Blog #141 – Reconstruction Historiography
You’re probably wondering, what in the world is historiography? How different is it from history itself? Well, in essence, it’s the history of the history of a topic or time period. Historiography analyzes how history has been written in the past and how different interpretations of events. For instance, historians in the 1850s would look at the events of the American Revolution differently than historians in the 1950s and those in 2020. Each historian is shaped by their own biases and time period – for instance, if a historian wrote during a time period where there was economic turmoil and depression, those current events might likely shape how that historian views older events. Also, the study of American history before the 1950s had been predominantly a white male enterprise which only focused primarily on political, economic, and diplomatic topics, but since the 1950s and the Civil Rights Movement, more and more female historians and historians of color entered the field who showed a light on peoples’ stories that hadn’t been told before by white male historians. They also expanded the field of history to include social, cultural, and women’s histories. Here is a quote on the importance of historiography:
“Historiography allows us to understand the wide range of historical interpretations and how differing perspectives have shaped the representations of historical fact. It helps us adopt a more critical lens in understanding history as relative, as a subject that has been manipulated by those telling it and reclaimed by those who have participated in it. It encourages to seek out the biases in historical accounts and understand the subjective nature of historical writing.” (citation).
So, the period of Reconstruction is one that had been dominