of Reconstruction ended in
>> 1877, when the
>> federal government irrevocably abandoned the idea of
>> intervening in
>> the South to protect the rights of black citizens.
>> As a historical process
>> through which sectional reconciliation was achieved
>> and a new
>> system of labor and race relations devised to
>> replace the shattered
>> world of slavery, Reconstruction lasted at least to
>> the end of the
>> nineteenth century.  If Reconstruction is defined as
>> the effort of
>> American society to come to terms with the legacy of
>> slavery, it is still
>> going on.  Certainly, in debates about racial
>> equality, the interpretation
>> of the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmative action, and
>> the responsibility
>> of the federal government for defining and enforcing
>> the rights of
>> American citizens, issues central to Reconstruction
>> remain part of our
>> lives today.
>>
>> Historical writing on Reconstruction began during
>> the era itself, and
>> continues to the present day.  Reconstruction
>> scholarship, one
>> historian has written, is a "dark and bloody ground"
>> a vast body of
>> writing marked by sharp differences of opinion and
>> radical changes in
>> interpretation, especially in the last two
>> generations.  Until the 1960s,
>> the prevailing interpretation viewed Reconstruction
>> as an era of
>> unrelieved sordidness in political and social life.
>> The villains of the
>> piece were vindictive Radical Republicans, who
>> sabotaged Andrew
>> Johnson's lenient plan for bringing the South back
>> into the Union, and
>> instead fastened black supremacy upon the defeated
>> Confederacy.
>> An orgy of corruption and misgovernment allegedly
>> followed, only
>> brought to a close when the South's white
>> communities banded
>> together to restore "home rule" (a polite euphemism
>> for white
>> supremacy).  Resting on the assumption that black
>> suffrage was the
>> gravest error of the entire Civil War period, this
>> interpretation survived
>> for decades because it accorded with and legitimated
>> firmly
>> entrenched political and social realities, including
>> radical segregation
>> and the disenfranchisement of southern black voters
>> (which lasted
>> from around 1900 to 1965).
>>
>> Although some scholars had already challenged
>> elements of this
>> point of view, it was not until the 1960s, the
>> decade of the civil rights
>> revolution or "second Reconstruction," that the
>> traditional interpretation
>> was entirely dismantled.  Once they discarded the
>> assumption of
>> black incapacity, historians came to view
>> Reconstruction as a
>> praiseworthy effort to build an interracial
>> democracy from the ashes of
>> slavery.  The era was portrayed as a time of
>> extraordinary progress in
>> the South; indeed, if Reconstruction was "tragic,"
>> it was because
>> change did not go far enough, especially in the
>> failure to distribute
>> land to the former slaves.  But in the federal civil
>> rights laws and
>> Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments enacted during
>> the period,
>> Reconstruction laid the groundwork for future
>> struggles for racial
>> equality.  In this scholarship, African-Americans
>> emerged as major
>> historical actors, rather than victims of
>> manipulation by others.  Their
>> political and religious organizations, economic
>> aspirations, and the
>> social divisions among them attracted a new deal of
>> scholarly
>> attention.  The economic transformation of the South
>> and the complex
>> process by which various modes of free labor
>> replaced the labor
>> system of slavery, became the focal point of
>> numerous studies,
>> especially in the 1970s and 1980s.  Other historians
>> sought to place
>> this country's adjustment to emancipation in an
>> international context,
>> comparing Reconstruction in the United States with
>> the aftermath of
>> slavery in the Caribbean, Brazil, and elsewhere.
>> Most recently,
>> Reconstruction scholars, like those studying many
>> other periods of
>> American history, have devoted close attention to
>> the role of gender in
>> Reconstruction the reconstitution of black families,
>> how the Civil War
>> affected ideologies of manhood, how freedom may have
>> had different
>> meanings for freed women than for their brothers and
>> husbands.
>>
>> I look forward to discussing any of the issues
>> raised by this body of
>> historical literature, as well as relating to
>> Reconstruction's relevance
>> for our own times.  We live today in a "post-civil
>> rights" era in some
>> ways analogous to the early 20th century.  But so
>> long as the issues
>> central to Reconstruction remain unresolved -- the
>> balance of power in
>> the federal system, the place of black Americans in
>> national life, the
>> relationship between economic and political
>> democracy -- an
>> understanding of that period will remain central to
>> our teaching of
>> American history as a whole.
>>
>> I d like to conclude with a few questions to start
>> our discussion. How
>> do you teach about Reconstruction and what resources
>> do you use?
>> What relevance do you see in the history of
>> Reconstruction for our
>> current politics and race relations? Should we think
>> of Reconstruction
>> as a failure and if so, how do we explain this? Do
>> the cycles of
>> Reconstruction historiography suggest that
>> historical "truth" is
>> unobtainable and that historical interpretation
>> tends to serve
>> immediate political ends?
>>
>> Eric Foner
>>
>> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please
>> visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu
>> for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone.
> http://phone.yahoo.com
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 Oct 2001 11:39:23 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Hal Morris 
Subject:      Re: Reconstruction in the schools
In-Reply-To:  <20011003134039.2206.qmail@web20502.mail.yahoo.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

I do not teach, except through my web site (see below), but have, on the
basis of it, gotten many letters from students of all ages, indicating
they had learned something from it.

Though I haven't studied reconstruction nearly as intensely as I have the
(roughly) "Jacksonian" era, it has fascinated me, and I've fantasized
about something like the following:
* Assign half of a class of students a list of readings from the point of
  view that Reconstruction was a good and important idea that was not
  really carried out (maybe that is not exactly how you would phrase
  a sympathetic view of Reconstruction, but it is my interpretation).
* Assign half of the class a list of readings that portray Reconstruction
  in the negative terms that were popular until recently.
* After the readings, have a debate, lasting over several days, and see
  if any consensus can be drawn.

It seems to me that an excellant text to use would be _A Fool's Errand, by
One of the Fools_, by Albion Torgee.  Writen in 1879 based on the author's
experience, it is a fictionalized portrait of ex-slaves and sympathetic
whites being terrorized, and a very readible, if melodramatic, story.
It is out of print, though I'm considering doing something about that.

Among used book listings, I was startled by the following
characterization:

Anonymously published, the most famous novel of this Ohio carpetbagger who
became an unpopular judge in North Carolina during Reconstruction and who
enriched him self through a corrupt administration. An important American
political novel, with much on conditions and politics in the South during
Reconstruction, including the KKK. This printing was done from plates of
the first printing and thus has the origi nal text. There were many
alterations in the text in later printings, and there was an expanded and
retitled edition (THE INVISIBLE EMPIRE) in 1880. See BAL 20346.

For those who know anything about it, it might be a good topic to discuss
here -- is there any truth to the claim that Tourgee "enriched him self
through a corrupt administration?"  What can be known about his actual
experiences, and how accurate might his description be?

It seems to me there is a parallel, which I perceived from reading _A
Fool's Errand_, between Reconstruction, and other post-war situations
where the defeated party is taken apart -- especially in the case of a
pathological society where the pathology is a major reason why the war
occurred in the first place, and a lasting and just peace will depend on
reformation of those pathologies.  After World War II, the victors (in the
Western sphere of influence) successfully helped produce better societies.
After World War I, this was not done.  In the recent "Desert Storm", and
some other recent interventions in the middle east, the U.S. has reacted
in "hit and run" fashion, and taken no responsibility for the lives of the
ordinary people who were swept up in the cyclone.  In the near future, we
may be faced with a very similar situation w.r.t. Afghanistan.  Will we,
after achieving our immediate goals, leave the country in a state of
chaos, or try, as dangerous as it may be, to foster development of a sane
society that puts the safety and welfare of the people there first?

These examples are clearly very different from one another, but I think
there is an important common element.

Hal Morris: hal@panix.com   --  Editor of:
* H-SHEAR Web pages: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~shear
* Jacksonian Miscellanies: Free sources & commentary (email for info).
* Tales of the Early Republic web site: http://WWW.EarlyRepublic.net

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 Oct 2001 12:17:06 -0500
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Joe Berry 
Subject:      Re: Response
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Colleagues,
        Not to nitpick, since I really like the contributions so far, but I
hope in the future we not refer to "Southerners" when what is really
mean is white southerners. The fact that many white southerners use this
formulation is no excuse at all and is really the beginning of the
difficulty of talking about the subject with many whites, southern and
otherwise.

I currently teach Reconstruction as part of US survey at Malcolm X
College in Chicago and as part of survey of labor history for Indiana
University Labor Studies in Gary. To me, there is no substitute, at
least when teaching working class students, white, Black or other, for
emphasizing the class aspect of Recon and its betrayal. DuBois is simply
essential here. I have also had good luck using Howard Fast's Freedom
Road and turing the final meeting scene, where the exslave Congressman
reports back to his folks, Black and white, on the plantations community
about what they have done and how they have been betrayed, to be a
wonderful thing to do as oral reading or enactment in class. I have
never used the film w/Muhammed Ali, but that might be good to use too.

        I find that simulations in class, with groups of students taking the
part of groups in Recon (Freedpeople(incl Union War vets), poor white
farmers, planters, Freedman Bureau folks, including teachers, etc.)
works really well. The core question to ask them to deal with is "What
are your main demands or interests?" and then who must this demand be
directed at? In other words, who is the enemy who has power to grant or
deny the demands? Then who are your allies potentially in this struggle
to get your demands? This has also worked well in teaching the origins
of Black life racial slavery in the aftermath of Bacon's Rebellion.

I would welcome comments on this.

Joe Berry

"Suvi U. Vesala" wrote:
>
> Dear Professor Foner and fellow scholars,
>
> I am a graduate student at Tulane University where I have the pleasure of
> teaching the Post Civil War portion of the U.S.survey for the second time.
> My concerns with Reconstruction as a topic in class thus differ quite a bit
> from those who spend an entire semester on the period.
>
> Here at Tulane and in my classroom the student body is rather evenly split
> between students from Louisiana and the surrounding areas on the one hand
> and those from the Northeast on the other. I find the basic chronology very
> easy to teach, in fact it is mostly review since many of them already know a
> good bit.
>
> The chief difficulty is in what I call the "unteaching" of Reconstruction:
> students seem to hold extremely polarized and fixed opinions on the subject.
> I have a good portion of students who think very much along the lines of the
> Dunning School, while others have difficulty feeling any sympathy toward the
> Southerners.
>
> My attempt to mediate these antagonistic camps so far consist of playing the
> game of naming the major players. I draw boxes on the blackboard for the
> North and the South. I then begin inserting different categories of people
> into each box as students call them out, pausing to define some of the
> characteristics of each group. With Democrats and Republicans, former slaves
> and  slaveowners gradually emerging in both boxes, confusion, debate and,
> thankfully, some epiphanies ensue. Despite a measure of success achieved
> this way, I wonder if there would not be a better way to do this. I would
> very much like to hear suggestions on different things to try, as well as
> just share views on this particular challenge.
>
> Ursula Vesala
> Tulane University
> New Orleans, Louisiana
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

--
Joe Berry
1453 W. Flournoy, #3F
Chicago, IL 60607
Phone/fax: 312-733-2172
Email 

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=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 Oct 2001 10:28:00 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Barbara Egypt 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
In-Reply-To:  <3BBA5FB9.D08E441@earthlink.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Professor Bryant,
 I,too,would appreciate a copy of the syllabus.
Thanks! Barbara  A.Egypt, Ph.D., begypt@yahoo.com
--- M Drago  wrote:
> "Jonathan M. Bryant" wrote:
>
> > All,
> >
> > My name is Jonathan Bryant and I teach at Georgia
> Southern
> > University.  When I arrived here in 1996, a
> colleague who does the Civil
> > War and Reconstruction class refused to let me
> teach it.  So, I had to find
> > more creative ways to teach the Reconstruction
> era.  In a way, that
> > colleague did me a favor, for the course I came up
> with is far more
> > interesting than the traditional course.
> >
> > Reflecting my own interests and work I had done
> with Phil Curtin, I put
> > together a course called "The Destruction of
> Slavery in the 19th Century
> > Atlantic World."  While fully half the course
> focuses on emancipation and
> > Reconstruction in the United States, we began with
> the Haitian Revolution
> > and ended with Emancipation in Cuba.  (I had
> wanted to get to Brazil and
> > the Suppression of Slavery in Africa, but there
> was just not enough
> > time)   If people wish, I would be more than glad
> to post the syllabus to
> > the list.
> >
> > Only 12 students signed up for the course, which
> meant I was able to run it
> > in a seminar format.  Students read portions of
> works by David Geggus on
> > Haiti, Ira Berlin on the death of Slavery in the
> Northern US, Robin
> > Blackburn on British Emancipation, some of my own
> work on Emancipation in
> > Georgia, and Rebecca Scott on Emancipation in
> Cuba.  They also read
> > completely Philip Curtin's _Rise and Fall of the
> Plantation Complex_, Ira
> > Berlin et al, _Free at Last_, Eric Foner's
> _Nothing but Freedom_ and
> > finally the old Howard Fast Novel, _Freedom Road_.
> >
> > I usually feel trapped at Georgia Southern, and
> find myself very frustrated
> > by the students' lack of interest in really
> thinking about history.  But
> > this course was completely different.  The
> student's varied in ability,
> > mostly were southern, and largely accepted the
> Dunning understanding of
> > Reconstruction, yet before long they were on fire
> about the class.
> >
> > The comparative context fascinated them, and
> classroom discussion included
> > their reading aloud short essays about their
> responses to the
> > readings.  Berlin's story of emanciaption in the
> North was revelatory for
> > many of the white students, and seemed to free
> them from lurking
> > "guilt"(I'm not sure that is the right word) about
> slavery.  The black
> > students felt they were in a class that for the
> first time attributed
> > agency to the emancipated slaves, and this seemed
> to open them up as
> > well.  By the time we reached the third chapter of
> Foner's _Nothing but
> > Freedom_ I literally had trouble getting in my own
> comments.  Finally,
> > Howard Fast's novel worked very well both as an
> initiator for discussion of
> > whether emancipation was a failure in the Atlantic
> world and for the "what
> > if?" considerations of could things have gone
> differently.  Of the works we
> > read their favorites were Fast, the primary
> materials in _Free at Last_,
> > and the third chapter of _Nothing but Freedom_.
> In many ways the class
> > allowed American students to use broader
> considerations to reflect upon
> > American events.
> >
> > I could go on and on.  While my idea was not new,
> (see Foner's 1st chapter
> > in Nothing But Freedom) it was new to the
> students, and they loved it.  If
> > student evaluations mean anything, the class got
> straight fives (the
> > highest mark) from all eleven students that stuck
> it out to the end.  This
> > being Georgia Southern, I have not been allowed to
> teach the course again.
> >
> > I am very excited about the opportunity to talk
> about teaching
> > Reconstruction with the group, and I am looking
> forward to a diversity of
> > ideas about materials and teaching methods.  I
> think this sort of
> > discussion is very important for both the field
> and for the larger concept
> > of civic education.  Susan O'Donovan and I
> recently put together a panel
> > proposal for the Southern Historical Association
> on new work in the field
> > of American Reconstruction.  As we talked with and
> e-mailed other
> > historians the consensus seemed to be, "Why
> bother?  Eric Foner figured it
> > out, and the field is moribund."  Yet, when I
> speak to the public or deal
> > with my students, the old _Gone With the Wind_
> understanding of
> > Reconstruction still prevails.  Intellegent, well
> educated adults will even
> > use it as an example of why any Government effort
> to change society is
> > inevitably oppressive and will fail.
> >
> > Thus, I wish to modify one of Professor Foner's
> questions.  While we may
> > debate forever whether Reconstruction was a
> failure, I think it is more
> > important to ask whether our teaching (and
> writing) about Reconstruction is
> > also a failure?  Begining more than thirty years
> ago scholars like Eric
> > Foner, Bill McFeely, Willie Lee Rose and others
> have shown us new ways to
> > understand the period.  Why hasn't this trickled
> out into the popular
> > consciousness?  It's more than T.B.S.'s continual
> re-showing of Gone With
> > the Wind.  Does it, in fact, reflect back on the
> "failure" of
> > Reconstruction itself?
> >
> > Jonathan M. Bryant
> > Professor Jonathan  M.  Bryant
> > Department of History, Box 8054
> > Georgia Southern University
> > Statesboro, Ga. 30460-8054
> > jbryant@ gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
> > Tel.: (912) 681-5818
> > Fax:  (912) 681-0377
> >
> > This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please
> visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu
> for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
> Professor Bryant,
>
> Could you please email the syllabus? I read your
> posting and your course
> on Reconstruction sounds interesting.
> Mike Drago
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please
> visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu
> for more resources for teaching U.S. History.


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Date:         Wed, 3 Oct 2001 14:44:39 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Len Rabinowitz 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
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Donna:

I really agree with you about the inadequacy of high school texts regarding
Reconstruction.  I often think it is purposeful because they don't want kids
to have something really meaty to think about- can't question the social
structure too much!

Might I make a suggestion?  Most high school history texts are "wriiten" by
college professors- or at least their names are slapped on them.  We should
amke suggestions to those who write the texts, not the other way around.
Approaching the textbook companies would also be a good idea.

Just my two cents.  I'd be curious to know how other high school people go
about it.  We seem to be a little rare on this forum to date.

Len Rabinowitz
Ashland High School
Ashland, MA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Donna L Sharer" 
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2001 9:49 PM
Subject: Re: high school teaching


> I teach high school social studies.  Reconstruction, at least in
> Pennsylvania, is generally left for 10th or 11th grade U.S. history
> (Reconstruction - present).  One reason you may find your college
> students have  little knowledge of Reconstruction is it isn't covered -
> or isn't covered in its complexities  - in high school.  As you know,
> most high school text books are inadequate, often outdated,  surveys.  It
> would be helpful if college professors would give suggestions for high
> school teachers. I'm especially interested in historical fiction that
> could be used in a high school class.
>
> I'm also interested in how reparations are connected to the study of
> Reconstruction.  Many of my students are interested in looking at the
> issues of reparations.  It also brings history to the "present."
>
> Thank you,
>
> Donna Sharer
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

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=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 Oct 2001 14:31:53 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Len Rabinowitz 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

To all:

I don't know how many high school teachers there are on this forum.  As one
myself, I find teaching about Reconstruction fascinating but difficult.  I
think in many ways it is more important than the war itself, but the texts
don't teach it that way and students have a hard time grasping that.  They
tend to think that Appomatox ended everything, and the idea that with the
Appomatox surrender a more difficlut problem than the war in some ways had
now presented itself.  In a certain way I like to see Reconstruction as a
beginning, rather than an ending.  I see it as a combination of successes
and failures.

I have mixed feelings about how high school textbooks present it.  The are
better than they were.  I spent some time this summer at Harvard's Guttman
library which has an enormous collection of old textbooks.  I was curious to
see how the handled the subject.  Most of it was as Professor Foner says,
but one of them stated that after the Emancipation Proclamation most slaves
stayed on the plantation since they didn't want freedom.  However, the
Emancipation Proclamation made white northerners fight harder to end
slavery!  Which seemed to me to make both groups look pretty idiotic.  Books
are better these days- they all strive for the "balanced" point of view.
And yet that bothers me too- as if all historical points of view or events
are of equal value or worth.  I don't think the KKK deserves as much time as
the efforts that blacks made to exercise what freedom meant to them.

I am currently working my way through Professor Foner's book on
Reconstruction- the long one, not the short version!  Anyone have any
teaching materials or ideas to go with it?

Len Rabinowitz
Ashland High School
Ashland, MA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Foner" 
To: 
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 10:47 AM
Subject: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner


Welcome to the History Matters forum on teaching Reconstruction.  A
century and a quarter after it came to a close, Reconstruction remains
perhaps the most controversial and least understood era of American
history.  The term itself applies both to a specific period of the nation's
past and to a prolonged and difficult process by which Americans
sought to reunite a nation sundered by the Civil War, and come to
terms with the destruction of slavery.  As a chronological period,
Reconstruction is usually said to have begun in 1865, with the Union's
victory in the Civil War, although in reality steps toward reuniting the
nation and recasting Southern life began during the war itself.  In
political terms, the era of Reconstruction ended in 1877, when the
federal government irrevocably abandoned the idea of intervening in
the South to protect the rights of black citizens.  As a historical process
through which sectional reconciliation was achieved and a new
system of labor and race relations devised to replace the shattered
world of slavery, Reconstruction lasted at least to the end of the
nineteenth century.  If Reconstruction is defined as the effort of
American society to come to terms with the legacy of slavery, it is still
going on.  Certainly, in debates about racial equality, the interpretation
of the Fourteenth Amendment, affirmative action, and the responsibility
of the federal government for defining and enforcing the rights of
American citizens, issues central to Reconstruction remain part of our
lives today.

Historical writing on Reconstruction began during the era itself, and
continues to the present day.  Reconstruction scholarship, one
historian has written, is a "dark and bloody ground"  a vast body of
writing marked by sharp differences of opinion and radical changes in
interpretation, especially in the last two generations.  Until the 1960s,
the prevailing interpretation viewed Reconstruction as an era of
unrelieved sordidness in political and social life.  The villains of the
piece were vindictive Radical Republicans, who sabotaged Andrew
Johnson's lenient plan for bringing the South back into the Union, and
instead fastened black supremacy upon the defeated Confederacy.
An orgy of corruption and misgovernment allegedly followed, only
brought to a close when the South's white communities banded
together to restore "home rule" (a polite euphemism for white
supremacy).  Resting on the assumption that black suffrage was the
gravest error of the entire Civil War period, this interpretation survived
for decades because it accorded with and legitimated firmly
entrenched political and social realities, including radical segregation
and the disenfranchisement of southern black voters (which lasted
from around 1900 to 1965).

Although some scholars had already challenged elements of this
point of view, it was not until the 1960s, the decade of the civil rights
revolution or "second Reconstruction," that the traditional interpretation
was entirely dismantled.  Once they discarded the assumption of
black incapacity, historians came to view Reconstruction as a
praiseworthy effort to build an interracial democracy from the ashes of
slavery.  The era was portrayed as a time of extraordinary progress in
the South; indeed, if Reconstruction was "tragic," it was because
change did not go far enough, especially in the failure to distribute
land to the former slaves.  But in the federal civil rights laws and
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments enacted during the period,
Reconstruction laid the groundwork for future struggles for racial
equality.  In this scholarship, African-Americans emerged as major
historical actors, rather than victims of manipulation by others.  Their
political and religious organizations, economic aspirations, and the
social divisions among them attracted a new deal of scholarly
attention.  The economic transformation of the South and the complex
process by which various modes of free labor replaced the labor
system of slavery, became the focal point of numerous studies,
especially in the 1970s and 1980s.  Other historians sought to place
this country's adjustment to emancipation in an international context,
comparing Reconstruction in the United States with the aftermath of
slavery in the Caribbean, Brazil, and elsewhere.  Most recently,
Reconstruction scholars, like those studying many other periods of
American history, have devoted close attention to the role of gender in
Reconstruction the reconstitution of black families, how the Civil War
affected ideologies of manhood, how freedom may have had different
meanings for freed women than for their brothers and husbands.

I look forward to discussing any of the issues raised by this body of
historical literature, as well as relating to Reconstruction's relevance
for our own times.  We live today in a "post-civil rights" era in some
ways analogous to the early 20th century.  But so long as the issues
central to Reconstruction remain unresolved -- the balance of power in
the federal system, the place of black Americans in national life, the
relationship between economic and political democracy -- an
understanding of that period will remain central to our teaching of
American history as a whole.

I'd like to conclude with a few questions to start our discussion. How
do you teach about Reconstruction and what resources do you use?
What relevance do you see in the history of Reconstruction for our
current politics and race relations? Should we think of Reconstruction
as a failure and if so, how do we explain this? Do the cycles of
Reconstruction historiography suggest that historical "truth" is
unobtainable and that historical interpretation tends to serve
immediate political ends?

Eric Foner

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=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 3 Oct 2001 16:19:28 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Natalie Hefter 
Subject:      Introduction
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

Good afternoon.  I have enjoyed all of the introductions and have finally
found time to send mine.  I work at the Coastal Discovery Museum on Hilton
Head Island, SC.  As the history educator at the Museum, my role includes
training our docents, leading public programs and teaching school programs
(mostly elementary and middle school students).

I am very interested in the discussions about Reconstruction as I would like
to expand how we interpret our area's history.  Hilton Head Island was
occupied by the Union from November 1861 through the end of the Civil War.
The effects of this occupation on the slave population is a topic that I
have recently begun to investigate.  In addition, the island was home to
Mitchelville, a town created in 1862 for the slaves, or contrabands as they
were called at the time.  According to recent research, this town had the
first compulsory education law in the state of South Carolina.

The unique conditions that existed on Hilton Head Island during the
occupation had a deep impact upon those families who remained after the War.
I hope to expand my research to examine the role of Reconstruction on the
Island and in the area.  I expect that I'll gain a great deal of information
from this forum to assist me in reaching this goal.

Thank you,

Natalie Hefter
Vice President of History
Coastal Discovery Museum
P. O. Box 23497
Hilton Head Island, SC  29925
843-689-6767, ext. 225
www.coastaldiscovery.org

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Date:         Wed, 3 Oct 2001 19:47:48 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Lisa auslander 
Subject:      Reconstruction in Middle Schools
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
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Hi-
I am an 8th grade Social Studies teacher at I.S. 311 in Brooklyn. I also
like others have said feel a great urgency to teach about Reconstruction to
my students. I have taken Dr. Foner's statement seriously when he refers to
it as the first Civil Rights movement. I tell the students this and I feel
it piques their interest and gets them involved in a real discussion - We
later do a unit on the Civil Rights movement and I try to make connections
and lead them to the connections as much as possible. Any further
suggestions on how to set this up will be wonderful.

Also I teach the novel in my history clsass Out from this Place by Joyce
Hanson which is set at the end of the Civil War and exposes the paradox of
"freedom" after the war's end for a "family" of former enslaved people who
run to the North. I think the book is a great way for eighth graders to
discuss the ideas because it has real life characters going through the
trials and tribulations this time period brought African Americans.

 I am also not supposed to spend so much on Reconstruction but I do devote 6
weeks to it including a review of the Civil War because I feel it is such an
important prelude to the other in depth units we study.

I look forward to reading more.

lisa auslander
brooklyn, NY

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Date:         Wed, 3 Oct 2001 18:56:00 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Austin Manghan 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
In-Reply-To:  <003d01c14c3b$75da3260$1ae97ad1@kablen>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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In response to  Len Rabinowitz,

I'm a HS teacher.  I assume that most of my students
don't read the text book.  I provide them with as much
primary source material as I can.




Austin Manghan
Longwood HS
Middle Island NY

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Date:         Wed, 3 Oct 2001 20:47:34 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Margaret D. Blough" <102505.271@COMPUSERVE.COM>
Subject:      Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
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Message text written by Reconstruction Forum
>
Id like to conclude with a few questions to start our discussion. How
do you teach about Reconstruction and what resources do you use?
What relevance do you see in the history of Reconstruction for our
current politics and race relations? Should we think of Reconstruction
as a failure and if so, how do we explain this? Do the cycles of
Reconstruction historiography suggest that historical "truth" is
unobtainable and that historical interpretation tends to serve
immediate political ends?

Eric Foner<

My name is Margaret Blough.   I am an attorney with the Pennsylvania Human
Relations Commission, although I'm participating in this, personally,
rather than as an official representative of the PHRC. I don't teach, as
such.  However, while the PHRC investigates and litigates complaints of
discrimination, another important part of the its work is in education and
community services, both in responding to and to preventing  racial tension
situations.  Understanding the history of and the forces that have affected
race relations in this country, both for good and for ill, is an important
part of this work.  It is why the PHRC allowed me  to attend last year's
NPS Ford's Theater symposium on expanding interpretation at Civil War sites
on agency time, rather than my having to use earned leave .    I hope to
learn a great deal from the participants in this forum.


Margaret D. Blough

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=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 4 Oct 2001 09:56:42 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Eric Foner 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
In-Reply-To:  <200110032049_MC3-E226-E088@compuserve.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

To members of the Reconstruction Forum:

        Many thanks for the fascinating messages that have opened our
discussion.  Many questions raised by one individual have already been
answered by another.  Let me offer the following prelimiary comments on
some of the issues.  (You will see that I am not addressing issues of high
school and 8th grade teaching methods and materials -- not because I
have no interest in this, far from it, but because I defer to those with
far more experience in this aspect of teaching than I.)

        Let me begin by saying that while I am delighted that my books on
Reconstruction are widely used, no one should think for a moment that as a
result of my work the field is "moribund" or that no new issues need to be
addressed.  Important new work continues to appear -- on gender relations
in Reconstruction, local politics,the aftermath of Reconstruction, etc.,
etc.  No work of history is ever the last word.

        In response to some specific questions let me direct respondents
to the forllowing:  on African American women in slavery and
Reconstruction, the work of Deborah White on slave women, Dorthy Sterling,
We are Your Sisters on black women in the 19th century, Laura Edwards on
gender in Reconstruction, and the Freedmen and Southern Society Project's
published volumes (under tht title Freedom) for documents from both women
and men during this era.
        On Cuba and Reconstruction, Rebecca Scott has written important
articles in the recent issue of Past and Present, and a fairly recent one
orf the American Historical Review.  She is shortly coming out with a
world-wide bibliography of emancipation and its aftermath, which should be
of value to everyone.
        I myself often find that the last thirty years of scholarship have
not affected the view of the era among the general public.  It takes a
long time for these viewes to percolate outwards.  I have tried to do my
best by curating a museum exhibit on Reconstruction that traveled to
several states (the catalog, with many illustrations from the period, is
available from LSU Press with the title, America's Reconstruction).  The
Dunning schooll view has an amazing resiliency, and some participants have
suggested.  I often find, at least at the college level, however, that the
main problem is simple ignorance of Reconstruction, not inaccurate views.
This goes backs to textbooks and coverage in high school courses, as many
participants have noted.

        On corruption -- this was certainly a feature of Reconstruction
government and needs to be discussed and placed in context.  In the long
version of my Reconstruction history I try to put it in context.  The main
point, I think, is to dispel the older idea that corruption meant that
blacks were not capable of intelligently exercising the right to vote.
Here is where mention of the Tweed ring, Grant administration scandals,
etc is useful -- to show that corruption was national, and not a byproduct
of black suffrage in the South.

        Let's leave reparations to another time, although it is certainly
useful to know that this idea did not emerge yesterday,  40 acres and a
mule was in effect a kind of reparations demand, although the term was not
used in the 1860s.

        Thanks to all for their very interesting and helpful comments.


                Eric Foner

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=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 4 Oct 2001 11:16:04 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Margaret S. Thompson" 
Organization: Syracuse University
Subject:      Re: Reconstruction corruption
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Eric Foner wrote:
>
>         On corruption -- this was certainly a feature of Reconstruction
> government and needs to be discussed and placed in context.  In the long
> version of my Reconstruction history I try to put it in context.  The main
> point, I think, is to dispel the older idea that corruption meant that
> blacks were not capable of intelligently exercising the right to vote.
> Here is where mention of the Tweed ring, Grant administration scandals,
> etc is useful -- to show that corruption was national, and not a byproduct
> of black suffrage in the South.

While corruption was certainly a reality, might it not also be said that
the reputation for corruption (both contemporary and in a lot of the
relevant historiography) is also a result of uncertainty and confusion
over what was part of the larger phenomenon of political modernization?
Anyway, I hope so--at least, that is a major aspect of what I tried to
argue in my book (_The 'Spider Web': Congress and Lobbying in the Age of
Grant_ [Cornell Univ. Press, 1985]) and in at least one article
("Corruption--or Confusion? Lobbying and Congressional Government in the
Early Gilded Age." _Congress and the Presidency_, Fall 1983; reprinted
in _The United States Congress in a Partisan Political Nation,
1841-1896_, ed. Joel H. Silbey, Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing, Inc.,
1991, Vol. III).

I guess my point here is that--like much of the other stereotyping that
characterizes too much of Reconstruction historiography, it might be
worth looking at the matter of corruption in this respect, as well.

Margaret Thompson
--
Prof. Margaret Susan Thompson--msthomps@twcny.rr.com
History Department--145 Eggers Hall
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244
(315) 443-2210 (voice), 443-5876 (fax)
MODPREZ website: http://classes.maxwell.syr.edu/hst341/
SisterSite: http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/1114/

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Date:         Thu, 4 Oct 2001 11:24:24 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Jim Hart 
Subject:      Accessing and Locating Scholarly Works

Hello, all.  By way of introduction, I am a doctoral candidate at Oklahoma
State U.  My wife and five of my brothers and sisters-in-law are teachers,
ranging from high school math, to middle school social studies, to
elementary.  I am extremely interested in teaching 19th century history at
the university level someday, and am very sympathetic to the conditions
faced by primary and secondary teachers in Oklahoma and elsewhere.

Regarding the teaching of Reconstruction (actually, of all history) in high
schools, my experience leads me to believe that academic preparation for
teachers at the college level should be strengthened.  This statement is
not a disparagement of teachers (many of whom do their best to increase
their knowledge on their own, as evidenced by their level of participation
in this forum), but a criticism of the way history ed. programs are
structured.  In Oklahoma (which ranks very high nationally in teacher
preparation, but virtually last in teacher compensation), prospective
history teachers take surveys in US history, an Oklahoma history course,
and a smattering of period courses.  In my view, this only scratches the
surface of the material and cannot be considered adequate.  University
professors in Oklahoma routinely disparage the job our high school teachers
do in preparing students for college-level courses, but they have to know
that the problem begins with their own department's method of training
teachers.

One of the greatest aids that I can think of for increasing an educator's
knowledge of history (particularly in interpretation of areas such as
Reconstruction) would be access to the orals reading lists required of
doctoral candidates at universities such as Oklahoma State.  Before
beginning my doctoral work and being introduced to OSU's lists, I found it
extremely difficult to identify the most important works in many areas.
These are not works, after all, that make any bestseller lists and are not
usually on the shelves at Barnes & Noble.  My question is why more
universities don't give the public access to these lists via the internet,
or at least make it known to the students in their history education
programs that they are available.  Columbia was one of the few to have
their orals lists on the internet, but they have recently removed them from
public access (at least, I can no longer locate them).  These lists would
be a tremendous help to all teachers and would help to provide university
professors with better-prepared students for their own classes.

Jim Hart

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Date:         Thu, 4 Oct 2001 12:03:09 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Hal Morris 
Subject:      Re: Reconstruction corruption
In-Reply-To:  <3BBC7D34.7EEDFC8C@twcny.rr.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Prof Foner's comments on putting corruption in context are well taken.

Also, isn't it likely that the idea of "carpetbagger corruption" can be
largely traced to attacks on Reconstruction by angry pro-secession
Southerners?  An interesting question for advanced students to try to
resolve -- following the trail of footnotes back to newspaper articles,
and then perhaps trying to resolve whether there is was biased selection
of newspaper articles whose affects were perpetuated over the decades.

Hal Morris: hal@panix.com   --  Editor of:
* H-SHEAR Web pages: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~shear
* Jacksonian Miscellanies: Free sources & commentary (email for info).
* Tales of the Early Republic web site: http://WWW.EarlyRepublic.net

On Thu, 4 Oct 2001, Margaret S. Thompson wrote:

> Eric Foner wrote:
> >
> >         On corruption -- this was certainly a feature of Reconstruction
> > government and needs to be discussed and placed in context.  In the long
> > version of my Reconstruction history I try to put it in context.  The main
> > point, I think, is to dispel the older idea that corruption meant that
> > blacks were not capable of intelligently exercising the right to vote.
> > Here is where mention of the Tweed ring, Grant administration scandals,
> > etc is useful -- to show that corruption was national, and not a byproduct
> > of black suffrage in the South.
>
> While corruption was certainly a reality, might it not also be said that
> the reputation for corruption (both contemporary and in a lot of the
> relevant historiography) is also a result of uncertainty and confusion
> over what was part of the larger phenomenon of political modernization?
> Anyway, I hope so--at least, that is a major aspect of what I tried to
> argue in my book (_The 'Spider Web': Congress and Lobbying in the Age of
> Grant_ [Cornell Univ. Press, 1985]) and in at least one article
> ("Corruption--or Confusion? Lobbying and Congressional Government in the
> Early Gilded Age." _Congress and the Presidency_, Fall 1983; reprinted
> in _The United States Congress in a Partisan Political Nation,
> 1841-1896_, ed. Joel H. Silbey, Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing, Inc.,
> 1991, Vol. III).
>
> I guess my point here is that--like much of the other stereotyping that
> characterizes too much of Reconstruction historiography, it might be
> worth looking at the matter of corruption in this respect, as well.
>
> Margaret Thompson
> --
> Prof. Margaret Susan Thompson--msthomps@twcny.rr.com
> History Department--145 Eggers Hall
> Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244
> (315) 443-2210 (voice), 443-5876 (fax)
> MODPREZ website: http://classes.maxwell.syr.edu/hst341/
> SisterSite: http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/1114/
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

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Date:         Thu, 4 Oct 2001 12:18:37 -0500
Reply-To:     SethW@Maine.edu
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Seth M. Wigderson" 
Subject:      Reconstruction and the US History Survey Course
In-Reply-To:  
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Dear Friends,

Let me join with others in introducing myself.  I teach US History at the
University of Maine at Augusta as well as moderate the H-Labor list.
I occasionally get to teach a Civil War-Rconstruction course, but my min
teaching responsibility is the two semester US History Survey course.
Since my school's students are mostly nontraditional, my classes meet only
once a week for 2 3/4 hours.

My dilemma is that I either have to deal with Reconstruction as the last
meeting of US History I, or the first meeting of US History II.

With US History I,  students are at least familiar with some of the basic
questions and players, and have read the textbook and some documents.
But that last meeting of the semester is often hectic.

Even worse is the first meeting of US History II.  Most of the students have
not taken US History I, and have done no reading.  Furthermore, since we
continue to divide US history at Civil War/Reconstruction, and since time has
a nasty habit of marching on, US History II includes an ever longer time
span.  [When I first taught it in 1977, Jimmy Carter had just won the
Presidency from Gerald Ford who had defeated Ronald Reagan for the GOP
nomination.]  This means that I do not have the luxury of using the first week
as introductory and then tackling Reconstruction in the second week.

Any suggestions, particularly based on personal experience, will be much
appreciated.

Seth Wigderson

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=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 4 Oct 2001 14:16:49 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Jim Hart 
Subject:      Re: Accessing and Locating Scholarly Works

I was reading back over my prior post and became concerned that it sounded
like I was criticizing high school teachers.  Please know that I had no
such intention. I have the highest regard for the job secondary teachers
are doing in the field of history.  Several of the posts by high school
teachers on this forum so far show how hard they are working and the
innovative methods they are using to try to teach their students difficult
concepts.  The message I meant to convey is simply that I do not understand
why universities do not make their reading lists more accessible.  It would
cost the universities very little, would not hurt their enrollments, and
would be very helpful to all who are trying to teach or to learn.  If I
offended anybody, it was unintentional, and I apologize.  Jim Hart

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=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 4 Oct 2001 14:40:25 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Susan O'Donovan 
Subject:      Re: Reconstruction and the US History Survey Course

Dear Colleagues:

Let me introduce myself.  I teach Afro-American Studies and History at
Harvard; for the past eight years, I was an editor on the Freedmen &
Southern Society Project at the University of Maryland.

In teaching Reconstruction, I like to kick off with a section devoted the
multiple and often conflicting meanings of freedom.  Rather than lecture,
however, I use four documents, all produced in 1865, to lay out the larger
positions.  The documents include a rather unilateral labor contract drawn
up the summer of 1865 by a Texas planter in which he hires the services of
what appears to be his entire former slave force, binding them to finish
out the season working for him.  He expects them to work as "heretofore,"
pledges them to obedience, and promises to pay whatever he thinks they're
worth at the end of the year.  Document number two is a speech by a Union
officer to Virginia freedpeople articulating an employer's version of
Northern free-labor ideology and the officer's own sense of former slaves'
responsibilities as free men.  Document number three is one of the two
petitions written by former slaves on Edisto Island, S.C., protesting the
federal government's retreat from promises of land.  Document number four
is letter from several Georgia freedpeople explaining that they have no
inherent objection to making a living as wage workers, but that they expect
to have a part in determining the terms of their employment (which offers a
nice response to the Texas contract).

These documents not only set up discussions about the politics of land and
labor in Reconstruction, they also serve as provocative springboards into
other discussions--including but certainly not limited to questions of
gender, of community, of the changing relationship between individuals and
the state, and of looming national debates about workers more generally.
On days when I'm feeling especially inventive, I'll use the Texas contract
to read "backwards" into slavery.  Indeed, when I use these materials, I
find that I keep referring back them as the course moves out of the South
and into the waning years of the nineteenth century.

I have used these documents successfully in high school classes as well as
in upper and lower level college history courses.  I've also used them with
secondary educators at a summer teachers' institute.

By way of a little, self-serving plug, all of the aforementioned documents
(and many many others) will soon be available in a new volume of Freedom: A
Documentary History of Emancipation, Land and Labor, 1865, forthcoming from
Cambridge University Press.

Susan O'Donovan
Assistant Professor
Afro-American Studies and History
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138

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=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 4 Oct 2001 13:46:03 -0500
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Joe Berry 
Subject:      Re: Reconstruction in Middle Schools
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Just one additional note on relevant novels. Besides my previously
mentioned Freedom Road by Fast, the other truly great novel of Recon,
IMO, is Jubilee by Margaret Walker (Alexander), who also wrote a very
good booklet called How I Wrote Jubilee. She is one of the great
intellects culturally of the African-American community, and of the US,
of the 20th century and greatly underrated.The novel started as her
dissertation-equivalent  about her grandmother for the Writers Workshop
at U of Iowa, which was not a unformly friendly place to her, needless
to say. She recently died in Jackson, MI, where she taught for years at
Jackson State. This is the novel that Alex Haley partly used as a model
for Roots and is fact was sued for it by her (suit lost due to lack of
direct quotations). The book has gone in and out of print a few times,
but I believe it is back in print now. Together with her booklet on it,
it could make a very good unit, or one could use selected chapters only.
The links to the present then would just jump out. BTW, her son, Firnist
Alexander, became a civil rights lawyer in the  1960's in Jackson and
practiced there for decades.

Joe Berry

Lisa auslander wrote:
>
> Hi-
> I am an 8th grade Social Studies teacher at I.S. 311 in Brooklyn. I also
> like others have said feel a great urgency to teach about Reconstruction to
> my students. I have taken Dr. Foner's statement seriously when he refers to
> it as the first Civil Rights movement. I tell the students this and I feel
> it piques their interest and gets them involved in a real discussion - We
> later do a unit on the Civil Rights movement and I try to make connections
> and lead them to the connections as much as possible. Any further
> suggestions on how to set this up will be wonderful.
>
> Also I teach the novel in my history clsass Out from this Place by Joyce
> Hanson which is set at the end of the Civil War and exposes the paradox of
> "freedom" after the war's end for a "family" of former enslaved people who
> run to the North. I think the book is a great way for eighth graders to
> discuss the ideas because it has real life characters going through the
> trials and tribulations this time period brought African Americans.
>
>  I am also not supposed to spend so much on Reconstruction but I do devote 6
> weeks to it including a review of the Civil War because I feel it is such an
> important prelude to the other in depth units we study.
>
> I look forward to reading more.
>
> lisa auslander
> brooklyn, NY
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

--
Joe Berry
1453 W. Flournoy, #3F
Chicago, IL 60607
Phone/fax: 312-733-2172
Email 

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=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 4 Oct 2001 15:18:13 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Pete Haro 
Subject:      Re: Reconstruction and the US History Survey Course
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

Susan: Could you elaborate on what outcomes you are trying to achieve when
you introduce the aforementioned primary sources on Reconstruction.
Sincerely,


Peter D. Haro.

----------
>From: Susan O'Donovan 
>To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: Re: Reconstruction and the US History Survey Course
>Date: Thu, Oct 4, 2001, 11:40 AM
>

> Dear Colleagues:
>
> Let me introduce myself.  I teach Afro-American Studies and History at
> Harvard; for the past eight years, I was an editor on the Freedmen &
> Southern Society Project at the University of Maryland.
>
> In teaching Reconstruction, I like to kick off with a section devoted the
> multiple and often conflicting meanings of freedom.  Rather than lecture,
> however, I use four documents, all produced in 1865, to lay out the larger
> positions.  The documents include a rather unilateral labor contract drawn
> up the summer of 1865 by a Texas planter in which he hires the services of
> what appears to be his entire former slave force, binding them to finish
> out the season working for him.  He expects them to work as "heretofore,"
> pledges them to obedience, and promises to pay whatever he thinks they're
> worth at the end of the year.  Document number two is a speech by a Union
> officer to Virginia freedpeople articulating an employer's version of
> Northern free-labor ideology and the officer's own sense of former slaves'
> responsibilities as free men.  Document number three is one of the two
> petitions written by former slaves on Edisto Island, S.C., protesting the
> federal government's retreat from promises of land.  Document number four
> is letter from several Georgia freedpeople explaining that they have no
> inherent objection to making a living as wage workers, but that they expect
> to have a part in determining the terms of their employment (which offers a
> nice response to the Texas contract).
>
> These documents not only set up discussions about the politics of land and
> labor in Reconstruction, they also serve as provocative springboards into
> other discussions--including but certainly not limited to questions of
> gender, of community, of the changing relationship between individuals and
> the state, and of looming national debates about workers more generally.
> On days when I'm feeling especially inventive, I'll use the Texas contract
> to read "backwards" into slavery.  Indeed, when I use these materials, I
> find that I keep referring back them as the course moves out of the South
> and into the waning years of the nineteenth century.
>
> I have used these documents successfully in high school classes as well as
> in upper and lower level college history courses.  I've also used them with
> secondary educators at a summer teachers' institute.
>
> By way of a little, self-serving plug, all of the aforementioned documents
> (and many many others) will soon be available in a new volume of Freedom: A
> Documentary History of Emancipation, Land and Labor, 1865, forthcoming from
> Cambridge University Press.
>
> Susan O'Donovan
> Assistant Professor
> Afro-American Studies and History
> Harvard University
> Cambridge, MA 02138
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 Oct 2001 07:55:20 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Susan O'Donovan 
Subject:      Re: Reconstruction and the US History Survey Course
Comments: To: Pete Haro 

Man am I embarrassed!  Having been an associate editor for years, I managed
to accidently promote myself to "associate professor" in my last post.
Please excuse my error.  I'm an assistant professor, and will be for some
time to come.  Susan

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Date:         Fri, 5 Oct 2001 07:38:54 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Susan E O'Donovan 
Subject:      Re: Reconstruction and the US History Survey Course
In-Reply-To:  <200110042212.PAA03186@harrier.mail.pas.earthlink.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Dear Peter and colleagues:

My apologies, I should have anticipated this question in my earlier post.

In using documents to teach the early moments of Reconstruction my goals
are multiple.  At the pedagogical level, my students use the documents to
hone their analytical skills.  I usually display the document using an
overhead projector and then the students take turns reading aloud.   We
work our way slowly through the document, line-by-line,
statement-by-statement, asking questions of it, probing implications, and
considering how the document relates to the broader context.   As we all
know, these are skills students can apply to any number of pursuits.

But in struggling to historicize these particular documents, the students
transform themselves into historians of the Reconstruction era.  For
example, in using the labor contract I described, the dateline itself
prompts the first question-what does it mean that it was drawn up in July
1865 in Texas where we know there was no Freedmen's Bureau presence until
the fall?  Why would the planter even bother?  On the flip side, why do
the former slaves accept the agreement (the text of the document indicates
they do accept and do stay)?   Each clause prompts more questions.  What
does the phrase "work as heretofore" mean?  What's the significance of
including a termination date?  Why would the planter want to limit the
movement of his workers on and off his plantation?  What role did the
workers have in establishing the terms of the contract?   What does it
mean that there's only one signature at the bottom (the planter's)?
Finally, the big one:  what sort of freedom does the author envision, and
in the case of this contract, is he envisioning a new slavery or something
else?

We repeat these general steps with each document.  (Depending on the
length of the class period, I sometimes spread this work out over several
class meetings.)  By the time we've worked through them one thing is
clear.  The meaning of freedom is not self-evident, that the different
meanings people ascribe are often conflicting, and that those differences
arise out of past experiences as much as out of the present turmoil.

Since I deliberately use documents drawn from 1865, I can then use them to
set up more general discussions about Presidential Reconstruction, the
black codes, and freedpeople's efforts to challenge both through political
mobilization, institution building, and a reliance on family and community
connections, which if I'm on the ball, allows me to segue neatly into
Radical Reconstruction.  On a more practical level, documents engage the
students in ways rarely done by textbooks and monographs and permit them
opportunity to hone their analytical and critical thinking skills.
(Before anyone asks, of course I assign secondary literature, there's no
escaping that!)

Susan O'Donovan
Associate Professor
Afro-American Studies and History
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138

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Date:         Thu, 4 Oct 2001 23:34:32 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Roger Grande 
Subject:      Re: Reconstruction and the US History Survey Course
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

Susan O'Donovan:

Your use of the documents sounds great--any possibility you could post them?

Roger Grande
Brookline HS

At 02:40 PM 10/4/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>Dear Colleagues:
>
>Let me introduce myself.  I teach Afro-American Studies and History at
>Harvard; for the past eight years, I was an editor on the Freedmen &
>Southern Society Project at the University of Maryland.
>
>In teaching Reconstruction, I like to kick off with a section devoted the
>multiple and often conflicting meanings of freedom.  Rather than lecture,
>however, I use four documents, all produced in 1865, to lay out the larger
>positions.  The documents include a rather unilateral labor contract drawn
>up the summer of 1865 by a Texas planter in which he hires the services of
>what appears to be his entire former slave force, binding them to finish
>out the season working for him.  He expects them to work as "heretofore,"
>pledges them to obedience, and promises to pay whatever he thinks they're
>worth at the end of the year.  Document number two is a speech by a Union
>officer to Virginia freedpeople articulating an employer's version of
>Northern free-labor ideology and the officer's own sense of former slaves'
>responsibilities as free men.  Document number three is one of the two
>petitions written by former slaves on Edisto Island, S.C., protesting the
>federal government's retreat from promises of land.  Document number four
>is letter from several Georgia freedpeople explaining that they have no
>inherent objection to making a living as wage workers, but that they expect
>to have a part in determining the terms of their employment (which offers a
>nice response to the Texas contract).
>
>These documents not only set up discussions about the politics of land and
>labor in Reconstruction, they also serve as provocative springboards into
>other discussions--including but certainly not limited to questions of
>gender, of community, of the changing relationship between individuals and
>the state, and of looming national debates about workers more generally.
>On days when I'm feeling especially inventive, I'll use the Texas contract
>to read "backwards" into slavery.  Indeed, when I use these materials, I
>find that I keep referring back them as the course moves out of the South
>and into the waning years of the nineteenth century.
>
>I have used these documents successfully in high school classes as well as
>in upper and lower level college history courses.  I've also used them with
>secondary educators at a summer teachers' institute.
>
>By way of a little, self-serving plug, all of the aforementioned documents
>(and many many others) will soon be available in a new volume of Freedom: A
>Documentary History of Emancipation, Land and Labor, 1865, forthcoming from
>Cambridge University Press.
>
>Susan O'Donovan
>Assistant Professor
>Afro-American Studies and History
>Harvard University
>Cambridge, MA 02138
>
>This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
>http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

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Date:         Fri, 5 Oct 2001 11:28:28 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Jonathan M. Bryant" 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
In-Reply-To:  <003d01c14c3b$75da3260$1ae97ad1@kablen>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

Clearly, Len Rabinowitz, Donna Sharer, and others are trying very hard to
teach innovatively about the Reconstruction period, and are hungry for
materials they can use.  Those of us who teach in Universities often don't
realize how constrained public school teachers are in obtaining and using
materials for their classes.  Also, they face the problem of
parental/administrative response if they present too "radical" a
perspective in class.  Thus, teachers can often feel trapped by prevailing
understandings and unequiped with materials to challenge those understandings.

Textbooks offer little help.  James W. Lowen in _Lies My Teacher Told Me:
Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong_ laid out a devestating
and cogent critique of the leading High School History Texts.  It also
provides wonderful information, so at the least a teacher can get a copy of
Lowen's book and discuss in class some of the issues he raises.

If a teacher does have the opportunity to use new books in a unit on the
Civil War and Reconstruction,  one of the best available is the New Press's
_Freedom's Unfinished Revolution: An Inquiry into the Civil War and
Reconstruction_ (A volume to which Professor Foner contributed - perhaps he
is qualified to discuss these issues?)  This work provides some primary
materials for the students and discussion of leading questions, all aimed
at a High School audience.  I recommend it very highly, though I suspect it
is used only in AP classes and the like.

Finally, the ongoing Freedom Project that Professor O'Donovan mentioned has
published a remarkable collection of primary sources that I constantly raid
for my own survey class.  Sadly, they only go through 1867, but none the
less are excellent.  A few minutes xeroxing and you can have the entire
class discussing some of the most interesting materials from the National
Archive.

Jon Bryant

Professor Jonathan  M.  Bryant
Department of History, Box 8054
Georgia Southern University
Statesboro, Ga. 30460-8054
jbryant@ gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
Tel.: (912) 681-5818
Fax:  (912) 681-0377

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Date:         Fri, 5 Oct 2001 14:46:04 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Len Rabinowitz 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I am a strong believer in the primary documents approach.  I think they
really help to bring history to life.  They tell students that these events
were real- they weren't born in a book.

I think also that role playing can help secondary students get a handle on
this.  I have done exercises where students have role-played the various
interest groups and tried to generate a Reconstruction plan.  It can serve
to highlight the difficulties.

The hardest thing I find for students to get over is that it's not over when
the war is over.  That's a tough one for younger students.

I don't want to be too hard on texts and administrators- history textbooks
have an impossible task, as do school administrators.  Loewen's book is a
few years out of date now, and although it is very instructive there are new
texts and the older ones have changed.  Many have primary sources right in
the textbook or websites that can lead to primary sources.

I'm kind of interested in something I mentioned earlier- Reconstruction as a
beginning, not an ending or afterthought.  Separate it from the war.

Related to that, I am very interested in teh area of textbooks, actually-
would antbody know where I could turn to work on or help write a more
primary source and research based textbook?  Would anyone be interested in
such a project?

Perhaps Professor Foner knows where we might find Reconstruction primary
source documents on the web- particularly those of a visual nature good for
younger students?

I'm kind of interested in how this transitions into 19th century racial
views, and even into Social Darwinism and Imperialism.

Len Rabinowitz
Ashland High School
Ashland, MA
kablen@massed.net

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan M. Bryant" 
To: 
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2001 11:28 AM
Subject: Re: high school teaching


> Clearly, Len Rabinowitz, Donna Sharer, and others are trying very hard to
> teach innovatively about the Reconstruction period, and are hungry for
> materials they can use.  Those of us who teach in Universities often don't
> realize how constrained public school teachers are in obtaining and using
> materials for their classes.  Also, they face the problem of
> parental/administrative response if they present too "radical" a
> perspective in class.  Thus, teachers can often feel trapped by prevailing
> understandings and unequiped with materials to challenge those
understandings.
>
> Textbooks offer little help.  James W. Lowen in _Lies My Teacher Told Me:
> Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong_ laid out a
devestating
> and cogent critique of the leading High School History Texts.  It also
> provides wonderful information, so at the least a teacher can get a copy
of
> Lowen's book and discuss in class some of the issues he raises.
>
> If a teacher does have the opportunity to use new books in a unit on the
> Civil War and Reconstruction,  one of the best available is the New
Press's
> _Freedom's Unfinished Revolution: An Inquiry into the Civil War and
> Reconstruction_ (A volume to which Professor Foner contributed - perhaps
he
> is qualified to discuss these issues?)  This work provides some primary
> materials for the students and discussion of leading questions, all aimed
> at a High School audience.  I recommend it very highly, though I suspect
it
> is used only in AP classes and the like.
>
> Finally, the ongoing Freedom Project that Professor O'Donovan mentioned
has
> published a remarkable collection of primary sources that I constantly
raid
> for my own survey class.  Sadly, they only go through 1867, but none the
> less are excellent.  A few minutes xeroxing and you can have the entire
> class discussing some of the most interesting materials from the National
> Archive.
>
> Jon Bryant
>
> Professor Jonathan  M.  Bryant
> Department of History, Box 8054
> Georgia Southern University
> Statesboro, Ga. 30460-8054
> jbryant@ gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
> Tel.: (912) 681-5818
> Fax:  (912) 681-0377
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 5 Oct 2001 14:27:15 -0500
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         michael fitzgerald 
Subject:      Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

>X-Sender: fitz@stolaf.edu
>X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32)
>Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2001 14:48:37 -0500
>To: fitz
>From: michael fitzgerald 
>Subject: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
>
>
>>
>>I’d like to conclude with a few questions to start our discussion. How
>>do you teach about Reconstruction and what resources do you use?
>>What relevance do you see in the history of Reconstruction for our
>>current politics and race relations? Should we think of Reconstruction
>>as a failure and if so, how do we explain this? Do the cycles of
>>Reconstruction historiography suggest that historical "truth" is
>>unobtainable and that historical interpretation tends to serve
>>immediate political ends?
>>
>>Eric Foner
>>

Hello, everyone, I'm Mike Fitzgerald, and I teach at St. Olaf College, a
liberal arts college here in Minnesota.  I teach African American and
Southern history, specifically courses on the Civil War era, the second
half of the US survey, and a one semester (!) African American history
course.  Reconstruction is my primary scholarly focus.

In reference to Prof. Foner's opening questions quoted above: I've been
frustrated over the years trying to teach Reconstruction to undergraduates.
Much as I love the topic, and like Prof. Foner's _Short History of
Reconstruction_ as a text, I've had great difficulty getting them to engage
fully with the topic.  The social history of emancipation they generally
find interesting, but throwing in the political dimension seems to confuse
them.  I've tried everything I could think of by way of a text: this
semester I'm indeed trying Tourgee's _A Fool's Errand_, we'll see how it
goes.  The problem may be that the political complexity of the events is
inherently difficult, and that this generation of undergraduates tend not
to take the formal political process as all that urgent a concern.

As a Reconstruction scholar, I of course see the relevance of the topic for
contemporary racial concerns.  But I think one problem in communicating
this to undergraduates is that the analogy to the southern civil rights
movement is losing some of its effect.  For decades after the 1960s, this
analogy animated much of the popular and scholarly interest in the topic,
but America has moved on to other civil rights issues.

At least, that's my sense of things nowadays.

At any event, I've enjoyed hearing everyone's sense of what works well
teaching in this field, what readings work best.  But I do have one
substantive issue I'd like to comment on.  People should take the
corruption issue seriously; having worked extensively on Reconstruction in
Alabama, my sense is these governments had serious problems of fraud and
corporate influence and fraud.  Good as the Reconstruction governments were
on the overriding civil rights issue, and typical as this problem was at
the national level, people shouldn't just dismiss the corruption issue as a
smokescreen.  That issue had much to do with the overthrow of
Reconstruction and the toxic legacy its defeat left behind.

Thanks,

Mike Fitzgerald
St. Olaf College

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=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 6 Oct 2001 07:18:47 -0500
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Rosemary Hopkins 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I am interested in the sites your students use.
Rosemary Hopkins
Nerinx Hall High School
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Grande" 
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2001 6:30 PM
Subject: Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner


> My name is Roger Grande, I teach history at Brookline High School in
> Massachusetts.
>
> The most compelling thing about Reconstruction for me is its legacy--I
> spend a good deal of time when I teach this unit discussing the extent to
> which equality has or has not been achieved.  Arica Coleman's comments
> spoke to this issue a lot.  However, I'm increasinly ambivelant about
> presenting the issue as an African American issue; rather inequality
> today--despite the fact that being Black makes you disproportionately
> likely to be in some form of custody or poor--functions more as a class
> issue.  Race is a convenient means to distract us from class inequality.
>
> One article I give to students include a Boston Globe piece debating the
> raising of the Confederate flat over the South Carolina statehouse
> (2/20/97).  The article points to the 1960s and 1970s as the origin of the
> debate, associating it with the rise of the civil rights movement, thus
> complicating the significance of 'preserving Southern heritage.'  In
> particular the flag seemed to have taken on an anti-affirmative action
> symbolism, suggesting the conflation of race and class (fear over jobs).
>
> I also use an article from the Progressive Populist (6/15/2000) that
> describes the recent lawsuit against the USDA by black farmers who have
> disproportionately not recieved subsidies, resulting in the loss of
> black-owned farm land:  40 acres and a mule-redux.  In 1999 there were
> 18,000 black farmers, down from 925,000 in 1920.  In 1990, according to a
> congressional committee, black-owned farms were going out of business at a
> rate 5 times that of white farmers, predicting that by 2000 there would be
> no black owned farm land in the US.  [Contact Food First.org and BFAA at
> www.coax.net/people/lwf/bfaa.htm for more info.).
>
> The unit is completed with a research project on contemporary
> inequality.  Students research political equality (suffrage,
> representation), legal equality (due process, sentencing.) and economic
> equality (housing, income, education).  In particular they analyze
> sentencing patterns and the correlation to disenfranchisement--clearly a
> step backwards from Reconstruction, etc.  One might argue that the
> disparity in death sentencing is a form of--to borrow from Clarence
> Thomas--"legal lynching."  If people are interested I can post the web
> sites my students use for research (they include the Sentencing Project,
> Human Rights Watch, Census, MA department of Education and Bureau of
> Justice).
>
> Lastly I'd appreciate more information about reconstruction/post-slavery
> initiatives beyond our borders that others have referred to--I know little
> about what happened outside of the US.
>
> Roger Grande
>
>
> A great resource for disenfranchisement is the 1965 Alabama Literacy
> Test--I'd be surprised if 5% of Americans could pass it.  Available from
> Social Education.
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 6 Oct 2001 10:49:17 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Eric Foner 
In-Reply-To:  
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Dear colleagues,

With regard to a few issues raised in the last several days:

1- Corruption.  Mike Fitzgerald is correct that corruption in
Reconstruction was real.  However, for most states, the evidence now rests
solely on the accusations and investigations by Reconstruction's opponents
and in some cases is wildly exaggerated.  It is also important, as has
been noted, to see how the issue of corruption was used by Democrats and
future historians (as well as how it resonated with Northerners moving
away from support of Reconstruction).  Anew book by Heather Richardson,
The End of Reconstruction, is very good on this last point.

2-  Novels.  Toni Morison's Beloved is interesting in a way since although
it primarily deals with slavery it is set during the Reconstruction
period,but has nothing to say about events in the South.  It seems to
suggest that an erasure of Refconstruction is part of coming to terms with
the memory of slavery.

3- Teaching.  I don't feel that qualified to comment on instructional
materials.  On the web are very good Reconstruction images at thw website
of the Schomburg Center of the New York Public Library, and the Library of
Congress's collectioon of political cartoons and engravings of the 19th
century.  I used a bunch of images for a course I taught last year; I
believe the site should be accessible via the Columbia home page and then
the history department -- it is History W3122y from last spring.
Harpweek, the online Harpers Weekly, has a free site of images related to
Reconstruction.  The catalogue for my old Reconstruction exhibit
("America's Reconstruction") has many images -- it was published by LSU
Press.  There are many documents at the website of the Freedmen and
Southern Society Project.

I strongly favor using original documents from the period.  The ones
Prof. O'Donovan used are excellent.  Last year I gave a minicourse at
Columbia for some minority high school students in the NYC public schools
who we were trying to interest in going to college.  We spent half an hour
on the one Edisto Island petition, which opens up numerous issues about
the transition from slavery to freedom.

Eric Foner

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=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 6 Oct 2001 09:04:30 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Jean Libby 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

This is in response to Roger Grande's posting.  I teach at San Jose City
College, where there is a large percentage of Vietnamese immigrants as
residents and students.  Recently the U.S. Post Office, in an effort to be
"user friendly", posted pictures of national flags around the world
representing languages understood at the Post Office.  The national flag of
Vietnam represents the side of the enemy to most Vietnamese in San Jose, who
hold antiCommunist vigils every April 30 and sometimes  boycott class when
the Vietnam War is discussed.  So I tell students that flying the
Confederate flag on official buildings in the South creates comparable
feelings among  black and white Americans who believe that the North won the
Civil War, and should have won the Civil War.  These were the traitors.
This brings interest on the part of the students, and as there are many
negative isses between black students and Asian students, particularly
Vietnamese, it brings understanding to both groups.  We are rapidly losing
black residents in our District (and entire state, but especially urban
areas in northern California) so that the example may soon be "academic",
unless some abolition fire can be aroused in white students (also a minority
in U.S. History classes in San Jose).  There is an interesting article by
David Brion Davis in the New York Times Review of August 26, 2001, entitled
"Why the South Won the Civil War."

Can't let this pass by:  the statement by Clarence Thomas was "high-tech
lynching," not "legal lynching," during his confirmation hearings.

Thanks for interesting discussion, everyone, especially Professor Foner.

Jean Libby

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rosemary Hopkins" 
To: 
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 5:18 AM
Subject: Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner


> I am interested in the sites your students use.
> Rosemary Hopkins
> Nerinx Hall High School
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Roger Grande" 
> To: 
> Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2001 6:30 PM
> Subject: Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
>
>
> > My name is Roger Grande, I teach history at Brookline High School in
> > Massachusetts.
> >
> > The most compelling thing about Reconstruction for me is its legacy--I
> > spend a good deal of time when I teach this unit discussing the extent
to
> > which equality has or has not been achieved.  Arica Coleman's comments
> > spoke to this issue a lot.  However, I'm increasinly ambivelant about
> > presenting the issue as an African American issue; rather inequality
> > today--despite the fact that being Black makes you disproportionately
> > likely to be in some form of custody or poor--functions more as a class
> > issue.  Race is a convenient means to distract us from class inequality.
> >
> > One article I give to students include a Boston Globe piece debating the
> > raising of the Confederate flat over the South Carolina statehouse
> > (2/20/97).  The article points to the 1960s and 1970s as the origin of
the
> > debate, associating it with the rise of the civil rights movement, thus
> > complicating the significance of 'preserving Southern heritage.'  In
> > particular the flag seemed to have taken on an anti-affirmative action
> > symbolism, suggesting the conflation of race and class (fear over jobs).
> >
> > I also use an article from the Progressive Populist (6/15/2000) that
> > describes the recent lawsuit against the USDA by black farmers who have
> > disproportionately not recieved subsidies, resulting in the loss of
> > black-owned farm land:  40 acres and a mule-redux.  In 1999 there were
> > 18,000 black farmers, down from 925,000 in 1920.  In 1990, according to
a
> > congressional committee, black-owned farms were going out of business at
a
> > rate 5 times that of white farmers, predicting that by 2000 there would
be
> > no black owned farm land in the US.  [Contact Food First.org and BFAA at
> > www.coax.net/people/lwf/bfaa.htm for more info.).
> >
> > The unit is completed with a research project on contemporary
> > inequality.  Students research political equality (suffrage,
> > representation), legal equality (due process, sentencing.) and economic
> > equality (housing, income, education).  In particular they analyze
> > sentencing patterns and the correlation to disenfranchisement--clearly a
> > step backwards from Reconstruction, etc.  One might argue that the
> > disparity in death sentencing is a form of--to borrow from Clarence
> > Thomas--"legal lynching."  If people are interested I can post the web
> > sites my students use for research (they include the Sentencing Project,
> > Human Rights Watch, Census, MA department of Education and Bureau of
> > Justice).
> >
> > Lastly I'd appreciate more information about reconstruction/post-slavery
> > initiatives beyond our borders that others have referred to--I know
little
> > about what happened outside of the US.
> >
> > Roger Grande
> >
> >
> > A great resource for disenfranchisement is the 1965 Alabama Literacy
> > Test--I'd be surprised if 5% of Americans could pass it.  Available from
> > Social Education.
> >
> > This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 6 Oct 2001 09:18:18 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Shayne Klein 
Subject:      Re: Introductory Statement from Eric Foner
In-Reply-To:  
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

> I’d like to conclude with a few questions to start
> our discussion. How
> do you teach about Reconstruction and what resources
> do you use?
> What relevance do you see in the history of
> Reconstruction for our
> current politics and race relations? Should we think
> of Reconstruction
> as a failure and if so, how do we explain this? Do
> the cycles of
> Reconstruction historiography suggest that
> historical "truth" is
> unobtainable and that historical interpretation
> tends to serve
> immediate political ends?
>
> Eric Foner
>

My name is Shayne Klein and I teach AP US History at
Raleigh Charter HS in Raleigh, NC.  One of my favorite
things about teaching about Reconstruction is that it
allows me to teach about historiography and to engage
Prof. Foner's last question with students.  We discuss
whether it is possible to get at the historical
"truth" and the difference between good and bad
history in terms of methodology.  To get at this issue
I have students read the last chapter of DuBois'
_Black Reconstruction_ as well as some excerpts from
Dunning, Rhodes and Claude Bowers' _The Tragic Era_.

Since we need to fly in order to cover the history of
the US in a year, I never find enough time to teach
about Reconstruction in a completely satisfying way.
However, I find that documents from _Free At Last, the
Documentary History of Emancipation_ and examples from
my own undergraduate work on Reconstruction in South
Carolina help students see what the period was like on
the ground in the South including the optimism and the
violence.  I also tell them that during a trip to
Columbia, SC a few years ago I went to the state
history museum and Reconstruction isn't mentioned at
all in the exhibit on the history of the state.  It
skips from a Civil War display of Confederate and
Union uniforms to a display on sharecropping and a
one-room schoolhouse.



=====
Shayne Klein
History Teacher and Deparment Chair
Raleigh Charter High School
919-839-0600
seklein@yahoo.com

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=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 6 Oct 2001 12:44:42 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Ranjit S Dighe 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
In-Reply-To:  <5.0.0.25.1.20011005102922.05870de8@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

I'd like to second Prof. Bryant's recommendation of James Loewen's LIES MY
TEACHER TOLD ME, which does a masterful job of puncturing the myths about
Reconstruction as an era of corrupt "Negro rule," while providing lots of
specifics about the positive accomplishments of that era.  For those who
haven't read the book, the key chapter is the one on "the invisibility of
anti-racism" in high-school history textbooks.  I'm actually using
Loewen's book as a supplementary text this semester in two different
college courses (American Economic History Before 1900, Introduction to
Social Science).

I don't doubt the contention raised by someone else (sorry, I don't have
your name handy) that Loewen's general criticism of HS textbooks is a bit
dated, but I would expect that many of the 12 texts he looked at are still
being used.  Also, even if dated, the blind nationalism that most of those
textbooks offer is what most of us were probably fed while growing up, and
much of the now-embarrassing material in those texts reflected the
dominant views of mainstream academic historians.  (Loewen, for example,
quotes a textbook written by the great historians Morison and Commager
that said, "As for Sambo, whose wrongs moved the abolitionists to tears,
there is reason to believe that he suffered less than anyone else from the
South's 'peculiar institution' of slavery."  As Christopher Hitchens has
noted, I would not want to be without that quote, since it reveals a lot
about America in the *twentieth* century,  when such textbooks were used.)

Also, I just want to say that it's great to be in a forum with so many
thoughtful and obviously talented high-school history teachers.  Just from
remembering my own dismal experience in HS history class twenty years ago
(not the teacher's fault, however) and from the general impression one
gets from various parents' complaints, it's easy to forget how many really
terrific history teachers there actually are in our public schools.  I
pose this next question to any public-school history teachers in this
forum, esp. those at the HS level, because I'm really curious to know the
answer:

How much discretion do school officials (administration, school board,
etc.) and parents give you in choosing your history textbooks and course
supplements, and in what you do in the classroom?

Thanks,
Ranjit Dighe

****************************************************

Ranjit S. Dighe             315-312-3480 (office)
Assistant Professor         315-342-5383 (home)
Department of Economics     home address:
SUNY-Oswego                 P.O. Box 3010
Oswego, NY  13126           Oswego, NY 13126
E-mail: dighe@oswego.edu
Fax: 315-312-5444

****************************************************

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=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 6 Oct 2001 21:56:08 EDT
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Arica Coleman 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
MIME-Version: 1.0
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              boundary="part1_b0.1b64038f.28f11038_boundary"

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Ranjit and fellow colleagues:
     I too strongly believe that Loewen's book is an excellent resource for
high school teachers, but I find his chapter on antiracism in America
problematic.  First, what Loewen interprets as an antiracism effort in
America begs a definition which he never supplies. Defining antiracism in
terms of the efforts of abolitionists is insufficient as it has been well
documented that abolitionism did not equal antiracism.  Note Frederick
Douglass's severed ties with William Lloyd Garrison.  Abolitionist did a
wonderful job opposing slavery, but they did little as advocates of
antiracism.
     Now, Loewen's initial position is that high school textbook's
heroification of national figures obscures their complexity as human beings.
However, in the chapter on antiracism, he falls into this very trap in his
interpretation of Mr. Lincoln.  To refer to Lincoln as, "a racial idealist,"
(197) misconstrues the fact that the former president was indeed a white
supremacist, who not only favored segregation of the races, but also was a
strong supporter of the American Colonization society.  To champion him as a
supporter of antiracism diminishes the ambiguity of a man who was torn
between his internalization of the racist views of the day, his career as a
politician, and his own moral conscience.  Yes, Lincoln signed the
Emancipation Proclamation, which declared slaves in the rebellious states,
"thenceforward and forever free," but this was done as a military necessity.
A point Loewen neglects in this chapter.  Now here is where primary documents
can certainly be of good use.  The Douglass/Lincoln Debates as well as other
speeches given by the former president on the slavery question will certainly
demonstrate the complexity of the man and the decisions he faced.  Also, the
Emancipation Proclamation which spells out the regions in which the
declaration went into effect would certainly spark a vigorous class discuss.
     Loewen concludes by saying, "Antiracism is one of America's great gifts
to the world....Antiracism led to a 'new birth of freedom' after the Civil
War... (198)."  Huh, if it had, we would be having a different conversation
about Reconstruction in this forum and maybe the question posed my Dr. Foner
concerning the failure of Reconstruction would be irrelevant.

Arica L. Coleman
The Union Institute Graduate College

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Ranjit and fellow colleagues:

     I too strongly believe that Loewen's book is an excellent resource for high school teachers, but I find his chapter on antiracism in America problematic.  First, what Loewen interprets as an antiracism effort in America begs a definition which he never supplies. Defining antiracism in terms of the efforts of abolitionists is insufficient as it has been well documented that abolitionism did not equal antiracism.  Note Frederick Douglass's severed ties with William Lloyd Garrison.  Abolitionist did a wonderful job opposing slavery, but they did little as advocates of antiracism.

     Now, Loewen's initial position is that high school textbook's heroification of national figures obscures their complexity as human beings.  However, in the chapter on antiracism, he falls into this very trap in his interpretation of Mr. Lincoln.  To refer to Lincoln as, "a racial idealist," (197) misconstrues the fact that the former president was indeed a white supremacist, who not only favored segregation of the races, but also was a strong supporter of the American Colonization society.  To champion him as a supporter of antiracism diminishes the ambiguity of a man who was torn between his internalization of the racist views of the day, his career as a politician, and his own moral conscience.  Yes, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared slaves in the rebellious states, "thenceforward and forever free," but this was done as a military necessity.  A point Loewen neglects in this chapter.  Now here is where primary documents can certainly be of good use.  The Douglass/Lincoln Debates as well as other speeches given by the former president on the slavery question will certainly demonstrate the complexity of the man and the decisions he faced.  Also, the Emancipation Proclamation which spells out the regions in which the declaration went into effect would certainly spark a vigorous class discuss.

     Loewen concludes by saying, "Antiracism is one of America's great gifts to the world....Antiracism led to a 'new birth of freedom' after the Civil War... (198)."  Huh, if it had, we would be having a different conversation about Reconstruction in this forum and maybe the question posed my Dr. Foner concerning the failure of Reconstruction would be irrelevant.      



Arica L. Coleman

The Union Institute Graduate College

--part1_b0.1b64038f.28f11038_boundary--

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=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 7 Oct 2001 00:02:54 -0500
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Alan Bloom 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII

Hello,
        My name is Alan Bloom.  I'm a lecturer at
Valparaiso University, and I frequently teach our class on
the Civil War and Reconstruction.
        I wanted to address the following point by Len
Rabinowitz :  "The hardest thing I find for students to get
over is that it's not over when the war is over.  That's a
tough one for younger students."  I agree wholeheartedly
with this sentiment, and in my class I attempt to do two
things to overcome this hurdle.
        First, I try to frame my course so that students
see that the antebellum era, the war, and the
reconstruction era are inextricably connected.  To help
create this structure I begin the course with the aphorism:
"all wars start before they start."  On the whole, as you
know, students clearly see that themes from the antebellum
era connect to the Civil War, since the issues leading up
to the war are framed so firmly in the language of cause
and effect.
        The trickier task, as Mr. Rabinowitz has stated, is
making the transition at the end of the war to the
post-1865 reconstruction era. At this point, in order to
frame my unit on reconstruction I tweak the old aphorism
from above just a bit and posit:  "all wars end after they
end." Here, depending on the level of your students, you
can make such connections between the American Revolution
and the War of 1812, World War I and II, and more recently,
the Gulf War and the attack of 9/11/01. You also can
discuss what happens after a defeat (or victory) in
personal or sports terms.  You can even take a (gang?)
fight on the playground as an example. When defeated, do
people just quit or do they come up with new tactics for a
new day?  Or you can ask if defeat (or victory) can be
total over an opponent? The goal here is in part to show
how inextricably connected these different events can be
and that the war didn't simply end with the firm resolution
of a Hollywood sunset.  Also, I try to point out that war
is an extension of politics and diplomacy, and with
defeat (or victory), postwar peace demands that goals and
tactics have to change.
        Second, I ask my students to consider the following
question: we know who won the war, but who won the peace?
The answers to this question can be as nuanced as you have
time for and they also can embrace group identities rather
than national terms.  It also gives you a chance to discuss
the fact that the issues that helped create the war are not
fully resolved by the Union's victory over the Confederacy
(here students can discuss such issues as the
meaning of freedom and the role of government).

        Thanks for sharing, folks.
                ABloom


-----------------------------------------
Alan Bloom, Ph.D.
Lecturer in History and the Humanities
Valparaiso University
Email: Alan.Bloom@valpo.edu

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 6 Oct 2001 17:15:56 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Len Rabinowitz 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I wish to respond to Ranjit Dighe's comments.  That was me you were
responding to- Len Rabinowitz!

First let me state that I am a fan of James Loewen.  I've read Lies twice,
I've read his new book, I've seen him speak, and I've used his materials in
class.  Every history teacher should read those books.

Many of the books are still being used- but there has been some updating.
Thanks, in large part, to Jim Loewen. The "Sambo" comment is a famous one,
and I can guarantee that no textbook publisher would ever do such a thing
today.  I am currently working on a textbook project for a publisher and I
have a pre-publication copy, with editorial notes.  They jump on anything
that could possibly offend anybody.  Frankly, it at times is done to the
point of getting at another complaint he has- the blandness and lack of
flair to the writing that is partially a result of this.

As for the nationalism, you are absolutely correct.  I have done a very
small amount of research into looking at high school history texts as
primary source documents of their day.  Reconstruction is one of the
subjects that suffers the most in this.  It is always portrayed as less
important than the war, and I am starting to think that is exactly
backwards.  Texts of 1950's-1960's vintage (Civil Rights Era) are better,
but they still tend to stress that anything decent was done by whites.
Newer books do tend to stress at some of the black role.  It boils down to
not wanting younger students to think about or analyze anything to complex-
and there is plenty of complexity in Reconstruction!

I think that the war brought freedom, but Reconstruction asks us to think
about what freedom means- a much more difficult and interesting question.
And a question that not everyone wants children to really think about too
much.

Which leads to your last comment- best answer is that it varies from
district to district and state.  Most states are turning to graduation tests
as a requirement and this is forcing a lot of change.  Reconstruction does
not get a lot of attention in these tests.

Finally, thank you for your compliments.  In recent years here in
Massachusetts public school teachers have  been publicly portrayed by some
as a pretty stupid and incompetent lot.  We are not, and we really
aoppreciate when someone recognizes that.

Len Rabinowitz
Ashland High School
Ashland, MA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ranjit S Dighe" 
To: 
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 12:44 PM
Subject: Re: high school teaching


> I'd like to second Prof. Bryant's recommendation of James Loewen's LIES MY
> TEACHER TOLD ME, which does a masterful job of puncturing the myths about
> Reconstruction as an era of corrupt "Negro rule," while providing lots of
> specifics about the positive accomplishments of that era.  For those who
> haven't read the book, the key chapter is the one on "the invisibility of
> anti-racism" in high-school history textbooks.  I'm actually using
> Loewen's book as a supplementary text this semester in two different
> college courses (American Economic History Before 1900, Introduction to
> Social Science).
>
> I don't doubt the contention raised by someone else (sorry, I don't have
> your name handy) that Loewen's general criticism of HS textbooks is a bit
> dated, but I would expect that many of the 12 texts he looked at are still
> being used.  Also, even if dated, the blind nationalism that most of those
> textbooks offer is what most of us were probably fed while growing up, and
> much of the now-embarrassing material in those texts reflected the
> dominant views of mainstream academic historians.  (Loewen, for example,
> quotes a textbook written by the great historians Morison and Commager
> that said, "As for Sambo, whose wrongs moved the abolitionists to tears,
> there is reason to believe that he suffered less than anyone else from the
> South's 'peculiar institution' of slavery."  As Christopher Hitchens has
> noted, I would not want to be without that quote, since it reveals a lot
> about America in the *twentieth* century,  when such textbooks were used.)
>
> Also, I just want to say that it's great to be in a forum with so many
> thoughtful and obviously talented high-school history teachers.  Just from
> remembering my own dismal experience in HS history class twenty years ago
> (not the teacher's fault, however) and from the general impression one
> gets from various parents' complaints, it's easy to forget how many really
> terrific history teachers there actually are in our public schools.  I
> pose this next question to any public-school history teachers in this
> forum, esp. those at the HS level, because I'm really curious to know the
> answer:
>
> How much discretion do school officials (administration, school board,
> etc.) and parents give you in choosing your history textbooks and course
> supplements, and in what you do in the classroom?
>
> Thanks,
> Ranjit Dighe
>
> ****************************************************
>
> Ranjit S. Dighe             315-312-3480 (office)
> Assistant Professor         315-342-5383 (home)
> Department of Economics     home address:
> SUNY-Oswego                 P.O. Box 3010
> Oswego, NY  13126           Oswego, NY 13126
> E-mail: dighe@oswego.edu
> Fax: 315-312-5444
>
> ****************************************************
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 6 Oct 2001 21:43:38 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Len Rabinowitz 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

That's one heck of an assumption.  Why do you assume it?  Do you assign the
book?  If you do, surely some must read it.  If you don't assign it, why
have it?  What role does it play?

I find that many texts are quite good at providing basic factual data, and
that many primary source documents need that factual context.

Len Rabinowitz
Ashland High School
Ashland, MA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Austin Manghan" 
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2001 9:56 PM
Subject: Re: high school teaching


> In response to  Len Rabinowitz,
>
> I'm a HS teacher.  I assume that most of my students
> don't read the text book.  I provide them with as much
> primary source material as I can.
>
>
>
>
> Austin Manghan
> Longwood HS
> Middle Island NY
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just
$8.95/month.
> http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 6 Oct 2001 16:53:12 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         dwight 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
In-Reply-To:  
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Ranjit Dighe wrote:
> How much discretion do school officials
> (administration, school board,
> etc.) and parents give you in choosing your history
> textbooks and course
> supplements, and in what you do in the classroom?


As the reliance on high stakes testing goes up, less
and less.

-Dwight Forquignon
 student teacher in NYC

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month.
http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1

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=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 7 Oct 2001 11:25:29 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Len Rabinowitz 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Perhaps a way to think of it is this:

The war settled the questions of whose the boss ( the feds are ) and are we
one nation or many ( we are one ).  It may have asked the question "what is
the meaning of freedom?" and I'm not sure we have answered that to this day.

On the Lincoln discussion:  It's quite true that he held racial views that
are repugnant to most of us today and were repugnant to some at the time.
But still, in the end he was able to see that the war for union had to
become the war for freedom.  I know as well as any of you what the
Emancipation Proclamation says, and I've read his speeches and things.  He
issued it as a military order because he had little other choice beyond a
constitutional amendment which would have taken a great deal of time and
might have pushed out the union slave states.  I think that it did end
slavery in the sense that people were well aware that was the end of it- how
could it survive in isolated pockets with African-Americans in the Union
Army?  (Yes, I know how they were treated.  It represents improvement, not
perfection.)  It's the ability to grow, learn, and lead that is worthy of at
least some modicum of respect.

I'm no fan of blind, unthinking nationalism, but I do find some aspects of
the modern Lincoln debate somewhat self-destructive.  I don't know about
you, but I would rather someone evaluate me on my strengths and
accomplishments rather than on my weaknesses and failures.  I think I'm a
pretty good guy, but I have no idea what the standards will be 136 years
from now, so to judge me on their standards seems somewhat unfair.

In the end, I'm not sure that we will really will move forward the cause of
social justice today by stressing the negative aspects of Lincoln and
de-emphasizing his (in my opinion) far more important accomplishments.  You
couldn't address the racial issue until you addressed the slavery one,
obviously.  Sometimes I see people that I think are using history for their
own purposes and not for the purposes of historical study.  It seems that it
is often done to stir people up about something- and it is convienient
because the historical figures are not here to speak for themselves.

I am certain that my comments will provoke response- the fun of the forum!

Len Rabinowitz
Ashland High School
Ashland, MA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Bloom" 
To: 
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2001 1:02 AM
Subject: Re: high school teaching


> Hello,
>         My name is Alan Bloom.  I'm a lecturer at
> Valparaiso University, and I frequently teach our class on
> the Civil War and Reconstruction.
>         I wanted to address the following point by Len
> Rabinowitz :  "The hardest thing I find for students to get
> over is that it's not over when the war is over.  That's a
> tough one for younger students."  I agree wholeheartedly
> with this sentiment, and in my class I attempt to do two
> things to overcome this hurdle.
>         First, I try to frame my course so that students
> see that the antebellum era, the war, and the
> reconstruction era are inextricably connected.  To help
> create this structure I begin the course with the aphorism:
> "all wars start before they start."  On the whole, as you
> know, students clearly see that themes from the antebellum
> era connect to the Civil War, since the issues leading up
> to the war are framed so firmly in the language of cause
> and effect.
>         The trickier task, as Mr. Rabinowitz has stated, is
> making the transition at the end of the war to the
> post-1865 reconstruction era. At this point, in order to
> frame my unit on reconstruction I tweak the old aphorism
> from above just a bit and posit:  "all wars end after they
> end." Here, depending on the level of your students, you
> can make such connections between the American Revolution
> and the War of 1812, World War I and II, and more recently,
> the Gulf War and the attack of 9/11/01. You also can
> discuss what happens after a defeat (or victory) in
> personal or sports terms.  You can even take a (gang?)
> fight on the playground as an example. When defeated, do
> people just quit or do they come up with new tactics for a
> new day?  Or you can ask if defeat (or victory) can be
> total over an opponent? The goal here is in part to show
> how inextricably connected these different events can be
> and that the war didn't simply end with the firm resolution
> of a Hollywood sunset.  Also, I try to point out that war
> is an extension of politics and diplomacy, and with
> defeat (or victory), postwar peace demands that goals and
> tactics have to change.
>         Second, I ask my students to consider the following
> question: we know who won the war, but who won the peace?
> The answers to this question can be as nuanced as you have
> time for and they also can embrace group identities rather
> than national terms.  It also gives you a chance to discuss
> the fact that the issues that helped create the war are not
> fully resolved by the Union's victory over the Confederacy
> (here students can discuss such issues as the
> meaning of freedom and the role of government).
>
>         Thanks for sharing, folks.
>                 ABloom
>
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Alan Bloom, Ph.D.
> Lecturer in History and the Humanities
> Valparaiso University
> Email: Alan.Bloom@valpo.edu
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 7 Oct 2001 13:44:55 -0500
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Rosemary Hopkins 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

An earlier post asked for ideas on approaching Reconstruction that would
show the students the varying viewpoints of northerners, southerners,
freedmen, etc.  I have successfully used a lesson from the Magazine of
History put out by the OAH.  It appeared in the winter 1989 issue devoted to
Reonstruction.  The lesson includes a series of 10 questions on issues: what
should be done with ex-Confederate officials?  What should be the fate of
the freedmen, etc.  Students are divided into 6 groups, ranging from Radical
Republicans, to Radical southern rebels and freedmen.  They have to answer
the questions as their group would.  Sometimes I have assigned editorial
cartoons or letters to the editor as part of the exercise.
This year I plan on using some excerpts from Gone with the Wind with some
primary sources about the Klan.
Rosemary Hopkins
Nerinx Hall High School

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 7 Oct 2001 13:50:00 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Jean Libby 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: multipart/alternative;
              boundary="Boundary_(ID_VWwqecQC042VuTi/SBLdHA)"

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This is a response to Arica Coleman's comments on abolitionists and antiracism.  I am in strong agreement with James Loewen that abolitionists were opposed to racism, and did much to improve both legal and personal racist practices following the Civil War.  The best examples of these improvements are the "Reconstruction Amendments" to the U.S. Constitution, the abolishing of slavery (which was introduced by Abraham Lincoln while he was president), the definition of citizenship, which had been removed from black people in America by the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court in 1857 (and opposition to which was the foundation of Abraham Lincoln's political career from 1858 to his assassination in 1865), and the right to vote not to be prohibited or infringed due to race.  The success of all these Amendments are due in no small part to white and black abolitionists in the United States before and during the Civil War.

An important aspect of the proceedings of virtually all the AntiSlavery Societies, their publications (edited by both whites and blacks), the Liberty Party, the Black Conventions, the independent African churches, the independent abolition churches, the organized and extralegal defense against reenslavement (the Underground Railroad), the secret Liberty Leagues, and the organizations that attempted to remove people from slavery (particularly that developed by John Brown) into a state of citizenship is one of antiracism.

I have recently been immersed in abolition studies (and studies of abolitionists) in preparation for publication of the documents of abolition written or published by John Brown, in order to place him in historical context.  That context has been greatly skewed by the "revisionist" ideas of history, that there must be shorthand labels for everything, that a person such as Garrison who opposes a relationship with the slaveholding states in the Union and wants to form a more perfect union without them is somehow representing racism because he, and Frederick Douglass (and John Brown) disagree about the best means to achieve the end of slavery in the United States. Instead of looking at the ideas that these activist reformers were arguing and defining, they are looked at only for the color of their skins.

The labeling of leaders who changed our country, who brought an end to slavery and waged war on those who would continue and extend it, is done by "picking" one statement or circumstance, at one time, and defining them with a label that may be accurate for another time, whether three years later in theirs, or one hundred twenty-five years later in ours.

What James Loewen does is look at the outcome of Abraham Lincoln's influence on both slavery and racism, and that has to be emancipation and amelioration.  As I have been hearing the shorthand "racist Lincoln" from some teachers since beginning university education (in middle age) in the 1980s,  it has to go in that memorable category, "Lies My Teachers Told Me."  With the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth fast approaching, the new books are being written now, and hopefully will bring renewed insight into his life and times.

As this forum is very interestingly becoming an exchange of recommended readings both for our students and for ourselves, I would like to add two books to the mix, books on abolitionists that bring the context and the complexity of the black and white abolitionists into our understanding of the Reconstruction Era, and who are directly involved as actors and movers in the events of it.  They are:

Robert S. Levine, Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass and the Politics of Representative Identity  (The University of North Carolina Press, 1997)

Douglas M. Strong. Perfectionist Politics, Abolitionism and the Religious Tensions of American Democracy (Syracuse University Press, 1999).


Jean Libby
San Jose City College




  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Arica Coleman
  To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
  Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 6:56 PM
  Subject: Re: high school teaching


  Ranjit and fellow colleagues:
      I too strongly believe that Loewen's book is an excellent resource for high school teachers, but I find his chapter on antiracism in America problematic.  First, what Loewen interprets as an antiracism effort in America begs a definition which he never supplies. Defining antiracism in terms of the efforts of abolitionists is insufficient as it has been well documented that abolitionism did not equal antiracism.  Note Frederick Douglass's severed ties with William Lloyd Garrison.  Abolitionist did a wonderful job opposing slavery, but they did little as advocates of antiracism.
      Now, Loewen's initial position is that high school textbook's heroification of national figures obscures their complexity as human beings.  However, in the chapter on antiracism, he falls into this very trap in his interpretation of Mr. Lincoln.  To refer to Lincoln as, "a racial idealist," (197) misconstrues the fact that the former president was indeed a white supremacist, who not only favored segregation of the races, but also was a strong supporter of the American Colonization society.  To champion him as a supporter of antiracism diminishes the ambiguity of a man who was torn between his internalization of the racist views of the day, his career as a politician, and his own moral conscience.  Yes, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared slaves in the rebellious states, "thenceforward and forever free," but this was done as a military necessity.  A point Loewen neglects in this chapter.  Now here is wher e primary documents ca
      Loewen concludes by saying, "Antiracism is one of America's great gifts to the world....Antiracism led to a 'new birth of freedom' after the Civil War... (198)."  Huh, if it had, we would be having a different conversation about Reconstruction in this forum and maybe the question posed my Dr. Foner concerning the failure of Reconstruction would be irrelevant.

  Arica L. Coleman
  The Union Institute Graduate College

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This is a response to Arica Coleman's comments on
abolitionists and antiracism.  I am in strong agreement with James Loewen
that abolitionists were opposed to racism, and did much to improve
both legal and personal racist practices following the Civil
War.  The best examples of these improvements are the "Reconstruction
Amendments" to the U.S. Constitution, the abolishing of slavery (which was
introduced by Abraham Lincoln while he was president), the definition of
citizenship, which had been removed from black people in America by the
Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court in 1857 (and opposition to
which was the foundation of Abraham Lincoln's political career from 1858 to his
assassination in 1865), and the right to vote not to be prohibited or infringed
due to race.  The success of all these Amendments are due in no small part
to white and black abolitionists in the United States before and during the
Civil War.  
 
An important aspect of the proceedings of
virtually all the AntiSlavery Societies, their publications (edited by both
whites and blacks), the Liberty Party, the Black Conventions, the independent
African churches, the independent abolition churches, the organized
and extralegal defense against reenslavement (the Underground Railroad), the
secret Liberty Leagues, and the organizations that attempted to remove people
from slavery (particularly that developed by John Brown) into a state of
citizenship is one of antiracism.  
 
I have recently been immersed in abolition
studies (and studies of abolitionists) in preparation for publication
of the documents of abolition written or published by John Brown, in order
to place him in historical context.  That context has been greatly
skewed by the "revisionist" ideas of history, that there must be
shorthand labels for everything, that a person such as Garrison who
opposes a relationship with the slaveholding states in the Union
and wants to form a more perfect union without them is somehow representing
racism because he, and Frederick Douglass (and John Brown) disagree about
the best means to achieve the end of slavery in the United States. Instead
of looking at the ideas that these activist
reformers were arguing and defining, they are looked at only for
the color of their skins.     
 
The labeling of leaders who changed our
country, who brought an end to slavery and waged war on those who would continue
and extend it, is done by "picking" one statement or circumstance, at
one time, and defining them with a label that may be accurate for
another time, whether three years later in theirs, or one hundred twenty-five
years later in ours.   
 
What James Loewen does is look at the outcome of
Abraham Lincoln's influence on both slavery and racism, and that has
to be emancipation and amelioration.  As I have been hearing the
shorthand "racist Lincoln" from some teachers since
beginning university education (in middle age) in the 1980s,  it
has to go in that memorable category, "Lies My Teachers Told Me." 
With the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth fast approaching, the new books
are being written now, and hopefully will bring renewed insight into his
life and times. 
           
As this forum is very interestingly becoming
an exchange of recommended readings both for our students and for ourselves, I
would like to add two books to the mix, books on
abolitionists that bring the context and the complexity of the
black and white abolitionists into our understanding of the Reconstruction
Era, and who are directly involved as actors and movers in the events of
it.  They are:
 
Robert S. Levine, Martin Delany, Frederick
Douglass and the Politics of Representative
Identity  (The University of North Carolina Press,
1997)
 
Douglas M. Strong. Perfectionist Politics,
Abolitionism and the Religious Tensions of American Democracy
(Syracuse University Press, 1999).
 
 
Jean Libby
San Jose City College
 
 
 
    

  
----- Original Message ----- 
  
From:
  Arica Coleman

  
To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
  
  
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 6:56
  PM
  
Subject: Re: high school teaching
  

Ranjit and fellow
  colleagues: 
    I too strongly believe that Loewen's
  book is an excellent resource for high school teachers, but I find his chapter
  on antiracism in America problematic.  First, what Loewen interprets as
  an antiracism effort in America begs a definition which he never supplies.
  Defining antiracism in terms of the efforts of abolitionists is insufficient
  as it has been well documented that abolitionism did not equal antiracism.
   Note Frederick Douglass's severed ties with William Lloyd Garrison.
   Abolitionist did a wonderful job opposing slavery, but they did little
  as advocates of antiracism. 
    Now, Loewen's initial
  position is that high school textbook's heroification of national figures
  obscures their complexity as human beings.  However, in the chapter on
  antiracism, he falls into this very trap in his interpretation of Mr. Lincoln.
   To refer to Lincoln as, "a racial idealist," (197) misconstrues the fact
  that the former president was indeed a white supremacist, who not only favored
  segregation of the races, but also was a strong supporter of the American
  Colonization society.  To champion him as a supporter of antiracism
  diminishes the ambiguity of a man who was torn between his internalization of
  the racist views of the day, his career as a politician, and his own moral
  conscience.  Yes, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which
  declared slaves in the rebellious states, "thenceforward and forever free,"
  but this was done as a military necessity.  A point Loewen neglects in
  this chapter.  Now here is wher e primary documents ca
  
    Loewen concludes by saying, "Antiracism is one of
  America's great gifts to the world....Antiracism led to a 'new birth of
  freedom' after the Civil War... (198)."  Huh, if it had, we would be
  having a different conversation about Reconstruction in this forum and maybe
  the question posed my Dr. Foner concerning the failure of Reconstruction would
  be irrelevant.       

Arica L. Coleman 
The
  Union Institute Graduate College 

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Date:         Sun, 7 Oct 2001 21:33:23 EDT
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Arica Coleman 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
MIME-Version: 1.0
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May I also add to the list Leon Bennett's Forced into Glory?
Arica

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May I also add to the list Leon Bennett's Forced into Glory?

Arica

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Date:         Mon, 8 Oct 2001 11:16:26 -0500
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         michael fitzgerald 
Subject:      Re: Website addresses
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Dear Friends,

I noticed several people referred to various websites in the discussion.
It might make it easier on everybody if people gave the actual addresses
for their favorites.

Toward this end, I might suggest that the Freedmen and Southern Society
papers project at the University of Maryland has a nice set of primary
documents illustrating emancipation.  I've used this website for class with
good effect.  Some of the documents reflect an African American point of
view and they are often pretty moving.

The address is:

http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Colleges/ARHU/Depts/History/Freedman/sampdoc
s.htm

(In theory, this address should work)

Thanks,

Mike Fitzgerald
St. Olaf College

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=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 8 Oct 2001 12:18:28 -0500
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Alecia Long 
Subject:      Reconstruction in Louisiana
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain

I've been following the discussion with interest, especially the posts on
teaching about Reconstruction.  My name is Alecia Long and I'm historian at
the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans.  I don't "teach" about
Reconstruction in the ways that I suspect most people on this list do, that
is in a classroom, but, in my role as a public historian, I've found, just
as Dr. Foner suggests, that adult groups respond very well to lectures on
Reconstruction that include many 19th-century images.

For good or for ill, I have the outrageous history of Reconstruction in
Louisiana to work from, and I argue to groups of adults that in many
significant ways events in New Orleans and Louisiana helped to drive the
course of Reconstruction nationwide.  There are plenty of Harper's
illustations that help me to make this point, and the groups I speak to
really seem to respond to them.  Of course that's not an original idea  (see
for instance Ted Tunnell's book Crucible of Reconstruction), but it seems to
work pretty well in generating discussion among adults.

One other thing that I use is the history of the Liberty Place monument.  I
draw on Sanford Levinson's interpretation from Written in Stone to help show
them how widely interpretations of the "Battle of Liberty Place" have
changed over the years, and how those changes have literally been inscribed
on the monument.  They pick up on how that speaks to and reflects the
changing historiography of Reconstruction without me having to beat them
over the head with it.

Going back to a couple of Professor Foner's early questions, I find that the
adults I speak to (most of them community groups, tour guides, or docents in
training) immeidately make the connection between Reconstruction politics
and our current politics and race relations.  I certainly guide them in that
direction, but I've been heartened by how many of them embrace and connect
with the "Unifinished Revolution" idea rather than clinging to a "Moonlight
and Magnolias/Damned Yankees"  approach that many of them bring with them to
the lecture.  The victories are small, but if you can make a chink in
someone's long-held ideas, and get them curious, I find people who are
interested in history generally, are very interested to learn more about
Reconstruction once the subject is opened up to them.

I hope we can get into the question of whether the cycles of Reconstruction
historiography suggest that historical truth is unobtainable and that
historical interpretation tends to serve immediate political ends, but I
think I'll let someone else fire the initial salvo in that debate.

Look forward to more discussion.

Alecia P. Long, Ph.D.
Historian
Louisiana State Museum
1-800-568-6968/along@crt.state.la.us


> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
> History.

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Date:         Tue, 9 Oct 2001 08:45:19 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Jean Libby 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
MIME-version: 1.0
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              boundary="Boundary_(ID_vYyKDcsBmw6kZvPov+4hIA)"

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Arica, the author's name is Lerone Bennett, not Leon.  The correct reference for a list would be:  Lerone Bennett, Jr.  Forced Into Glory; Abraham Lincoln's White Dream (Chicago: Johnson Publishing Co., 2000).     Jean
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Arica Coleman
  To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
  Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2001 6:33 PM
  Subject: Re: high school teaching


  May I also add to the list Leon Bennett's Forced into Glory?
  Arica

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Arica, the author's name is Lerone Bennett, not
Leon.  The correct reference for a list would be:  Lerone Bennett,
Jr.  Forced Into Glory; Abraham Lincoln's White Dream (Chicago:
Johnson Publishing Co., 2000).     Jean

  
----- Original Message ----- 
  
From:
  Arica Coleman

  
To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
  
  
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2001 6:33
  PM
  
Subject: Re: high school teaching
  

May I also add to the
  list Leon Bennett's Forced into Glory? 
Arica


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Date:         Tue, 9 Oct 2001 14:26:08 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Eric Foner 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
In-Reply-To:  <000b01c150d9$66a99680$6401a8c0@pacbell.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Dear colleagues,

I have found the dfiscussion of teaching Reconstruction most interesting.
Here are a few further thoughts, inspired by recent messages:

1-  It might be worth asking students to consider why Reconstruction is so
absent from our public history, especially compared to the Civil War.
There are almost no monuments to Reconstruction leaders, no museums of
Reconstruction, no National Parks Service site focusing on Reconstruction
(except Andrew Johnson's homestead, which takes the Bowers approach).
Even Ken Burns' tv series jumped right over Reconstruction to race to the
veterans' reunions in his final episode.  Obviously, this is a period we
as a nation have difficult dealing with.

2-  I wrote a review of Bennett's book on Lincoln in the Los Angeles
Times last year.  It's probably floating around the internet somewhere for
those who are interested.  I agree with the writer who emphasizes
Lincoln's capacity for growth, especially in the last two years of the
war.  Whenver I lecture on Reconstruction, I am asked what difference it
made the L. was assassinated.  This is impossible to answer, but surely he
would not have pursued a policy, as Johnson did, that alienated the entire
Republican party.

3- I also find Loewen's books valuable but dated, or at least one-sided.
The textbooks I see (college ones, admittedly) do not suffer from most of
the flaws he identifies (although labor history remains almost totally
ingored).  Reconstruction is treated well in the ones I see.  And in Lies
Across America, a critique of monuments and museums, he gives no attention
to efforts at many places to modernize the presentation of history.

4-  Connections between the present and Reconstruction might also consider
the retreat from Reconstruction and the era we have been living in since
the civil rights movement -- the role of the Supreme Court, arguments
against big government, special favoritism to one group, social Darwinism
and laissez-faire as excuses for abandoning the struggle for equality.
etc.  The decline of social movements and egalitarian impulses is worth
considering as much as the struggles for equality in the 1860s and 1960s.

Eric Foner

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=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 9 Oct 2001 14:50:05 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Ranjit S. Dighe" 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
In-Reply-To:  
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

A couple responses to Prof. Foner's most recent comments:

* I bet if someone pitched the idea of a documentary on Reconstruction to
Ken Burns, he'd do it, and would do a good job with it.  Any idea on how
to get in touch with him?

* James Loewen says in LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME that college history
courses and textbooks tend to be a much different, and better, animal
high school history textbooks are.  But many of the people here are HS
history teachers and have to choose from a limited list of approved HS
history texts, and, as noted, many of those books are still being used.
So I think Loewen's general point about "feel-good history" is well taken
and very relevant to this discussion.

rsd

*****************************************************

Ranjit S. Dighe           at home:

Assistant Professor       P.O. Box 3010
Department of Economics   Oswego, NY 13126
Mahar Hall
SUNY-Oswego
Oswego, NY 13126
315-312-3480
Fax: 315-312-5444

E-mail:       dighe@oswego.edu
Home page:    http://www.oswego.edu/~dighe/
Office hours: Tues. & Thurs. 2-4

*****************************************************

On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, Eric Foner wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
>
> I have found the dfiscussion of teaching Reconstruction most interesting.
> Here are a few further thoughts, inspired by recent messages:
>
> 1-  It might be worth asking students to consider why Reconstruction is so
> absent from our public history, especially compared to the Civil War.
> There are almost no monuments to Reconstruction leaders, no museums of
> Reconstruction, no National Parks Service site focusing on Reconstruction
> (except Andrew Johnson's homestead, which takes the Bowers approach).
> Even Ken Burns' tv series jumped right over Reconstruction to race to the
> veterans' reunions in his final episode.  Obviously, this is a period we
> as a nation have difficult dealing with.
>
> 2-  I wrote a review of Bennett's book on Lincoln in the Los Angeles
> Times last year.  It's probably floating around the internet somewhere for
> those who are interested.  I agree with the writer who emphasizes
> Lincoln's capacity for growth, especially in the last two years of the
> war.  Whenver I lecture on Reconstruction, I am asked what difference it
> made the L. was assassinated.  This is impossible to answer, but surely he
> would not have pursued a policy, as Johnson did, that alienated the entire
> Republican party.
>
> 3- I also find Loewen's books valuable but dated, or at least one-sided.
> The textbooks I see (college ones, admittedly) do not suffer from most of
> the flaws he identifies (although labor history remains almost totally
> ingored).  Reconstruction is treated well in the ones I see.  And in Lies
> Across America, a critique of monuments and museums, he gives no attention
> to efforts at many places to modernize the presentation of history.
>
> 4-  Connections between the present and Reconstruction might also consider
> the retreat from Reconstruction and the era we have been living in since
> the civil rights movement -- the role of the Supreme Court, arguments
> against big government, special favoritism to one group, social Darwinism
> and laissez-faire as excuses for abandoning the struggle for equality.
> etc.  The decline of social movements and egalitarian impulses is worth
> considering as much as the struggles for equality in the 1860s and 1960s.
>
> Eric Foner
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

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=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 9 Oct 2001 21:16:13 +0100
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         =?iso-8859-1?q?donald=20campbell?= 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
In-Reply-To:  
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

 Hi I am a student at Aberdeen University, Scotland. I
have been following the flow on reconstruction and I
find it interesting that you are drawing parallells
with the wars of the last century and indeed in this
one. Can I first of all speak up for people like
Abraham Lincoln. To call this towering, courageous man
a racist really is outrageous. One of the most
important things I have come to appreciate is not
judging historical people and events with to-day's
values. There probably are some events (like the
hollocaust) which will be monsterous for ever.Surely
this great American, this great protector of the Union
who was greatly saddened by the carnage created during
the war is one of the great statesmen of all times. He
was faced with a dreadful national crisis and he made
his tortured decision  well. Lets hope his modern
equivalent is such a man.

Don Campbell


--- Alan Bloom  wrote: > Hello,
>         My name is Alan Bloom.  I'm a lecturer at
> Valparaiso University, and I frequently teach our
> class on
> the Civil War and Reconstruction.
>         I wanted to address the following point by
> Len
> Rabinowitz :  "The hardest thing I find for students
> to get
> over is that it's not over when the war is over.
> That's a
> tough one for younger students."  I agree
> wholeheartedly
> with this sentiment, and in my class I attempt to do
> two
> things to overcome this hurdle.
>         First, I try to frame my course so that
> students
> see that the antebellum era, the war, and the
> reconstruction era are inextricably connected.  To
> help
> create this structure I begin the course with the
> aphorism:
> "all wars start before they start."  On the whole,
> as you
> know, students clearly see that themes from the
> antebellum
> era connect to the Civil War, since the issues
> leading up
> to the war are framed so firmly in the language of
> cause
> and effect.
>         The trickier task, as Mr. Rabinowitz has
> stated, is
> making the transition at the end of the war to the
> post-1865 reconstruction era. At this point, in
> order to
> frame my unit on reconstruction I tweak the old
> aphorism
> from above just a bit and posit:  "all wars end
> after they
> end." Here, depending on the level of your students,
> you
> can make such connections between the American
> Revolution
> and the War of 1812, World War I and II, and more
> recently,
> the Gulf War and the attack of 9/11/01. You also can
> discuss what happens after a defeat (or victory) in
> personal or sports terms.  You can even take a
> (gang?)
> fight on the playground as an example. When
> defeated, do
> people just quit or do they come up with new tactics
> for a
> new day?  Or you can ask if defeat (or victory) can
> be
> total over an opponent? The goal here is in part to
> show
> how inextricably connected these different events
> can be
> and that the war didn't simply end with the firm
> resolution
> of a Hollywood sunset.  Also, I try to point out
> that war
> is an extension of politics and diplomacy, and with
> defeat (or victory), postwar peace demands that
> goals and
> tactics have to change.
>         Second, I ask my students to consider the
> following
> question: we know who won the war, but who won the
> peace?
> The answers to this question can be as nuanced as
> you have
> time for and they also can embrace group identities
> rather
> than national terms.  It also gives you a chance to
> discuss
> the fact that the issues that helped create the war
> are not
> fully resolved by the Union's victory over the
> Confederacy
> (here students can discuss such issues as the
> meaning of freedom and the role of government).
>
>         Thanks for sharing, folks.
>                 ABloom
>
>
> -----------------------------------------
> Alan Bloom, Ph.D.
> Lecturer in History and the Humanities
> Valparaiso University
> Email: Alan.Bloom@valpo.edu
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please
> visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu
> for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

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Date:         Tue, 9 Oct 2001 17:18:41 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Pete Haro 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

Dear Forum Participants: I found Ranjit Dighe's comment (quoting Loewen)
that "college history courses and textbooks tend to be much different, and
better, than high school history textbooks" interesting although somewhat
misinformed.

I hate to burst your bubble, but as a community college teacher, I encounter
these types of texts all the time. In fact, I deliberately use them to spark
critical debate and thinking among my students whenever possible. Without
mentioning names and authors, I have used (and still do) college level
history textbooks that STILL proclaim that "the founding fathers were
'riding the tiger' with respect to slavery and did not know how to get off"
or that Japanese-Americans have put the trauma of internment behind them and
have gone on to "become professionals of the highest caliber" (why the
author included statements such as this are still somewhat confusing to me
although I have had students suggest that he is telling members of other
minority groups to "get over" past discrimination and move on with their
lives). I have seen another author proclaim that our interventions in the
third world have been the result of either anti-communism or responding to
"chaotic situations" that mandated our sending troops abroad. There is no
mention of the influence of U.S. corporations in our foreign policy.
Hopefully, the participants in this forum realize that there is much more to
issues such as these.

I mention this because I think that as historians, we have to be careful not
to be too self-congratulatory. Historical distortion and self-service
continue at all levels of the profession. Let's not fool ourselves that all
historians are wonderfully enlightened products of the sixties free speech
or civil rights movements. There are plenty of authors who would love
nothing better than for college level students to believe that our country
has ALWAYS honored and respected civil rights, self-determination and is the
beacon of freedom for the entire world. It is uncritical thinking such as
this that has often led us, as a nation, down the road of folly more than
once.

Peter D. Haro
Southwestern College.

----------
>From: "Ranjit S. Dighe" 
>To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: Re: high school teaching
>Date: Tue, Oct 9, 2001, 11:50 AM
>

> A couple responses to Prof. Foner's most recent comments:
>
> * I bet if someone pitched the idea of a documentary on Reconstruction to
> Ken Burns, he'd do it, and would do a good job with it.  Any idea on how
> to get in touch with him?
>
> * James Loewen says in LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME that college history
> courses and textbooks tend to be a much different, and better, animal
> high school history textbooks are.  But many of the people here are HS
> history teachers and have to choose from a limited list of approved HS
> history texts, and, as noted, many of those books are still being used.
> So I think Loewen's general point about "feel-good history" is well taken
> and very relevant to this discussion.
>
> rsd
>
> *****************************************************
>
> Ranjit S. Dighe           at home:
>
> Assistant Professor       P.O. Box 3010
> Department of Economics   Oswego, NY 13126
> Mahar Hall
> SUNY-Oswego
> Oswego, NY 13126
> 315-312-3480
> Fax: 315-312-5444
>
> E-mail:       dighe@oswego.edu
> Home page:    http://www.oswego.edu/~dighe/
> Office hours: Tues. & Thurs. 2-4
>
> *****************************************************
>
> On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, Eric Foner wrote:
>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> I have found the dfiscussion of teaching Reconstruction most interesting.
>> Here are a few further thoughts, inspired by recent messages:
>>
>> 1-  It might be worth asking students to consider why Reconstruction is so
>> absent from our public history, especially compared to the Civil War.
>> There are almost no monuments to Reconstruction leaders, no museums of
>> Reconstruction, no National Parks Service site focusing on Reconstruction
>> (except Andrew Johnson's homestead, which takes the Bowers approach).
>> Even Ken Burns' tv series jumped right over Reconstruction to race to the
>> veterans' reunions in his final episode.  Obviously, this is a period we
>> as a nation have difficult dealing with.
>>
>> 2-  I wrote a review of Bennett's book on Lincoln in the Los Angeles
>> Times last year.  It's probably floating around the internet somewhere for
>> those who are interested.  I agree with the writer who emphasizes
>> Lincoln's capacity for growth, especially in the last two years of the
>> war.  Whenver I lecture on Reconstruction, I am asked what difference it
>> made the L. was assassinated.  This is impossible to answer, but surely he
>> would not have pursued a policy, as Johnson did, that alienated the entire
>> Republican party.
>>
>> 3- I also find Loewen's books valuable but dated, or at least one-sided.
>> The textbooks I see (college ones, admittedly) do not suffer from most of
>> the flaws he identifies (although labor history remains almost totally
>> ingored).  Reconstruction is treated well in the ones I see.  And in Lies
>> Across America, a critique of monuments and museums, he gives no attention
>> to efforts at many places to modernize the presentation of history.
>>
>> 4-  Connections between the present and Reconstruction might also consider
>> the retreat from Reconstruction and the era we have been living in since
>> the civil rights movement -- the role of the Supreme Court, arguments
>> against big government, special favoritism to one group, social Darwinism
>> and laissez-faire as excuses for abandoning the struggle for equality.
>> etc.  The decline of social movements and egalitarian impulses is worth
>> considering as much as the struggles for equality in the 1860s and 1960s.
>>
>> Eric Foner
>>
>> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>>
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 9 Oct 2001 23:22:49 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Ranjit S Dighe 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
In-Reply-To:  <200110100013.RAA26600@gull.mail.pas.earthlink.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

I am grateful to Pete Haro for bursting my bubble (and Prof. Foner's too,
I suppose) about the state of college U.S. history textbooks.  I guess
I've just been lucky with the books I've been assigned and that I've
picked up lately.  (I can't speak for Prof. Foner, but I would guess that
he is very selective with regard to textbooks and, as one of the best
and most prolific researchers I know of, he  has very little time to look
at bad ones. So his perspective on textbooks might understandably be a bit
skewed.)

Anyway, I know that in my field, economics, the only common denominator
among textbooks is that they're all overpriced; the quality ranges from
good to bad to ugly, so I suppose I was a bit naive in assuming that
college history textbooks were generally good.  While the four I've used
heavily have all been good and balanced and non-nationalistic, they're by
no means a random sample.

Still, my expectation is that a randomly selected college history
textbook *would* be vastly better than a typical HS history
textbook.  Most of all, a halfway decent college history text will discuss
disagreements among historians and will focus a lot on Why and How
questions, instead of just who what when where.  And, a college professor
has a lot more freedom to eschew bad textbooks in favor of good ones (or
perhaps not use a textbook at all), so it's again a pretty different
situation from that of the HS's.

To conclude on a minor tangent: I was about to put in another good word
for all the HS teachers in this forum who "teach against the text," and
then I stopped to think that no matter how good one's text is, a teacher
with an inquiring mind is probably going to find himself or herself
teaching against the text some of the time, no matter how good the text
is.  Real history is all about interpretation, and how many historians are
going to have the exact same interpretation of everything?

'Scuse my rambling. It's late, and I'm tired.

rsd

****************************************************

Ranjit S. Dighe             315-312-3480 (office)
Assistant Professor         315-342-5383 (home)
Department of Economics     home address:
SUNY-Oswego                 P.O. Box 3010
Oswego, NY  13126           Oswego, NY 13126
E-mail: dighe@oswego.edu
Fax: 315-312-5444

****************************************************

On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, Pete Haro wrote:

> Dear Forum Participants: I found Ranjit Dighe's comment (quoting Loewen)
> that "college history courses and textbooks tend to be much different, and
> better, than high school history textbooks" interesting although somewhat
> misinformed.
>
> I hate to burst your bubble, but as a community college teacher, I encounter
> these types of texts all the time. In fact, I deliberately use them to spark
> critical debate and thinking among my students whenever possible. Without
> mentioning names and authors, I have used (and still do) college level
> history textbooks that STILL proclaim that "the founding fathers were
> 'riding the tiger' with respect to slavery and did not know how to get off"
> or that Japanese-Americans have put the trauma of internment behind them and
> have gone on to "become professionals of the highest caliber" (why the
> author included statements such as this are still somewhat confusing to me
> although I have had students suggest that he is telling members of other
> minority groups to "get over" past discrimination and move on with their
> lives). I have seen another author proclaim that our interventions in the
> third world have been the result of either anti-communism or responding to
> "chaotic situations" that mandated our sending troops abroad. There is no
> mention of the influence of U.S. corporations in our foreign policy.
> Hopefully, the participants in this forum realize that there is much more to
> issues such as these.
>
> I mention this because I think that as historians, we have to be careful not
> to be too self-congratulatory. Historical distortion and self-service
> continue at all levels of the profession. Let's not fool ourselves that all
> historians are wonderfully enlightened products of the sixties free speech
> or civil rights movements. There are plenty of authors who would love
> nothing better than for college level students to believe that our country
> has ALWAYS honored and respected civil rights, self-determination and is the
> beacon of freedom for the entire world. It is uncritical thinking such as
> this that has often led us, as a nation, down the road of folly more than
> once.
>
> Peter D. Haro
> Southwestern College.
>
> ----------
> >From: "Ranjit S. Dighe" 
> >To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> >Subject: Re: high school teaching
> >Date: Tue, Oct 9, 2001, 11:50 AM
> >
>
> > A couple responses to Prof. Foner's most recent comments:
> >
> > * I bet if someone pitched the idea of a documentary on Reconstruction to
> > Ken Burns, he'd do it, and would do a good job with it.  Any idea on how
> > to get in touch with him?
> >
> > * James Loewen says in LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME that college history
> > courses and textbooks tend to be a much different, and better, animal
> > high school history textbooks are.  But many of the people here are HS
> > history teachers and have to choose from a limited list of approved HS
> > history texts, and, as noted, many of those books are still being used.
> > So I think Loewen's general point about "feel-good history" is well taken
> > and very relevant to this discussion.
> >
> > rsd
> >
> > *****************************************************
> >
> > Ranjit S. Dighe           at home:
> >
> > Assistant Professor       P.O. Box 3010
> > Department of Economics   Oswego, NY 13126
> > Mahar Hall
> > SUNY-Oswego
> > Oswego, NY 13126
> > 315-312-3480
> > Fax: 315-312-5444
> >
> > E-mail:       dighe@oswego.edu
> > Home page:    http://www.oswego.edu/~dighe/
> > Office hours: Tues. & Thurs. 2-4
> >
> > *****************************************************
> >
> > On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, Eric Foner wrote:
> >
> >> Dear colleagues,
> >>
> >> I have found the dfiscussion of teaching Reconstruction most interesting.
> >> Here are a few further thoughts, inspired by recent messages:
> >>
> >> 1-  It might be worth asking students to consider why Reconstruction is so
> >> absent from our public history, especially compared to the Civil War.
> >> There are almost no monuments to Reconstruction leaders, no museums of
> >> Reconstruction, no National Parks Service site focusing on Reconstruction
> >> (except Andrew Johnson's homestead, which takes the Bowers approach).
> >> Even Ken Burns' tv series jumped right over Reconstruction to race to the
> >> veterans' reunions in his final episode.  Obviously, this is a period we
> >> as a nation have difficult dealing with.
> >>
> >> 2-  I wrote a review of Bennett's book on Lincoln in the Los Angeles
> >> Times last year.  It's probably floating around the internet somewhere for
> >> those who are interested.  I agree with the writer who emphasizes
> >> Lincoln's capacity for growth, especially in the last two years of the
> >> war.  Whenver I lecture on Reconstruction, I am asked what difference it
> >> made the L. was assassinated.  This is impossible to answer, but surely he
> >> would not have pursued a policy, as Johnson did, that alienated the entire
> >> Republican party.
> >>
> >> 3- I also find Loewen's books valuable but dated, or at least one-sided.
> >> The textbooks I see (college ones, admittedly) do not suffer from most of
> >> the flaws he identifies (although labor history remains almost totally
> >> ingored).  Reconstruction is treated well in the ones I see.  And in Lies
> >> Across America, a critique of monuments and museums, he gives no attention
> >> to efforts at many places to modernize the presentation of history.
> >>
> >> 4-  Connections between the present and Reconstruction might also consider
> >> the retreat from Reconstruction and the era we have been living in since
> >> the civil rights movement -- the role of the Supreme Court, arguments
> >> against big government, special favoritism to one group, social Darwinism
> >> and laissez-faire as excuses for abandoning the struggle for equality.
> >> etc.  The decline of social movements and egalitarian impulses is worth
> >> considering as much as the struggles for equality in the 1860s and 1960s.
> >>
> >> Eric Foner
> >>
> >> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> > http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
> >>
> >
> > This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> > http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

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=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 10 Oct 2001 07:27:56 -0500
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Mary Lopez 
Subject:      High School Teacher
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Hello Colleagues,
=20
I am a high school history teacher in Schaumburg, IL, in suburban =
Chicagoland.  I've been reading the postings on this list with great =
interest. I did not intend to comment but simply to listen, but I think =
that I need to add my two cents' worth on a few issues.  First of all, =
the issue of Reconstruction does often get sacrificed in the planning of =
high school curriculum.  We face so many external demands, such as =
preparing for testing, skills work, etc., that often this issue goes out =
the window.  I find that many of the middle school teachers focus =
largely on the Civil War, but often exclude Reconstruction.  I reteach =
much of the social history of Reconstruction as a foil to the 1920s, in =
terms of the comparison/contrast with the post-WWI issues.

As to the issue of Lies My Teacher Told Me, that may have been relevant =
ten years ago, but in my district we phased out those books long ago.  =
On an interesting note, my Department Chair asked me to dig up a =
pre-1970 textbook.  I did, and reviewed it, expecting such generalities =
found in Lies to be present.  In fact, they were not; the book =
addressred rather well the issues of morality at play in American =
actions and the issue of hippocracy on the part of the Founding Father.  =
Although bad textbooks can be found, they are far from the mainstream.  =
I graduated from High School in 1991 and have been teaching all levels =
of history since 1995, and that book was unlike any situation I've =
encountered.

On a personal note, I'd like to thank Professor Foner and the rest of =
you for your wonderful postings.  It's truly a joy to continue my =
learning.

Mary Lopez
Schaumburg

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Hello =
Colleagues,
 
I am a high school history =
teacher in=20
Schaumburg, IL, in suburban Chicagoland.  I've been reading the =
postings on=20
this list with great interest. I did not intend to comment but =
simply to=20
listen, but I think that I need to add my two cents' worth on a few=20
issues.  First of all, the issue of Reconstruction does often get=20
sacrificed in the planning of high school curriculum.  We face so =
many=20
external demands, such as preparing for testing, skills work, etc., that =
often=20
this issue goes out the window.  I find that many of the middle =
school=20
teachers focus largely on the Civil War, but often exclude =
Reconstruction. =20
I reteach much of the social history of Reconstruction as a foil to the =
1920s,=20
in terms of the comparison/contrast with the post-WWI =
issues.
 
As to the issue of =
Lies My=20
Teacher Told Me, that may have been relevant ten years ago, =
but in my=20
district we phased out those books long ago.  On an interesting =
note, my=20
Department Chair asked me to dig up a pre-1970 textbook.  I =
did, and=20
reviewed it, expecting such generalities found in Lies to be=20
present.  In fact, they were not; the book addressred rather well =
the=20
issues of morality at play in American actions and the issue of =
hippocracy on=20
the part of the Founding Father.  Although bad textbooks can be =
found, they=20
are far from the mainstream.  I graduated from High School in 1991 =
and have=20
been teaching all levels of history since 1995, and that book was unlike =
any=20
situation I've encountered.
 
On a personal note, I'd like =
to thank=20
Professor Foner and the rest of you for your wonderful postings.  =
It's=20
truly a joy to continue my learning.
 
Mary Lopez
Schaumburg

------=_NextPart_000_0015_01C1515D.149063E0--

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=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 10 Oct 2001 07:41:26 -0500
Reply-To:     LouAnn Everett 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         LouAnn Everett 
Organization: Trinity Valley Community College
Subject:      textbooks comment
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I'd like to comment on the "good, bad, and ugly" textbooks.  Once, when =
teaching world geography, I was shocked to find that my state approved =
text had 2 answers for how many continents there were on this =
planet--depending on what chapter you were reading.  I began to notice =
many other errors and took note.  By Christmas I faxed about 35 pages of =
corrections (gramatical, factual, spelling, etc) to a very irate editor =
who assured me that the text had been proof-read by teachers of my =
state.  In response tp the fax, I received a nice Christmas card and a =
job offer.  I never trust a text completely and structure my lectures =
from my studies and outside sources.

Lou Ann Everett
Social Studies Instructor
Trinity Valley Community College
Terrell, Texas
everett@tvcc.cc.tx.us


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I'd like to comment on the "good, bad, =
and ugly"=20
textbooks.  Once, when teaching world geography, I was shocked to =
find that=20
my state approved text had 2 answers for how many continents there were =
on this=20
planet--depending on what chapter you were reading.  I began to =
notice many=20
other errors and took note.  By Christmas I faxed about 35 pages of =

corrections (gramatical, factual, spelling, etc) to a very irate editor =
who=20
assured me that the text had been proof-read by teachers of my =
state.  In=20
response tp the fax, I received a nice Christmas card and a job =
offer.  I=20
never trust a text completely and structure my lectures from my studies =
and=20
outside sources.
 
Lou Ann Everett
Social Studies Instructor
Trinity Valley Community =
College
Terrell, Texas
everett@tvcc.cc.tx.us
 

------=_NextPart_000_0014_01C1515E.F7737840--

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=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 10 Oct 2001 15:39:41 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         judy adnum 
Subject:      Textbooks and "Truth"
In-Reply-To:  
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

I have been following this forum with interest but not
commenting mainly due to the fact that I am a
curriculum adviser in History and Civics in Australia.
I visited schools, classrooms and conferences in the
US this time last year on a Fulbright Scholarship to
look at the methodology and content used by teachers
and university teacher trainers in the area of Civics
and American History.I felt it was about time I
commented on a few of the issues raised in regard to
the use of textbooks and 'truth' in history.
I think many history teachers are well past the use of
a set textbook or textbooks as the main knowledge base
of teaching history. While they may be used as a
foundation, they seem to lead the way to critical
analysis of issues rather than being the gospel. Old
texts are great in that they often reflect the
sociology of the time and this in itself is a lesson
in thinking.
For many history students the most important lesson is
to learn to empathise with the people of the time.
When they ask," How could this have happened?" they
only have to see the thinking of the time to see that
often, it was the mainstream way of thinking or a
consequence of events of the time.
It is important to know that textbooks have their
place as a springboard into the deeper issues and
critical analysis is one of these issues.
Without rambling on for too much longer, I think it
also important to know that 'true' history is a
controversial area. I'm sure it is significant that
students realise that not all people view the history
of the world or indeed a nation through white.
European or male eyes. Yes there are unquestionable
factual events that occured but each player in those
events would undoubtedly view this through their own
perspectives and experiences- just as we do with daily
events in our lives.
Judy Adnum
--- Ranjit S Dighe  wrote:
> I am grateful to Pete Haro for bursting my bubble
> (and Prof. Foner's too,
> I suppose) about the state of college U.S. history
> textbooks.  I guess
> I've just been lucky with the books I've been
> assigned and that I've
> picked up lately.  (I can't speak for Prof. Foner,
> but I would guess that
> he is very selective with regard to textbooks and,
> as one of the best
> and most prolific researchers I know of, he  has
> very little time to look
> at bad ones. So his perspective on textbooks might
> understandably be a bit
> skewed.)
>
> Anyway, I know that in my field, economics, the only
> common denominator
> among textbooks is that they're all overpriced; the
> quality ranges from
> good to bad to ugly, so I suppose I was a bit naive
> in assuming that
> college history textbooks were generally good.
> While the four I've used
> heavily have all been good and balanced and
> non-nationalistic, they're by
> no means a random sample.
>
> Still, my expectation is that a randomly selected
> college history
> textbook *would* be vastly better than a typical HS
> history
> textbook.  Most of all, a halfway decent college
> history text will discuss
> disagreements among historians and will focus a lot
> on Why and How
> questions, instead of just who what when where.
> And, a college professor
> has a lot more freedom to eschew bad textbooks in
> favor of good ones (or
> perhaps not use a textbook at all), so it's again a
> pretty different
> situation from that of the HS's.
>
> To conclude on a minor tangent: I was about to put
> in another good word
> for all the HS teachers in this forum who "teach
> against the text," and
> then I stopped to think that no matter how good
> one's text is, a teacher
> with an inquiring mind is probably going to find
> himself or herself
> teaching against the text some of the time, no
> matter how good the text
> is.  Real history is all about interpretation, and
> how many historians are
> going to have the exact same interpretation of
> everything?
>
> 'Scuse my rambling. It's late, and I'm tired.
>
> rsd
>
> ****************************************************
>
> Ranjit S. Dighe             315-312-3480 (office)
> Assistant Professor         315-342-5383 (home)
> Department of Economics     home address:
> SUNY-Oswego                 P.O. Box 3010
> Oswego, NY  13126           Oswego, NY 13126
> E-mail: dighe@oswego.edu
> Fax: 315-312-5444
>
> ****************************************************
>
> On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, Pete Haro wrote:
>
> > Dear Forum Participants: I found Ranjit Dighe's
> comment (quoting Loewen)
> > that "college history courses and textbooks tend
> to be much different, and
> > better, than high school history textbooks"
> interesting although somewhat
> > misinformed.
> >
> > I hate to burst your bubble, but as a community
> college teacher, I encounter
> > these types of texts all the time. In fact, I
> deliberately use them to spark
> > critical debate and thinking among my students
> whenever possible. Without
> > mentioning names and authors, I have used (and
> still do) college level
> > history textbooks that STILL proclaim that "the
> founding fathers were
> > 'riding the tiger' with respect to slavery and did
> not know how to get off"
> > or that Japanese-Americans have put the trauma of
> internment behind them and
> > have gone on to "become professionals of the
> highest caliber" (why the
> > author included statements such as this are still
> somewhat confusing to me
> > although I have had students suggest that he is
> telling members of other
> > minority groups to "get over" past discrimination
> and move on with their
> > lives). I have seen another author proclaim that
> our interventions in the
> > third world have been the result of either
> anti-communism or responding to
> > "chaotic situations" that mandated our sending
> troops abroad. There is no
> > mention of the influence of U.S. corporations in
> our foreign policy.
> > Hopefully, the participants in this forum realize
> that there is much more to
> > issues such as these.
> >
> > I mention this because I think that as historians,
> we have to be careful not
> > to be too self-congratulatory. Historical
> distortion and self-service
> > continue at all levels of the profession. Let's
> not fool ourselves that all
> > historians are wonderfully enlightened products of
> the sixties free speech
> > or civil rights movements. There are plenty of
> authors who would love
> > nothing better than for college level students to
> believe that our country
> > has ALWAYS honored and respected civil rights,
> self-determination and is the
> > beacon of freedom for the entire world. It is
> uncritical thinking such as
> > this that has often led us, as a nation, down the
> road of folly more than
> > once.
> >
> > Peter D. Haro
> > Southwestern College.
> >
> > ----------
> > >From: "Ranjit S. Dighe" 
> > >To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> > >Subject: Re: high school teaching
> > >Date: Tue, Oct 9, 2001, 11:50 AM
> > >
> >
> > > A couple responses to Prof. Foner's most recent
> comments:
> > >
> > > * I bet if someone pitched the idea of a
> documentary on Reconstruction to
> > > Ken Burns, he'd do it, and would do a good job
> with it.  Any idea on how
> > > to get in touch with him?
> > >
> > > * James Loewen says in LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME
> that college history
> > > courses and textbooks tend to be a much
> different, and better, animal
> > > high school history textbooks are.  But many of
> the people here are HS
> > > history teachers and have to choose from a
> limited list of approved HS
> > > history texts, and, as noted, many of those
> books are still being used.
> > > So I think Loewen's general point about
> "feel-good history" is well taken
> > > and very relevant to this discussion.
> > >
> > > rsd
> > >
> > >
>
*****************************************************
> > >
> > > Ranjit S. Dighe           at home:
> > >
> > > Assistant Professor       P.O. Box 3010
> > > Department of Economics   Oswego, NY 13126
> > > Mahar Hall
> > > SUNY-Oswego
> > > Oswego, NY 13126
> > > 315-312-3480
> > > Fax: 315-312-5444
> > >
> > > E-mail:       dighe@oswego.edu
> > > Home page:    http://www.oswego.edu/~dighe/
> > > Office hours: Tues. & Thurs. 2-4
> > >
> > >
>
*****************************************************
> > >
> > > On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, Eric Foner wrote:
> > >
> > >> Dear colleagues,
> > >>
> > >> I have found the dfiscussion of teaching
> Reconstruction most interesting.
> > >> Here are a few further thoughts, inspired by
> recent
=== message truncated ===


=====
Judy Adnum.

__________________________________________________
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=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 10 Oct 2001 19:04:05 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Len Rabinowitz 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

All:

College textbooks are somewhat less mish-mash than high school ones, but
there have been similar criticims of them as well.  It's a plague of any
general survey text- they can't do well at everything and "please all of the
people all of the time."

Len Rabinowitz
Ashland High School
Ashland, MA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Pete Haro" 
To: 
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 8:18 PM
Subject: Re: high school teaching


> Dear Forum Participants: I found Ranjit Dighe's comment (quoting Loewen)
> that "college history courses and textbooks tend to be much different, and
> better, than high school history textbooks" interesting although somewhat
> misinformed.
>
> I hate to burst your bubble, but as a community college teacher, I
encounter
> these types of texts all the time. In fact, I deliberately use them to
spark
> critical debate and thinking among my students whenever possible. Without
> mentioning names and authors, I have used (and still do) college level
> history textbooks that STILL proclaim that "the founding fathers were
> 'riding the tiger' with respect to slavery and did not know how to get
off"
> or that Japanese-Americans have put the trauma of internment behind them
and
> have gone on to "become professionals of the highest caliber" (why the
> author included statements such as this are still somewhat confusing to me
> although I have had students suggest that he is telling members of other
> minority groups to "get over" past discrimination and move on with their
> lives). I have seen another author proclaim that our interventions in the
> third world have been the result of either anti-communism or responding to
> "chaotic situations" that mandated our sending troops abroad. There is no
> mention of the influence of U.S. corporations in our foreign policy.
> Hopefully, the participants in this forum realize that there is much more
to
> issues such as these.
>
> I mention this because I think that as historians, we have to be careful
not
> to be too self-congratulatory. Historical distortion and self-service
> continue at all levels of the profession. Let's not fool ourselves that
all
> historians are wonderfully enlightened products of the sixties free speech
> or civil rights movements. There are plenty of authors who would love
> nothing better than for college level students to believe that our country
> has ALWAYS honored and respected civil rights, self-determination and is
the
> beacon of freedom for the entire world. It is uncritical thinking such as
> this that has often led us, as a nation, down the road of folly more than
> once.
>
> Peter D. Haro
> Southwestern College.
>
> ----------
> >From: "Ranjit S. Dighe" 
> >To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> >Subject: Re: high school teaching
> >Date: Tue, Oct 9, 2001, 11:50 AM
> >
>
> > A couple responses to Prof. Foner's most recent comments:
> >
> > * I bet if someone pitched the idea of a documentary on Reconstruction
to
> > Ken Burns, he'd do it, and would do a good job with it.  Any idea on how
> > to get in touch with him?
> >
> > * James Loewen says in LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME that college history
> > courses and textbooks tend to be a much different, and better, animal
> > high school history textbooks are.  But many of the people here are HS
> > history teachers and have to choose from a limited list of approved HS
> > history texts, and, as noted, many of those books are still being used.
> > So I think Loewen's general point about "feel-good history" is well
taken
> > and very relevant to this discussion.
> >
> > rsd
> >
> > *****************************************************
> >
> > Ranjit S. Dighe           at home:
> >
> > Assistant Professor       P.O. Box 3010
> > Department of Economics   Oswego, NY 13126
> > Mahar Hall
> > SUNY-Oswego
> > Oswego, NY 13126
> > 315-312-3480
> > Fax: 315-312-5444
> >
> > E-mail:       dighe@oswego.edu
> > Home page:    http://www.oswego.edu/~dighe/
> > Office hours: Tues. & Thurs. 2-4
> >
> > *****************************************************
> >
> > On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, Eric Foner wrote:
> >
> >> Dear colleagues,
> >>
> >> I have found the dfiscussion of teaching Reconstruction most
interesting.
> >> Here are a few further thoughts, inspired by recent messages:
> >>
> >> 1-  It might be worth asking students to consider why Reconstruction is
so
> >> absent from our public history, especially compared to the Civil War.
> >> There are almost no monuments to Reconstruction leaders, no museums of
> >> Reconstruction, no National Parks Service site focusing on
Reconstruction
> >> (except Andrew Johnson's homestead, which takes the Bowers approach).
> >> Even Ken Burns' tv series jumped right over Reconstruction to race to
the
> >> veterans' reunions in his final episode.  Obviously, this is a period
we
> >> as a nation have difficult dealing with.
> >>
> >> 2-  I wrote a review of Bennett's book on Lincoln in the Los Angeles
> >> Times last year.  It's probably floating around the internet somewhere
for
> >> those who are interested.  I agree with the writer who emphasizes
> >> Lincoln's capacity for growth, especially in the last two years of the
> >> war.  Whenver I lecture on Reconstruction, I am asked what difference
it
> >> made the L. was assassinated.  This is impossible to answer, but surely
he
> >> would not have pursued a policy, as Johnson did, that alienated the
entire
> >> Republican party.
> >>
> >> 3- I also find Loewen's books valuable but dated, or at least
one-sided.
> >> The textbooks I see (college ones, admittedly) do not suffer from most
of
> >> the flaws he identifies (although labor history remains almost totally
> >> ingored).  Reconstruction is treated well in the ones I see.  And in
Lies
> >> Across America, a critique of monuments and museums, he gives no
attention
> >> to efforts at many places to modernize the presentation of history.
> >>
> >> 4-  Connections between the present and Reconstruction might also
consider
> >> the retreat from Reconstruction and the era we have been living in
since
> >> the civil rights movement -- the role of the Supreme Court, arguments
> >> against big government, special favoritism to one group, social
Darwinism
> >> and laissez-faire as excuses for abandoning the struggle for equality.
> >> etc.  The decline of social movements and egalitarian impulses is worth
> >> considering as much as the struggles for equality in the 1860s and
1960s.
> >>
> >> Eric Foner
> >>
> >> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site
at
> > http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.
> >>
> >
> > This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> > http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
History.
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

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=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 10 Oct 2001 20:46:41 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         M Drago 
Subject:      Reconstruction Historiography

Professor Foner,

Could you please comment more on where you see the field Reconstruction
history going?

I've read in your earlier postings that you think the issue of gender and
Reconstruction needs to be explored. What else?

Thanks

Mike Drago

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=========================================================================
Date:         Wed, 10 Oct 2001 17:44:54 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Pete Haro 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

Dear Len: Your point about "pleasing all of the people all of the time" is
well taken. That is a problem with many texts but one that creates
opportunities for instructors to create lively and stimulating debate in
their classrooms using outside material.

I should mention that I have used Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the
United States" and this is definitely one text that doesn't have the
aforementioned problem. Although Zinn certainly has a leftist/socialist
perspective on different issues in American History, for a change it's quite
refreshing to find an author who isn't afraid to tackle difficult issues in
a survey text and for lack of a better term, "piss people off" about
different issues. Let's be honest. There are too many high school and
college teachers unwilling to tackle controversial issues because they fear
a backlash from parents or administrators. I think that this is part of the
reason that history tends to be viewed as a very bland and useless subject
by students everywhere. Teachers who do this perform a tremendous disservice
for their students and the profession at large.

Peter D. Haro
Southwestern Community College

----------
>From: Len Rabinowitz 
>To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: Re: high school teaching
>Date: Wed, Oct 10, 2001, 4:04 PM
>

> All:
>
> College textbooks are somewhat less mish-mash than high school ones, but
> there have been similar criticims of them as well.  It's a plague of any
> general survey text- they can't do well at everything and "please all of the
> people all of the time."
>
> Len Rabinowitz
> Ashland High School
> Ashland, MA
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Pete Haro" 
> To: 
> Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 8:18 PM
> Subject: Re: high school teaching
>
>
>> Dear Forum Participants: I found Ranjit Dighe's comment (quoting Loewen)
>> that "college history courses and textbooks tend to be much different, and
>> better, than high school history textbooks" interesting although somewhat
>> misinformed.
>>
>> I hate to burst your bubble, but as a community college teacher, I
> encounter
>> these types of texts all the time. In fact, I deliberately use them to
> spark
>> critical debate and thinking among my students whenever possible. Without
>> mentioning names and authors, I have used (and still do) college level
>> history textbooks that STILL proclaim that "the founding fathers were
>> 'riding the tiger' with respect to slavery and did not know how to get
> off"
>> or that Japanese-Americans have put the trauma of internment behind them
> and
>> have gone on to "become professionals of the highest caliber" (why the
>> author included statements such as this are still somewhat confusing to me
>> although I have had students suggest that he is telling members of other
>> minority groups to "get over" past discrimination and move on with their
>> lives). I have seen another author proclaim that our interventions in the
>> third world have been the result of either anti-communism or responding to
>> "chaotic situations" that mandated our sending troops abroad. There is no
>> mention of the influence of U.S. corporations in our foreign policy.
>> Hopefully, the participants in this forum realize that there is much more
> to
>> issues such as these.
>>
>> I mention this because I think that as historians, we have to be careful
> not
>> to be too self-congratulatory. Historical distortion and self-service
>> continue at all levels of the profession. Let's not fool ourselves that
> all
>> historians are wonderfully enlightened products of the sixties free speech
>> or civil rights movements. There are plenty of authors who would love
>> nothing better than for college level students to believe that our country
>> has ALWAYS honored and respected civil rights, self-determination and is
> the
>> beacon of freedom for the entire world. It is uncritical thinking such as
>> this that has often led us, as a nation, down the road of folly more than
>> once.
>>
>> Peter D. Haro
>> Southwestern College.
>>
>> ----------
>> >From: "Ranjit S. Dighe" 
>> >To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>> >Subject: Re: high school teaching
>> >Date: Tue, Oct 9, 2001, 11:50 AM
>> >
>>
>> > A couple responses to Prof. Foner's most recent comments:
>> >
>> > * I bet if someone pitched the idea of a documentary on Reconstruction
> to
>> > Ken Burns, he'd do it, and would do a good job with it.  Any idea on how
>> > to get in touch with him?
>> >
>> > * James Loewen says in LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME that college history
>> > courses and textbooks tend to be a much different, and better, animal
>> > high school history textbooks are.  But many of the people here are HS
>> > history teachers and have to choose from a limited list of approved HS
>> > history texts, and, as noted, many of those books are still being used.
>> > So I think Loewen's general point about "feel-good history" is well
> taken
>> > and very relevant to this discussion.
>> >
>> > rsd
>> >
>> > *****************************************************
>> >
>> > Ranjit S. Dighe           at home:
>> >
>> > Assistant Professor       P.O. Box 3010
>> > Department of Economics   Oswego, NY 13126
>> > Mahar Hall
>> > SUNY-Oswego
>> > Oswego, NY 13126
>> > 315-312-3480
>> > Fax: 315-312-5444
>> >
>> > E-mail:       dighe@oswego.edu
>> > Home page:    http://www.oswego.edu/~dighe/
>> > Office hours: Tues. & Thurs. 2-4
>> >
>> > *****************************************************
>> >
>> > On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, Eric Foner wrote:
>> >
>> >> Dear colleagues,
>> >>
>> >> I have found the dfiscussion of teaching Reconstruction most
> interesting.
>> >> Here are a few further thoughts, inspired by recent messages:
>> >>
>> >> 1-  It might be worth asking students to consider why Reconstruction is
> so
>> >> absent from our public history, especially compared to the Civil War.
>> >> There are almost no monuments to Reconstruction leaders, no museums of
>> >> Reconstruction, no National Parks Service site focusing on
> Reconstruction
>> >> (except Andrew Johnson's homestead, which takes the Bowers approach).
>> >> Even Ken Burns' tv series jumped right over Reconstruction to race to
> the
>> >> veterans' reunions in his final episode.  Obviously, this is a period
> we
>> >> as a nation have difficult dealing with.
>> >>
>> >> 2-  I wrote a review of Bennett's book on Lincoln in the Los Angeles
>> >> Times last year.  It's probably floating around the internet somewhere
> for
>> >> those who are interested.  I agree with the writer who emphasizes
>> >> Lincoln's capacity for growth, especially in the last two years of the
>> >> war.  Whenver I lecture on Reconstruction, I am asked what difference
> it
>> >> made the L. was assassinated.  This is impossible to answer, but surely
> he
>> >> would not have pursued a policy, as Johnson did, that alienated the
> entire
>> >> Republican party.
>> >>
>> >> 3- I also find Loewen's books valuable but dated, or at least
> one-sided.
>> >> The textbooks I see (college ones, admittedly) do not suffer from most
> of
>> >> the flaws he identifies (although labor history remains almost totally
>> >> ingored).  Reconstruction is treated well in the ones I see.  And in
> Lies
>> >> Across America, a critique of monuments and museums, he gives no
> attention
>> >> to efforts at many places to modernize the presentation of history.
>> >>
>> >> 4-  Connections between the present and Reconstruction might also
> consider
>> >> the retreat from Reconstruction and the era we have been living in
> since
>> >> the civil rights movement -- the role of the Supreme Court, arguments
>> >> against big government, special favoritism to one group, social
> Darwinism
>> >> and laissez-faire as excuses for abandoning the struggle for equality.
>> >> etc.  The decline of social movements and egalitarian impulses is worth
>> >> considering as much as the struggles for equality in the 1860s and
> 1960s.
>> >>
>> >> Eric Foner
>> >>
>> >> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site
> at
>> > http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
> History.
>> >>
>> >
>> > This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
>> > http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S.
> History.
>>
>> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>>
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
> http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.

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=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 11 Oct 2001 01:24:56 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         nathan riley 
Subject:      Democrats and Jim Crow
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

I am enjoying this discussion of reconstruction, and I
would like to make certain points from the perspective
of an interested lay person:

1.  The civil war settled the question of secession,
and the unity of the United States.   As such, it
helped the United States grow in importance both
economically and as a factor in international affairs.
It didn't provide a satisfactory peace to the
ex-slaves.

2. The question of what is a satisfactory peace is
upon us once again as we deal the attacks on the
Pentagon and the World Trade Center.  The most obvious
example of a failed peace is World War One.  The most
obvious example of a successful peace is World War II
in relation to Japan and Germany.

3. Reconstruction, I think, is both -- a successful
and an unsuccessful peace.  A political problem, can
the United States endure half free and half slave, was
settled as a practical matter.  However, Blacks  were
almost, but not completely, abandoned. Despite the
vicious history of repression against blacks in the
post civil war era, I think it can still be argued
that even within the unjust confines of Jim Crow
America that partial freedom gave some blacks more
opportunity, but the limitations are extreme, and
simply not good enough.

4. Why did the Blacks lose?  I don't propose a total
answer, but I think it is useful to look at the
politicals needs of the Democratic Party, -- the party
cobbled together a majority by representing white
males from the North and the South.  In Jean Baker's
fascinating biography of Mary Todd Lincoln, she points
out that Stephen Foster was a strong Democrat and his
ministral shows songs (including of course "Dixie")
were written to soothe white concerns about the plight
of Blacks.  It was part of an effort to make it
plausible that they could enjoy their degraded
position.  The view that blacks are really happy
pervaded discourse until the civil rights movement and
black protests rendered it absurd.  The legal version
of the fiction of the happy black is "separate but
equal."  The movie version is "Gone with the Wind" and
during the Democratic Administration of Woodrow
Wilson, it was the silent films of Griffith.

I find people are surprised that political decisions
affect popular novels, films etc.  But in fact many of
the most popular books, e.g. Tom Clancy, have huge
political content.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals.
http://personals.yahoo.com

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=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 11 Oct 2001 09:25:49 -0500
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Joe Berry 
Subject:      Re: high school teaching and more
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I think Peter has raised a a very important point that can stand some
expansion. As a student in the 1950's and 1960's (BA class of 1970), I
always wondered why no history class got beyond WWII. Now, in
retrospect, and rememberting my teacher-father, I realize it was because
many HS teachers either did not want to teach the Cold War lies that
dominated the final chapters of the books or were afraid to deal with
recent history at all, or both. These fears were well founded. For
instance, when anti-war protests reached my Iowa high school in 1965,
those of us with teacher-parents were given to understand that our
participation in the later-to-be-famous black armband demo (Tinker vs.
Bd of Ed of Des Moines, US Supreme Court) would put our parent's jobs at risk.

        In college now, the majority of people teaching college courses,
including history, are not on the tenure track and have no job security
and hence no real academic freedom to speak frankly about very hot
matters like this. I think it is very important that our discussion of
teaching Recon in secondary schools and colleges  be informed by this
reality. Teachers, as a group, are no more courageous or cowardly than
any other group, but we are more public in our work which itself is very
political and ideological in nature. As an organizer of contingent
college faculty for over 20 years, I can say that fear is the single
biggest factor hindering both organization for action and the teaching
of potentially "dangerous" issues that might lead to action or current
comment. Many teachers won't admit this up front, for obvious
psychological reasons, but underneath, few will disagree with the
statement that we all (non tenured) teach our classes somewhat
differently than we would if we had real job security.

I would love to hear reactions to these observations.

Joe Berry,
adjunct college teacher, labor educator, PhD candidate (ex public school
history teacher and son of same).

Pete Haro wrote:
>
> Dear Len: Your point about "pleasing all of the people all of the time" is
> well taken. That is a problem with many texts but one that creates
> opportunities for instructors to create lively and stimulating debate in
> their classrooms using outside material.
>
> I should mention that I have used Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the
> United States" and this is definitely one text that doesn't have the
> aforementioned problem. Although Zinn certainly has a leftist/socialist
> perspective on different issues in American History, for a change it's quite
> refreshing to find an author who isn't afraid to tackle difficult issues in
> a survey text and for lack of a better term, "piss people off" about
> different issues. Let's be honest. There are too many high school and
> college teachers unwilling to tackle controversial issues because they fear
> a backlash from parents or administrators. I think that this is part of the
> reason that history tends to be viewed as a very bland and useless subject
> by students everywhere. Teachers who do this perform a tremendous disservice
> for their students and the profession at large.
>
> Peter D. Haro
> Southwestern Community College
>
>
Joe Berry
1453 W. Flournoy, #3F
Chicago, IL 60607
Phone/fax: 312-733-2172
Email 

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=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 12 Oct 2001 04:44:23 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "A. Carl Duncan" 
Subject:      Reconstruction as Practical History: A Plea for Useful Information
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I have been reading the various dialogues and debates with great
interest. However, I was hopeful that some of the information would  be
less macro focused. The big picture is being ignored because everyone is
looking at the issue from too broad a perspective. History will replay
the protests of Osama bin Laden, the planes flying into the WTC, it
crashing to the ground, President Bush speaking to the joint session of
Congress, and the destroyed terrorist camps. But the real story that
reveals the human condition lie in the stories of what happened inside
the WTC, on board the planes, in the Palestinian mosques, etc.

I have found some of the oral history, and family stories fascinating
which regard to what people were doing at "ground zero," during the
Reconstruction era. I note that several of these stories speak of how
blacks and whites, both poor, one with a way of life destroyed and the
other with an opportunity to have a life, found a basis for cooperation.
They weren't offering their sons and daughters for marriage but they
found a common bond in their similar dilemma: What do we do now? How do
we rebuild under these new social and economic circumstances?

Can, will, anyone address this level of interaction?  Wasn't some of the
local action of White Citizen Councils, and the urgency of the 1877
compromise, a reaction to the these new interpersonal possibilities?
What was happening in Boston, Trenton, and Dover while all this was
going on? I will read with interest.

C. Duncan

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=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 12 Oct 2001 13:19:16 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Eric Foner 
Subject:      Re: Reconstruction Historiography
In-Reply-To:  
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Dear colleagues,

Here are some further thoughts inspired by recent postings:

1.  tv documentar on Reconstruction.  I'm not sure Ken Burns is the guy
for this, given how he treated Reconstruction (or failed to do so) in his
Civil War series.  See my essay, "Ken Burns and the Romance of Reunion,"
in Ken Burns' Civil War, edited by Robert B. Toplin.  Actually, I know of
at least two Reconstruction documentatry series in the works, pending
adequate funding.

2.  Textbooks.  I still believe that most college texts are pretty up to
date on Reconstruction.  I stand corrected on high school and jjunior high
texts, especially older ones still in use.  The discussion of using texts
is most interesting.  Here is a little secret.  My current project is to
expand my recent book, The Story of American Freedom into a text that can
be used in introductory college surveys, by adding a lot of historical
information not in the book but trying to keep the interpretive focus on
struggles around the definition of freedom.  I am definitely trying to
avoid the kitchen sink approach that has made no many current texts
distended and incoherent.  Any advice would be welcome.

3.  The idea of comparing Reconstruction with other peace arrangements and
postwar periods offers some interesting gtrounds for comparison.  Eric
McKitrick, in Anddrew Johnson and Reconstruction does this vis a vis
American treatment of postwar Germany and Japan in 1945.  A recent book by
Jay Winik on April 1865 claims, inaccurately, I think, that the South's
willingness to accept the reality of defeat saved the nation from years of
bloddy guerilla struggle.  The problem is that when it came to black
rights, the white south was hardly accepting and a kind of guerilla war
was in fact waged.  This undermines his underlying argument that America
is excpetional in its postwar aftermaths.

In the next posting I will try to respond to the question about recent
trends in Reconstruction historiography.
Eric Foner

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=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 12 Oct 2001 16:25:19 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Len Rabinowitz 
Subject:      Re: Reconstruction Historiography
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Professor Foner:

I think it is a wonderful idea to use your book "American Freedom" as a
textbook.  I have it but I have only just started reading it.

Not to shill for myself, but I would JUMP at the chance to help with such a
project in any way possible.  I've done a lot of work with AP History in
high schools, and that uses all college texts.

I'd like also to respond to the discussion of the Cold War history books.
When I was doing some research into this, Reconstruction and the Cold War
were two areas I looked into- i.e. how are controversial subjects handled?
Some of the Cold War material was scary.  One book from the 1960's talked
about the need to fight for American values, and some had that infamous
world map showing the Communist countries in blood red.  I wondered how many
kids read that and ended up dead in the rice patties of Vietnam a few years
later...  I doubt the connection would be that causal but still it struck
me...

Reconstruction in the 60's books gets a fairly good shake because of the
Civil Rights Movement, but in the old books it's frightening what was
written.

Len Rabinowitz
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Foner" 
To: 
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: Reconstruction Historiography


> Dear colleagues,
>
> Here are some further thoughts inspired by recent postings:
>
> 1.  tv documentar on Reconstruction.  I'm not sure Ken Burns is the guy
> for this, given how he treated Reconstruction (or failed to do so) in his
> Civil War series.  See my essay, "Ken Burns and the Romance of Reunion,"
> in Ken Burns' Civil War, edited by Robert B. Toplin.  Actually, I know of
> at least two Reconstruction documentatry series in the works, pending
> adequate funding.
>
> 2.  Textbooks.  I still believe that most college texts are pretty up to
> date on Reconstruction.  I stand corrected on high school and jjunior high
> texts, especially older ones still in use.  The discussion of using texts
> is most interesting.  Here is a little secret.  My current project is to
> expand my recent book, The Story of American Freedom into a text that can
> be used in introductory college surveys, by adding a lot of historical
> information not in the book but trying to keep the interpretive focus on
> struggles around the definition of freedom.  I am definitely trying to
> avoid the kitchen sink approach that has made no many current texts
> distended and incoherent.  Any advice would be welcome.
>
> 3.  The idea of comparing Reconstruction with other peace arrangements and
> postwar periods offers some interesting gtrounds for comparison.  Eric
> McKitrick, in Anddrew Johnson and Reconstruction does this vis a vis
> American treatment of postwar Germany and Japan in 1945.  A recent book by
> Jay Winik on April 1865 claims, inaccurately, I think, that the South's
> willingness to accept the reality of defeat saved the nation from years of
> bloddy guerilla struggle.  The problem is that when it came to black
> rights, the white south was hardly accepting and a kind of guerilla war
> was in fact waged.  This undermines his underlying argument that America
> is excpetional in its postwar aftermaths.
>
> In the next posting I will try to respond to the question about recent
> trends in Reconstruction historiography.
> Eric Foner
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Sat, 13 Oct 2001 16:38:57 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Donna L Sharer 
Subject:      Re: African Am. political leadership/ African Am. church
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Thanks to everyone who has shared ideas and resources.  I'm a high school
teacher.  When I first started teaching (1992), I did not have textbooks.
 I found many resources though Soc. Studies School Service, local
libraries, etc.  It was extremely time consuming (and expensive) but I
think my students and I benefited.  I still teach in the same large urban
school district.  We have textbooks but many  are old (12 - 15 years) and
boring.  There is nothing worse than a history class where students read
and answer questions and/or hear an adult talk for 50 or more minutes.

I'd like information on:  African American political leaders during
Reconstruction and the role of the African American church.  I realize
these are broad topics but someone may know of resources appropriate for
high school students.  I have some information on African American
political leaders (there are  general African American History texts that
include the information).  I'm particularly interested in the role the
African American church played in supporting the African American
political leaders.  This obviously had connections for today.

Thanks,

Donna Sharer
Phila., PA

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=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 14 Oct 2001 10:22:02 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Eric Foner 
Subject:      Re: Reconstruction Historiography
In-Reply-To:  <002501c1535c$03e1a260$3f66accf@kablen>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Dear colleagues,

As promised, here are a few thoughts on recent writings on Reconstruction.

First, let me say that no work of history is ever the final word on a
subject.  One day, someone will publish an account of the period that
diverges in many ways from mine.  But since that has not happened yet,
recent work has tended to take on one or another slice of the subject, or
add to existing knowledge on a particular state or issue, rather than
proposing an entirely new take on the period.  However, I understand that
Michael Holt of the University of Virginia is writing a new book on
Reconstruction which will see it more as a national political crisis than
a social conflict in the South.  This may reorient thinking when it
appears.

One important recent bo0ok is The Trial of Democracy, by Wang Xi.  This is
a study of Republicans and black suffrage.  It was a dissertation done
under my direction but differs from me in taking a much more cynical
approach to the Republican support for black suffrage.  It also takes the
story to the 1890s, showing how the party abandoned the issue.  I have
also mentioned Heather Richardson's The End of Reconstruction, just
published, which focuses on class conflict in the North as a reason for
the abandonment of Reconstruction.  Michael Perman's recent book on black
disenfranchisement in the 1890s (I can't recall the precise title) is
after Reconstruction but brings this part of the story to a close.

But I think that the area that has received the most important attention
has to do with the gender aspects of Reconstruction.  Tera Hunter's To Joy
My Freedom examines black working women in Atlanta after the Civil War and
suggests how black women's conceptions of freedom, and actions to expand
it, differed in some ways from men's.  Victoria Bynum's Divided Houses
sees Reconsurtcion, in one part of North Carolina, as a crisis in gender
relations, among other things, showing how divorce rates rose among whites
and examining the motives of both men and women who filed for divorce
(ironically using the liberalized divorce laws of Reconstruction for very
varied purposes).  She also looks at how Reconstruction affected the
status of men and women in black families.  Laura Edwards, in Gendered
Strife and Confusion, similarly examines how Reconsurction affected gender
relations.

If anyone has used the findings of these books in teaching, it would be
useful to hear how they can be integrated into the traditional narrative
of Reconstruction, or whether they require some alteration in that
narrative.

Best wishes,

Eric Foner

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=========================================================================
Date:         Fri, 12 Oct 2001 18:53:59 EDT
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Maggi M. Morehouse" 
Subject:      A new textbook
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Professor Foner:
    At the risk of suggesting something you already know, I have successfully
used the American Social History Project's compilation of primary source
documents _Freedom's Unfinished Revolution: An Inquiry into the Civil War and
Reconstruction_, (forward by Eric Foner), in my African American history
survey and US history survey courses. The documents in this compilation allow
students to analyze primary sources, a valuable lesson and worthwhile skill
to acquire. If you then provided your typical cogent interpretations the new
text would be a terrific addition to the field.
    One other point to share--in both of those survey courses rather than
teach a section called "Reconstruction" I taught around the theme "the Search
for Equality" and I took the history from the end of the Civil War (where
these surveys start) through all of the civil rights legislation of the 20th
century. I tried to incorporate narratives of freedom that would demonstrate
the ways that African Americans were active in their search for equality. My
lectures and readings focused on protest and change in  political, social,
and cultural arenas. In that way I hoped to demonstrate ways in which the
past was relevant to today.
    Looking forward to your next monograph!
Regards,
Maggi M. Morehouse
UC Berkeley
In a message dated 10/12/01 3:56:43 PM, ef17@COLUMBIA.EDU writes:

<< 2.  Textbooks. .. Here is a little secret.  My current project is to
expand my recent book, The Story of American Freedom into a text that can
be used in introductory college surveys, by adding a lot of historical
information not in the book but trying to keep the interpretive focus on
struggles around the definition of freedom.  I am definitely trying to
avoid the kitchen sink approach that has made no many current texts
distended and incoherent.  Any advice would be welcome. >>

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=========================================================================
Date:         Sun, 14 Oct 2001 15:24:12 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Len Rabinowitz 
Subject:      Re: African Am. political leadership/ African Am. church
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Donna:

Professor Foner provided us with a good resource the other day.  Go to the
New York Public Library's website:  www.nypl.org  Go to the Schomburg Center
link.  It has a very visually oriented set of materials on African Americans
in the 19th century- very suitable to high school students.  ( I'm a high
school teacher myself. )  It is broken down by topic.  One of the topics is
political, and I think there are cultural and social topics as well, which
might contain religious materials.

Len Rabinowitz
Ashland High School
Ashland, MA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Donna L Sharer" 
To: 
Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2001 7:38 PM
Subject: Re: African Am. political leadership/ African Am. church


> Thanks to everyone who has shared ideas and resources.  I'm a high school
> teacher.  When I first started teaching (1992), I did not have textbooks.
>  I found many resources though Soc. Studies School Service, local
> libraries, etc.  It was extremely time consuming (and expensive) but I
> think my students and I benefited.  I still teach in the same large urban
> school district.  We have textbooks but many  are old (12 - 15 years) and
> boring.  There is nothing worse than a history class where students read
> and answer questions and/or hear an adult talk for 50 or more minutes.
>
> I'd like information on:  African American political leaders during
> Reconstruction and the role of the African American church.  I realize
> these are broad topics but someone may know of resources appropriate for
> high school students.  I have some information on African American
> political leaders (there are  general African American History texts that
> include the information).  I'm particularly interested in the role the
> African American church played in supporting the African American
> political leaders.  This obviously had connections for today.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Donna Sharer
> Phila., PA
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

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=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 Oct 2001 00:08:51 -0400
Reply-To:     Jim Holton 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Jim Holton 
Subject:      African American Church Leaders and Reconstruction
Comments: cc: dalsharer@JUNO.COM
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Evidencing a little parochialism, I can recommend the following recent book
on Florida:
Laborers in the Vineyard of the Lord: The Beginnings of the AME Church in
Florida, 1865-1895 by Larry E. Rivers and Canter Brown, Jr. (University
Press of Florida, 2001).

The book is primarily a history of the denomination, but includes the
effects of the "chilling winds" brought on by the end of Reconstruction.
Also included is a discussion on the denomination's increased insularity as
a result of political turmoil.

Regards,
...Jim Holton
holton@gwu.edu


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=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 Oct 2001 10:25:49 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Ellen Noonan 
Subject:      Using Images to teach Reconstruction

Dear Reconstruction Forum,

Participant Len Rabinowitz, a high school teacher, wanted to share
some images with you that he uses in the classroom. I have posted
them at:

http://www.ashp.cuny.edu/reconsimages.html

I would ask Len to post a message explaining how he uses these
images with students, and what their responses are. I hope others
will look at these images and comment on their classroom use, or
provide examples of how you use other images in your classes.

Many thanks,

Ellen Noonan



Ellen Noonan
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
365 Fifth Avenue, Rm. 7301.10
New York, NY  10016
(212) 817-1969
http://www.ashp.cuny.edu
enoonan@gc.cuny.edu

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=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 Oct 2001 09:31:34 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Jonathan M. Bryant" 
Subject:      Re: Textbooks and others
In-Reply-To:  
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

Colleagues,

Jeffrey Young, a colleague of mine at Ga. Southern, used Professor Foner's
_The Story of American Freedom_ as THE text in a college level survey.  He
lectured to provide the needed context.  While the students' reviews were
mixed (Aren't they allways if you attempt something different?), he says
the results were quite good and that student essays and discussion were
often superior to those a typical class.  He plans to use the book again.

I have used Zinn's _A People's History_ off and on for the past three
years.  The better students appreciate the different viewpoint even if they
don't agree with Zinn's politics.  The poorer students usually detest the
book because it is a narrative, has no pictures, and no real study
aids.  In other words, they have to really read the book and try to
undertand an argument that develops over several pages.  I am not being
dismissive of my students by saying this, but for many of them this is a
real challenge.  Most have no experience in reading an extended narrative
and following its argument.  (Poll your classes, and find out how many
students have ever really read an entire book before, much less a
non-fiction book.  You may find the response distressing)

Both books provide a fuller presentation of Reconstruction than traditional
texts, and both provide some of the local details that one participant has
asked for.  High School teachers, however, will probably not find these
books on approved lists.  However, perhaps the revised version Professor
Foner mentions could make it onto such lists.

Professor Jonathan  M.  Bryant
Department of History, Box 8054
Georgia Southern University
Statesboro, Ga. 30460-8054
jbryant@ gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
Tel.: (912) 681-5818
Fax:  (912) 681-0377

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=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 Oct 2001 08:22:17 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Barbara Egypt 
Subject:      Reconsruction Images
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Hi, All,

I found the images fascinating and would be very interested to know how they are used.  In  my own university teaching (back in the day) I found B. A. Botkin's photos in Lay My Burden Down useful. These were images of post Civil war survivors.  Frankly, I am a little leery of implementing stereotypic images, particularly if they just might be used to justify/rationalize a white student's preconceived notions regarding African Americans regardless of the teachers input. There is nothing more painful for an African American student than to witness the expressions on the faces of their white counterparts when these  facial expressions expose their silent affirmations. The MA'AFA  website has compelling though horrific images,too.

In a local (New Jersey) high school one of the social study teachers has placed large posters on his bulletin board : one poster depicts a Sambo image and the other a snarling Native American image. His rationalization is that he is simply showing how these "races" are depicted. However, he would not like it if his own ethnicity were depicted in such a manner. The point here is that the posters remain up all year, year after year.

Images can be used in negative ways and certainly require a sensitive approach.

Great discussion! begypt@yahoo.com



---------------------------------
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Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals.
--0-623227935-1003159337=:13388
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Hi, All,
I found the images fascinating and would be very interested to know how they are used.  In  my own university teaching (back in the day) I found B. A. Botkin's photos in Lay My Burden Down useful. These were images of post Civil war survivors.  Frankly, I am a little leery of implementing stereotypic images, particularly if they just might be used to justify/rationalize a white student's preconceived notions regarding African Americans regardless of the teachers input. There is nothing more painful for an African American student than to witness the expressions on the faces of their white counterparts when these  facial expressions expose their silent affirmations. The MA'AFA  website has compelling though horrific images,too. 
In a local (New Jersey) high school one of the social study teachers has placed large posters on his bulletin board : one poster depicts a Sambo image and the other a snarling Native American image. His rationalization is that he is simply showing how these "races" are depicted. However, he would not like it if his own ethnicity were depicted in such a manner. The point here is that the posters remain up all year, year after year.
Images can be used in negative ways and certainly require a sensitive approach.
Great discussion! begypt@yahoo.com

Do You Yahoo!?

Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals.
--0-623227935-1003159337=:13388--

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=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 Oct 2001 10:24:26 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Barbara Egypt 
Subject:      Images (oops!)
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Sorry, all

The African American Holocaust website is www.Maafa.org. The first image is relevant and shows the  KKK.The others take up lynching through the 1950's. I just now checked it again and found that there is a link to the Cornell University Africana web page that may be of interest relative to images. In the Cornell U. website go to African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship, Sec. V. Reconstruction. There's a section on the Black Exodus to Kansas which notes that "resentment from the county's white settlers" caused many of these African American pioneers to leave.

They didn't just leave. Schools and crops were burned. Threats, terror, killings.They were forced out through what was called "white-capping." I forget the name of the work on the Black Exodus that discusses this, but I'll find it and get back to you, or maybe somebody there is using it? After the war there were several African American communities among them Nicodemus, Kansas and Mound Bayou, Mississippi which have survived. begypt@yahoo.com


True glory takes deep root and spreads its branches wide. But all pretences soon fade and fall to the ground like fragile flowers, and nothing counterfeit can be lasting. Cicero


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Sorry, all
The African American Holocaust website is www.Maafa.org. The first image is relevant and shows the  KKK.The others take up lynching through the 1950's. I just now checked it again and found that there is a link to the Cornell University Africana web page that may be of interest relative to images. In the Cornell U. website go to African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship, Sec. V. Reconstruction. There's a section on the Black Exodus to Kansas which notes that "resentment from the county's white settlers" caused many of these African American pioneers to leave.  
They didn't just leave. Schools and crops were burned. Threats, terror, killings.They were forced out through what was called "white-capping." I forget the name of the work on the Black Exodus that discusses this, but I'll find it and get back to you, or maybe somebody there is using it? After the war there were several African American communities among them Nicodemus, Kansas and Mound Bayou, Mississippi which have survived. begypt@yahoo.com


True glory takes deep root and spreads its branches wide. But all pretences soon fade and fall to the ground like fragile flowers, and nothing counterfeit can be lasting. Cicero

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Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals.
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=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 Oct 2001 15:38:36 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Len Rabinowitz 
Subject:      Re: Using Images to teach Reconstruction
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Thank you, Ellen.

I should state that these are really more post-Reconstruction, late 19th
century white views of African Americans.  These things can tie into lots of
things- social darwinism and the justifications for imperialism, for
example.

As far as classroom activities are concerned, there are a lot of
possibilities.  They could be part of a document based question.  I would
probably have some kind of discussion activity.  I usually start with asking
kids just to describe the visual.  I might then go into context- how does
this fit into what you know about race relations in 1890, say, or what
information that they have read could be related to or connected to this,
how might it justify Social Darwinism or Imperialism.  I'd probably end with
some kind of discussion or project on racial stereotyping or profiling today
and how that can drive social behavior.  Current issues about arab-Americans
come to mind.

There's a lot that could be done with this- that's probably the tack that I
would take.

If I could find the music, I'd play it.

Len Rabinowitz
Ashland High School
Ashland, MA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ellen Noonan" 
To: 
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 10:25 AM
Subject: Using Images to teach Reconstruction


> Dear Reconstruction Forum,
>
> Participant Len Rabinowitz, a high school teacher, wanted to share
> some images with you that he uses in the classroom. I have posted
> them at:
>
> http://www.ashp.cuny.edu/reconsimages.html
>
> I would ask Len to post a message explaining how he uses these
> images with students, and what their responses are. I hope others
> will look at these images and comment on their classroom use, or
> provide examples of how you use other images in your classes.
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Ellen Noonan
>
>
>
> Ellen Noonan
> American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
> The Graduate Center, City University of New York
> 365 Fifth Avenue, Rm. 7301.10
> New York, NY  10016
> (212) 817-1969
> http://www.ashp.cuny.edu
> enoonan@gc.cuny.edu
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

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=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 Oct 2001 15:41:41 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Len Rabinowitz 
Subject:      Re: Using Images to teach Reconstruction
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

One more thing- kids love this kind of activity.  The visuals are very
memorable, and tend to provoke a lot of thought-provoking and deep
conversation.  Very focused and on-track.I think students really have a lot
to say on the issue of stereotyping.

These could also be used as a kind of compare contrast- the successes of
Reconstruction versus the failures, as shown here.

Len Rabinowitz
Ashland High School
Ashland, MA


Len Rabinowitz
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ellen Noonan" 
To: 
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 10:25 AM
Subject: Using Images to teach Reconstruction


> Dear Reconstruction Forum,
>
> Participant Len Rabinowitz, a high school teacher, wanted to share
> some images with you that he uses in the classroom. I have posted
> them at:
>
> http://www.ashp.cuny.edu/reconsimages.html
>
> I would ask Len to post a message explaining how he uses these
> images with students, and what their responses are. I hope others
> will look at these images and comment on their classroom use, or
> provide examples of how you use other images in your classes.
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Ellen Noonan
>
>
>
> Ellen Noonan
> American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
> The Graduate Center, City University of New York
> 365 Fifth Avenue, Rm. 7301.10
> New York, NY  10016
> (212) 817-1969
> http://www.ashp.cuny.edu
> enoonan@gc.cuny.edu
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at
http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
>

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=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 Oct 2001 15:44:45 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Len Rabinowitz 
Subject:      Re: Reconsruction Images
MIME-Version: 1.0
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              boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0024_01C15590.501CC980"

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I guess I should add to this that of course you use it as a vehicle for =
discussing how wrong and insulting these images are- and get students to =
think about what it means when, for example, they say something is "gay" =
meaning it's bad.

Len Rabinowitz
Ashland High School
Ashland, MA
  ----- Original Message -----=20
  From: Barbara Egypt=20
  To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU=20
  Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 11:22 AM
  Subject: Reconsruction Images


  Hi, All,

  I found the images fascinating and would be very interested to know =
how they are used.  In  my own university teaching (back in the day) I =
found B. A. Botkin's photos in Lay My Burden Down useful. These were =
images of post Civil war survivors.  Frankly, I am a little leery of =
implementing stereotypic images, particularly if they just might be used =
to justify/rationalize a white student's preconceived notions regarding =
African Americans regardless of the teachers input. There is nothing =
more painful for an African American student than to witness the =
expressions on the faces of their white counterparts when these  facial =
expressions expose their silent affirmations. The MA'AFA  website has =
compelling though horrific images,too.=20

  In a local (New Jersey) high school one of the social study teachers =
has placed large posters on his bulletin board : one poster depicts a =
Sambo image and the other a snarling Native American image. His =
rationalization is that he is simply showing how these "races" are =
depicted. However, he would not like it if his own ethnicity were =
depicted in such a manner. The point here is that the posters remain up =
all year, year after year.

  Images can be used in negative ways and certainly require a sensitive =
approach.

  Great discussion! begypt@yahoo.com





-------------------------------------------------------------------------=
-----
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  Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals.

------=_NextPart_000_0024_01C15590.501CC980
Content-Type: text/html;
        charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable








I guess I should add to this that of =
course you use=20
it as a vehicle for discussing how wrong and insulting these images are- =
and get=20
students to think about what it means when, for example, they say =
something is=20
"gay" meaning it's bad.
 
Len Rabinowitz
Ashland High School
Ashland, MA

  
----- Original Message ----- 
  From:=20
  Barbara =
Egypt=20
  
  
To: RECONSTRUCTION=
FORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU=20
  
  
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 =
11:22=20
  AM
  
Subject: Reconsruction =
Images
  


  
Hi, All,
  
I found the images fascinating and would be very interested to know =
how=20
  they are used.  In  my own university teaching (back in the =
day) I=20
  found B. A. Botkin's photos in Lay My Burden Down useful. These =
were=20
  images of post Civil war survivors.  Frankly, I am a little leery =
of=20
  implementing stereotypic images, particularly if they just might be =
used to=20
  justify/rationalize a white student's preconceived notions regarding =
African=20
  Americans regardless of the teachers input. There is nothing more =
painful for=20
  an African American student than to witness the expressions on the =
faces of=20
  their white counterparts when these  facial expressions =
expose their=20
  silent affirmations. The MA'AFA  website has compelling though =
horrific=20
  images,too. 
  
In a local (New Jersey) high school one of the social study =
teachers has=20
  placed large posters on his bulletin board : one poster depicts a =
Sambo image=20
  and the other a snarling Native American image. His rationalization is =
that he=20
  is simply showing how these "races" are depicted. However, he would =
not like=20
  it if his own ethnicity were depicted in such a manner. The point here =
is that=20
  the posters remain up all year, year after year.
  
Images can be used in negative ways and certainly require a =
sensitive=20
  approach.
  
Great discussion! begypt@yahoo.com
  


  

  Do You Yahoo!?
Make a great connection at Yahoo!=20
  Personals.

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=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 Oct 2001 17:04:42 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         "Brown, Joshua" 
Subject:      Re: Reconsruction Images
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The discussion about using images has been very helpful in pointing out
the opportunities and pitfalls of visual evidence.  Recent work about
19th-century visual depictions of African Americans--most notably Kirk
Savage's Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in
Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton, 1997)--has demonstrated how the
*representation* of the promise of equality was a subject of struggle
and ultimate defeat.  But it is the question of struggle that I think
can be most useful and enlightening to students.

While freedpeople had little control over the pictures and other art
that purported to depict their lives, Reconstruction marks a period
where the visual record left to us includes, along with cruel and
vicious stereotypes, remarkable portraits, engravings, and lithographs
of both new African-American leaders and "ordinary" freedpeople working,
celebrating, and organizing.  In a 1870 letter to Louis Prang, the
proprietor of one of the country's leading lithography houses, which
published a series of portraits of black statesmen, Frederick Douglass
wrote (referring to one portrait of Senator Hiram Revels): "Whatever may
be the prejudices of those who may look upon it, they will be compelled
to admit that the Mississippi Senator is a man, and one who will easily
pass for a man among men.  We colored men so often see ourselves
described and painted as monkeys, that we think it a great piece of good
fortune to find an exception to this general rule."  Perhaps, Douglass
continued, black Americans could now benefit from the virtues of
pictorial representation enjoyed by white citizens: "Heretofore, colored
Americans have thought little of adorning their parlors with pictures.
They have had to do with the stern, and I may say, the ugly realities of
life.  Pictures come not with slavery and oppression and destitution,
but with liberty, fair play, leisure, and refinement.  These conditions
are now possible to colored American citizens, and I think the walls of
their houses will soon begin to bear evidences of their altered
relations to the people about them."

That dream was, in the long run, betrayed--as the popular pictorial
image of African Americans grew more grotesque through the 1880s and
90s.  But the struggle to redress that particular form of
expressive/representative inequality runs throughout that era.  It can
be found in little-known illustrated publications like the Indianapolis
Freeman (see Marvin D. Jeter, "H. J. Lewis, Freeman Artist: A Working
Paper," Black History News and Notes [Indiana Historical Society],  41
[August 1990]) and in fascinating instances such as an March 1874
pictorial "duel" between Thomas Nast's stereotyped Harper's Weekly
cartoon of southern black Republican legislators versus an amazing New
York Daily Graphic cover entitled "I Wonder How Harper's Artist Likes to
Be Offensively Caricatured Himself?" (both available in Who Built
America?, Volume 1, pp. 683-84 or Freedom's Unfinished Revolution, pp.
219, 235 -- and shortly on the History Matters Web site).

Josh Brown
American Social History Project





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Content-type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable








The discussion about using images has been very helpful in pointing out =
the opportunities and pitfalls of visual evidence.  Recent work =
about 19th-century visual depictions of African Americans--most notably =
Kirk Savage's Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and =
Monument in Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton, 1997)--has =
demonstrated how the *representation* of the promise of equality was a =
subject of struggle and ultimate defeat.  But it is the question =
of struggle that I think can be most useful and enlightening to =
students.  



While freedpeople had little control over the pictures and other art =
that purported to depict their lives, Reconstruction marks a period =
where the visual record left to us includes, along with cruel and =
vicious stereotypes, remarkable portraits, engravings, and lithographs =
of both new African-American leaders and "ordinary" =
freedpeople working, celebrating, and organizing.  In a 1870 =
letter to Louis Prang, the proprietor of one of the country's leading =
lithography houses, which published a series of portraits of black =
statesmen, Frederick Douglass wrote (referring to one portrait of =
Senator Hiram Revels): "Whatever may be the prejudices of those =
who may look upon it, they will be compelled to admit that the =
Mississippi Senator is a man, and one who will easily pass for a man =
among men.  We colored men so often see ourselves described and =
painted as monkeys, that we think it a great piece of good fortune to =
find an exception to this general rule."  Perhaps, Douglass =
continued, black Americans could now benefit from the virtues of =
pictorial representation enjoyed by white citizens: "Heretofore, =
colored Americans have thought little of adorning their parlors with =
pictures.  They have had to do with the stern, and I may say, the =
ugly realities of life.  Pictures come not with slavery and =
oppression and destitution, but with liberty, fair play, leisure, and =
refinement.  These conditions are now possible to colored American =
citizens, and I think the walls of their houses will soon begin to bear =
evidences of their altered relations to the people about =
them."



That dream was, in the long run, betrayed--as the popular pictorial =
image of African Americans grew more grotesque through the 1880s and =
90s.  But the struggle to redress that particular form of =
expressive/representative inequality runs throughout that era.  It =
can be found in little-known illustrated publications like the =
Indianapolis Freeman (see Marvin D. Jeter, "H. J. Lewis, =
Freeman Artist: A Working Paper," Black History News and =
Notes [Indiana Historical Society],  41 [August 1990]) and in =
fascinating instances such as an March 1874 pictorial "duel" =
between Thomas Nast's stereotyped Harper's Weekly cartoon of =
southern black Republican legislators versus an amazing New York Daily =
Graphic cover entitled "I Wonder How Harper's Artist Likes =
to Be Offensively Caricatured Himself?" (both available in Who =
Built America?, Volume 1, pp. 683-84 or Freedom's Unfinished =
Revolution, pp. 219, 235 -- and shortly on the History =
Matters Web site).



Josh Brown

American Social History Project










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This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching U.S. History.
=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 15 Oct 2001 17:44:46 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Wendy C Horikoshi 
Subject:      Re: Textbooks and others
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Dear Professor Bryant,

Inserted within text I had a comment regarding using narrative texts in
the classroom.

On Mon, 15 Oct 2001 09:31:34 -0400 "Jonathan M. Bryant"
 writes:
> Colleagues,
>
> Jeffrey Young, a colleague of mine at Ga. Southern, used Professor
> Foner's
> _The Story of American Freedom_ as THE text in a college level
> survey.  He
> lectured to provide the needed context.  While the students' reviews
> were
> mixed (Aren't they allways if you attempt something different?), he
> says
> the results were quite good and that student essays and discussion
> were
> often superior to those a typical class.  He plans to use the book
> again.
>
> I have used Zinn's _A People's History_ off and on for the past
> three
> years.  The better students appreciate the different viewpoint even
> if they
> don't agree with Zinn's politics.  The poorer students usually
> detest the
> book because it is a narrative, has no pictures, and no real study
> aids.  In other words, they have to really read the book and try to
> undertand an argument that develops over several pages.  I am not
> being
> dismissive of my students by saying this, but for many of them this
> is a
> real challenge.  Most have no experience in reading an extended
> narrative and following its argument.  (Poll your classes, and find out
how
> many students have ever really read an entire book before, much less a
> non-fiction book.  You may find the response distressing.  I think
there's a great deal of truth about students really reading an entire
book, but you may also be interested to know that the majority of U.S.
adults (over 73%) and high school students have learning preferences
where they take in information through the 5 senses--therefore pictures,
diagrams, study aids assist in how they prefer to learn new things.  This
is in contrast with those with a learning preference which sees the broad
patterns and associations, making it easier for them to learn through a
narrative.  I have sensing learning preference, but believe it is
important to be exposed to narrative texts and differing perspectives,
such as in Zinn's book, which aren't as common in mainstream history
classes.  I was never exposed to differing perspectives until taking
ethnic studies classes and then on my own, reading such books as Zinn's,
Takaki's -A Different Mirror & Strangers from a Different Shore, Loewen's
book, and Omi and Winant's book-Racial Formation in the U.S.)

> Both books provide a fuller presentation of Reconstruction than
> traditional  texts, and both provide some of the local details that one

> participant has  asked for.  High School teachers, however, will
probably not find
> these  books on approved lists.  However, perhaps the revised version
> Professor  Foner mentions could make it onto such lists.
>
> Professor Jonathan  M.  Bryant
> Department of History, Box 8054
> Georgia Southern University
> Statesboro, Ga. 30460-8054
> jbryant@ gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
> Tel.: (912) 681-5818
> Fax:  (912) 681-0377

I have been enjoying this dialogue.  I used to teach school, worked in
youth development for 13 years, and am now a consultant in diversity and
inclusion, primarily in the non-profit and business world.  (I currently
teach a class in the cross-cultural counseling class at JF Kennedy
University (Orinda, CA), on the using of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
with diverse clientele.)  Thank you for all of your contributions to
this.  I find Reconstruction to be an extremely important topic in our
history to talk about the foundation of race relations in the U.S.  As a
parent, I have tried to assist the schools in selecting literature from
diverse authors and equally as important, from diverse perspectives.
Reviewing what is actually taught about American history in my children's
middle and high schools seems often sketchy in presenting diverse
perspectives, but I must say that it's much better than when I went to
school and when I taught.

Wendy C. Horikoshi, Consultant & Trainer
WendyChiyo@juno.com
(510) 769-9714  Phone and Fax
>
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit our Web site
> at http://historymatters.gmu.edu for more resources for teaching
> U.S. History.
>
----__JNP_000_5142.5837.1043
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable







Dear Professor Bryant,
 
Inserted within text I had a comment regarding =
using=20
narrative texts in the classroom.  
 
On Mon, 15 Oct 2001 09:31:34 -0400 "Jonathan M. Bryant" <jbryant@GSVMS2.CC.GASOU.EDU=
>=20
writes:
> Colleagues,
> 
> Jeffrey Young, a colleague of =
mine=20
at Ga. Southern, used Professor 
> Foner's
> _The Story of =
American=20
Freedom_ as THE text in a college level 
> survey.  He
>=20
lectured to provide the needed context.  While the students' reviews=20

> were
> mixed (Aren't they allways if you attempt something=20
different?), he 
> says
> the results were quite good and that=
=20
student essays and discussion 
> were
> often superior to those=
 a=20
typical class.  He plans to use the book 
> again.
> 
&=
gt; I=20
have used Zinn's _A People's History_ off and on for the past 
>=20
three
> years.  The better students appreciate the different=20
viewpoint even 
> if they
> don't agree with Zinn's politics.&=
nbsp;=20
The poorer students usually 
> detest the
> book because it is =
a=20
narrative, has no pictures, and no real study
> aids.  In other=
=20
words, they have to really read the book and try to
> undertand an=20
argument that develops over several pages.  I am not 
> being>=20
dismissive of my students by saying this, but for many of them this 
>=
; is=20
a
> real challenge.  Most have no experience in reading an =
extended=20

> narrative and following its argument.  (Poll your classes, =
and=20
find out how 
> many students have ever really read an entire book =
before,=20
much less a
> non-fiction book.  You may find the response=20
distressing.  I think there's a great deal =
of=20
truth about students really reading an entire book, but you may also be=20
interested to know that the majority of U.S. adults (over 73%) and high =
school=20
students have learning preferences where they take in information through =
the 5=20
senses--therefore pictures, diagrams, study aids assist in how they prefer =
to=20
learn new things.  This is in contrast with those with a learning=20
preference which sees the broad patterns and associations, making it easier=
 for=20
them to learn through a narrative.  I have sensing learning=20
preference, but believe it is important to be exposed to narrative texts=20
and differing perspectives, such as in Zinn's book, which=
=20
aren't as common in mainstream history classes.  I=20
was never exposed to differing perspectives until =
taking=20
ethnic studies classes and then on my own, reading such books as Zinn's,=20
Takaki's -A Different Mirror & Strangers from a Different=
=20
Shore, Loewen's book, and Omi and Winant's book-Racial Formation =
in=20
the U.S.)

> Both books provide a fuller presentation of=20
Reconstruction than 
> traditional  texts, and both provide some=
 of=20
the local details that one 
> participant has  asked for.  =
High=20
School teachers, however, will probably not find 
> these  books=
 on=20
approved lists.  However, perhaps the revised version 
>=20
Professor  Foner mentions could make it onto such lists.
> 
&=
gt;=20
Professor Jonathan  M.  Bryant
> Department of History, Box=
=20
8054
> Georgia Southern University
> Statesboro, Ga.=20
30460-8054
> jbryant@ gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
> Tel.: (912)=20
681-5818
> Fax:  (912) 681-0377

I have been enjoying this dialogue.  I used=
 to=20
teach school, worked in youth development for 13 years, and am now a =
consultant=20
in diversity and inclusion, primarily in the non-profit and business=20
world.  (I currently teach a class in the cross-cultural counseling =
class=20
at JF Kennedy University (Orinda, CA), on the using of the Myers-=
Briggs=20
Type Indicator with diverse clientele.)  Thank you for all of =
your=20
contributions to this.  I find Reconstruction to be an=20
extremely important topic in our history to talk about the =
foundation=20
of race relations in the U.S.  As a parent, I have tried to assist the=
=20
schools in selecting literature from diverse authors and equally as=20
important, from diverse perspectives.  Reviewing what is actually=20
taught about American history in my children's middle and high=20
schools seems often sketchy in presenting diverse perspectives, =
but I=20
must say that it's much better than when I went to school and when I=20
taught.    
 
Wendy C. Horikoshi, Consultant &=20
Trainer
WendyChiyo@juno.com
(510) 769-9714  Phone and Fax
> 
> This forum is sponsored by History Matters--please visit=
 our=20
Web site 
> at http://historymatters.gmu.edu =
for more=20
resources for teaching 
> U.S. History.
> 
 


----__JNP_000_5142.5837.1043--

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=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 16 Oct 2001 15:17:52 -0700
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Pete Haro 
Subject:      Re: Reconsruction Images
Mime-version: 1.0
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Dear forum members: I'm glad that Josh Brown has addressed the issue of
racial stereotypes through images both during and after Reconstruction. I
too had addressed this question earlier in the forum but no one seemed
willing to respond to my question so I shall try again. Certainly, people
should feel revolted when they see images from the Reconstruction era which
depicted Blacks as monkeys, savages or lustful. Except for racial extremist,
few people today (hopefully) would regard these as realistic or desirable.

However, when we as teachers try to address the relevance of these images to
students, isn't it possible that the images in popular culture of rap
artists today serves the same function as it did during Reconstruction? It
never ceases to amaze me that every time I see a rap music video or other
depictions in popular culture, Black artists are portrayed as "gangstas" who
wear baggy clothes, refer to women as "bitches and ho's", engage in boorish
behavior, and have gold enameled teeth adorned with the Playboy Bunny or
dollar signs. I would submit that this image is precisely the one that
millions of Americans are comfortable with. I would be interested to hear
from other forum participants if they see any connections between the two
portrayals and how they would try to present this issue before a class.

Sincerely,

Peter D. Haro
Southwestern College

----------
From: "Brown, Joshua" 
To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: Reconsruction Images
Date: Mon, Oct 15, 2001, 5:04 PM



The discussion about using images has been very helpful in pointing out the
opportunities and pitfalls of visual evidence.  Recent work about
19th-century visual depictions of African Americans--most notably Kirk
Savage's Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in
Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton, 1997)--has demonstrated how the
*representation* of the promise of equality was a subject of struggle and
ultimate defeat.  But it is the question of struggle that I think can be
most useful and enlightening to students.

While freedpeople had little control over the pictures and other art that
purported to depict their lives, Reconstruction marks a period where the
visual record left to us includes, along with cruel and vicious stereotypes,
remarkable portraits, engravings, and lithographs of both new
African-American leaders and "ordinary" freedpeople working, celebrating,
and organizing.  In a 1870 letter to Louis Prang, the proprietor of one of
the country's leading lithography houses, which published a series of
portraits of black statesmen, Frederick Douglass wrote (referring to one
portrait of Senator Hiram Revels): "Whatever may be the prejudices of those
who may look upon it, they will be compelled to admit that the Mississippi
Senator is a man, and one who will easily pass for a man among men.  We
colored men so often see ourselves described and painted as monkeys, that we
think it a great piece of good fortune to find an exception to this general
rule."  Perhaps, Douglass continued, black Americans could now benefit from
the virtues of pictorial representation enjoyed by white citizens:
"Heretofore, colored Americans have thought little of adorning their parlors
with pictures.  They have had to do with the stern, and I may say, the ugly
realities of life.  Pictures come not with slavery and oppression and
destitution, but with liberty, fair play, leisure, and refinement.  These
conditions are now possible to colored American citizens, and I think the
walls of their houses will soon begin to bear evidences of their altered
relations to the people about them."

That dream was, in the long run, betrayed--as the popular pictorial image of
African Americans grew more grotesque through the 1880s and 90s.  But the
struggle to redress that particular form of expressive/representative
inequality runs throughout that era.  It can be found in little-known
illustrated publications like the Indianapolis Freeman (see Marvin D. Jeter,
"H. J. Lewis, Freeman Artist: A Working Paper," Black History News and Notes
[Indiana Historical Society],  41 [August 1990]) and in fascinating
instances such as an March 1874 pictorial "duel" between Thomas Nast's
stereotyped Harper's Weekly cartoon of southern black Republican legislators
versus an amazing New York Daily Graphic cover entitled "I Wonder How
Harper's Artist Likes to Be Offensively Caricatured Himself?" (both
available in Who Built America?, Volume 1, pp. 683-84 or Freedom's
Unfinished Revolution, pp. 219, 235 -- and shortly on the History Matters
Web site).

Josh Brown
American Social History Project




--MS_Mac_OE_3086090272_416116_MIME_Part
Content-type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable






Dear forum members: I'm glad that Josh Brown has addressed the issue of rac=
ial stereotypes through images both during and after Reconstruction. I too h=
ad addressed this question earlier in the forum but no one seemed willing to=
 respond to my question so I shall try again. Certainly, people should feel =
revolted when they see images from the Reconstruction era which depicted Bla=
cks as monkeys, savages or lustful. Except for racial extremist, few people =
today (hopefully) would regard these as realistic or desirable. 



However, when we as teachers try to address the relevance of these images t=
o students, isn't it possible that the images in popular culture of rap arti=
sts today serves the same function as it did during Reconstruction? It never=
 ceases to amaze me that every time I see a rap music video or other depicti=
ons in popular culture, Black artists are portrayed as "gangstas" =
who wear baggy clothes, refer to women as "bitches and ho's", enga=
ge in boorish behavior, and have gold enameled teeth adorned with the Playbo=
y Bunny or dollar signs. I would submit that this image is precisely the one=
 that millions of Americans are comfortable with. I would be interested to h=
ear from other forum participants if they see any connections between the tw=
o portrayals and how they would try to present this issue before a class. 


Sincerely, 



Peter D. Haro

Southwestern College



----------

From: "Brown, Joshua" <JBrown@GC.CUNY.EDU>

To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU

Subject: Re: Reconsruction Images

Date: Mon, Oct 15, 2001, 5:04 PM







The discussion about using images has been very helpful in pointing out the=
 opportunities and pitfalls of visual evidence.  Recent work about 19th=
-century visual depictions of African Americans--most notably Kirk Savage's =
Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth=
-Century America (Princeton, 1997)--has demonstrated how the *representa=
tion* of the promise of equality was a subject of struggle and ultimate defe=
at.  But it is the question of struggle that I think can be most useful=
 and enlightening to students.  



While freedpeople had little control over the pictures and other art that p=
urported to depict their lives, Reconstruction marks a period where the visu=
al record left to us includes, along with cruel and vicious stereotypes, rem=
arkable portraits, engravings, and lithographs of both new African-American =
leaders and "ordinary" freedpeople working, celebrating, and organ=
izing.  In a 1870 letter to Louis Prang, the proprietor of one of the c=
ountry's leading lithography houses, which published a series of portraits o=
f black statesmen, Frederick Douglass wrote (referring to one portrait of Se=
nator Hiram Revels): "Whatever may be the prejudices of those who may l=
ook upon it, they will be compelled to admit that the Mississippi Senator is=
 a man, and one who will easily pass for a man among men.  We colored m=
en so often see ourselves described and painted as monkeys, that we think it=
 a great piece of good fortune to find an exception to this general rule.&qu=
ot;  Perhaps, Douglass continued, black Americans could now benefit fro=
m the virtues of pictorial representation enjoyed by white citizens: "H=
eretofore, colored Americans have thought little of adorning their parlors w=
ith pictures.  They have had to do with the stern, and I may say, the u=
gly realities of life.  Pictures come not with slavery and oppression a=
nd destitution, but with liberty, fair play, leisure, and refinement.  =
These conditions are now possible to colored American citizens, and I think =
the walls of their houses will soon begin to bear evidences of their altered=
 relations to the people about them."



That dream was, in the long run, betrayed--as the popular pictorial image o=
f African Americans grew more grotesque through the 1880s and 90s.  But=
 the struggle to redress that particular form of expressive/representative i=
nequality runs throughout that era.  It can be found in little-known il=
lustrated publications like the Indianapolis Freeman (see Marvin D. J=
eter, "H. J. Lewis, Freeman Artist: A Working Paper," Black His=
tory News and Notes [Indiana Historical Society],  41 [August 1990]=
) and in fascinating instances such as an March 1874 pictorial "duel&qu=
ot; between Thomas Nast's stereotyped Harper's Weekly cartoon of sout=
hern black Republican legislators versus an amazing New York Daily Graphic c=
over entitled "I Wonder How Harper's Artist Likes to Be Offensiv=
ely Caricatured Himself?" (both available in Who Built America?,=
 Volume 1, pp. 683-84 or Freedom's Unfinished Revolution, pp. 219, 23=
5 -- and shortly on the History Matters Web site).



Josh Brown

American Social History Project











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=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 16 Oct 2001 19:29:24 EDT
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Donald Nathanson 
Subject:      Re: Reconstruction Historiography
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     I am responding to Prof. Foner's "little secret" that he is planning a
new text based on his book, "The Story of American Freedom."  I am a lecturer
at Cal State DH and when I taught the basic U.S. history survey course, I did
not use the book but rather structured the course on the changing definition
of freedom as illustrated in the book.  I did use a standard college text
along with the 2  volumes of Taking Sides (Madaras and SoRelle).
     I believe the course was more effective than usual for the following
reasons. Material that is somewhat repetitive to students (although presented
at a more sophisticated level) had more meaning with a thematic approach.
Students were challenged on issues they hadn't previously considered or
thought were easily definable and one-sided.
    From the start I realized it was necessary to explore students' own
perceptions of freedom and to get them to understand the complexity of the
definition.  I did this with a strong dose of Socratic methodology a la Prof.
Arthur Miller.  More germaine to the issues of Reconstruction, I engaged the
class first in a discussion of whether in contemporary society, as a
generality, different racial and ethnic groups have differing notions of
freedom.  This was a great lead in to some of the outcomes of the
Reconstruction Era.

                                           Donald Nathanson

--part1_f6.10d4e2b6.28fe1cd4_boundary
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     I am responding to Prof. Foner's "little secret" that he is planning a new text based on his book, "The Story of American Freedom."  I am a lecturer at Cal State DH and when I taught the basic U.S. history survey course, I did not use the book but rather structured the course on the changing definition of freedom as illustrated in the book.  I did use a standard college text along with the 2  volumes of Taking Sides (Madaras and SoRelle).

     I believe the course was more effective than usual for the following reasons. Material that is somewhat repetitive to students (although presented at a more sophisticated level) had more meaning with a thematic approach.  Students were challenged on issues they hadn't previously considered or thought were easily definable and one-sided.

    From the start I realized it was necessary to explore students' own perceptions of freedom and to get them to understand the complexity of the definition.  I did this with a strong dose of Socratic methodology a la Prof. Arthur Miller.  More germaine to the issues of Reconstruction, I engaged the class first in a discussion of whether in contemporary society, as a generality, different racial and ethnic groups have differing notions of freedom.  This was a great lead in to some of the outcomes of the Reconstruction Era.



                                           Donald Nathanson 

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=========================================================================
Date:         Tue, 16 Oct 2001 20:08:58 -0400
Reply-To:     Reconstruction Forum 
Sender:       Reconstruction Forum 
From:         Len Rabinowitz 
Subject:      Re: Reconsruction Images
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
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        charset="iso-8859-1"
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Re: Reconsruction ImagesPeter:

I think this is a very important idea, and would make a great lesson.  I =
see a lot of white suburban kids "acting black" in that sense and I =
think it could be used to tell them that they may have done something as =
offensive as these pictures.  I get even more disturbed when I =
occassionally see African-American kids acting this way, because they =
have been fed the same trash.  You could also tie it to the other shows- =
the blacks as "hapless buffoons" shows that still seem to crop up and =
that Spike Lee has spoken out against in the last year or so.

I would do it comparatively- is our racial streotyping really an =
improvement over theirs?  This comes up repeatedly in American history.  =
There is a some commonality between how some in the 1920's saw the =
"Jewish Jazz" (!) of the day and how some perceive hip hop and rap =
today.

Len Rabinowitz
Ashland High School
Ashland, MA

  ----- Original Message -----=20
  From: Pete Haro=20
  To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU=20
  Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 6:17 PM
  Subject: Re: Reconsruction Images


  Dear forum members: I'm glad that Josh Brown has addressed the issue =
of racial stereotypes through images both during and after =
Reconstruction. I too had addressed this question earlier in the forum =
but no one seemed willing to respond to my question so I shall try =
again. Certainly, people should feel revolted when they see images from =
the Reconstruction era which depicted Blacks as monkeys, savages or =
lustful. Except for racial extremist, few people today (hopefully) would =
regard these as realistic or desirable.=20

  However, when we as teachers try to address the relevance of these =
images to students, isn't it possible that the images in popular culture =
of rap artists today serves the same function as it did during =
Reconstruction? It never ceases to amaze me that every time I see a rap =
music video or other depictions in popular culture, Black artists are =
portrayed as "gangstas" who wear baggy clothes, refer to women as =
"bitches and ho's", engage in boorish behavior, and have gold enameled =
teeth adorned with the Playboy Bunny or dollar signs. I would submit =
that this image is precisely the one that millions of Americans are =
comfortable with. I would be interested to hear from other forum =
participants if they see any connections between the two portrayals and =
how they would try to present this issue before a class.=20

  Sincerely,=20

  Peter D. Haro
  Southwestern College

  ----------
  From: "Brown, Joshua" 
  To: RECONSTRUCTIONFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
  Subject: Re: Reconsruction Images
  Date: Mon, Oct 15, 2001, 5:04 PM




    The discussion about using images has been very helpful in pointing =
out the opportunities and pitfalls of visual evidence.  Recent work =
about 19th-century visual depictions of African Americans--most notably =
Kirk Savage's Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and =
Monument in Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton, 1997)--has =
demonstrated how the *representation* of the promise of equality was a =
subject of struggle and ultimate defeat.  But it is the question of =
struggle that I think can be most useful and enlightening to students. =20

    While freedpeople had little control over the pictures and other art =
that purported to depict their lives, Reconstruction marks a period =
where the visual record left to us includes, along with cruel and =
vicious stereotypes, remarkable portraits, engravings, and lithographs =
of both new African-American leaders and "ordinary" freedpeople working, =
celebrating, and organizing.  In a 1870 letter to Louis Prang, the =
proprietor of one of the country's leading lithography houses, which =
published a series of portraits of black statesmen, Frederick Douglass =
wrote (referring to one portrait of Senator Hiram Revels): "Whatever may =
be the prejudices of those who may look upon it, they will be compelled =
to admit that the Mississippi Senator is a man, and one who will easily =
pass for a man among men.  We colored men so often see ourselves =
described and painted as monkeys, that we think it a great piece of good =
fortune to find an exception to this general rule."  Perhaps, Douglass =
continued, black Americans could now benefit from the virtues of =
pictorial representation enjoyed by white citizens: "Heretofore, colored =
Americans have thought little of adorning their parlors with pictures.  =
They have had to do with the stern, and I may say, the ugly realities of =
life.  Pictures come not with slavery and oppression and destitution, =
but with liberty, fair play, leisure, and refinement.  These conditions =
are now possible to colored American citizens, and I think the walls of =
their houses will soon begin to bear evidences of their altered =
relations to the people about them."

    That dream was, in the long run, betrayed--as the popular pictorial =
image of African Americans grew more grotesque through the 1880s and =
90s.  But the struggle to redress that particular form of =
expressive/representative inequality runs throughout that era.  It can =
be found in little-known illustrated publications like the Indianapolis =
Freeman (see Marvin D. Jeter, "H. J. Lewis, Freeman Artist: A Working =
Paper," Black History News and Notes [Indiana Historical Society],  41 =
[August 1990]) and in fascinating instances such as an March 1874 =
pictorial "duel" between Thomas Nast's stereotyped Harper's Weekly =
cartoon of southern black Republican legislators versus an amazing New =
York Daily Graphic cover entitled "I Wonder How Harper's Artist Likes to =
Be Offensively Caricatured Himself?" (both available in Who Built =
America?, Volume 1, pp. 683-84 or Freedom's Unfinished Revolution, pp. =
219, 235 -- and shortly on the History Matters Web site).

    Josh Brown
    American Social History Project







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Peter:
 
I think this is a very important idea, =
and would=20
make a great lesson.  I see a lot of white suburban kids "acting =
black" in=20
that sense and I think it could be used to tell them that they may have =
done=20
something as offensive as these pictures.  I get even more =
disturbed when I=20
occassionally see African-American kids acting this way, because they =
have been=20
fed the same trash.  You could also tie it to the other shows- the =
blacks=20
as "hapless buffoons" shows that still seem to crop up and that Spike =
Lee has=20
spoken out against in the last year or so.
 
I would do it comparatively- is our =
racial=20
streotyping really an improvement over theirs?  This comes up =
repeatedly in=20
American history.  There is a some commonality between how some in =
the=20
1920's saw the "Jewish Jazz" (!) of the day and how some perceive hip =
hop and=20
rap today.
 
Len Rabinowitz
Ashland High School
Ashland, MA
 

  
----- Original Message ----- 
  From:=20
  Pete Haro=20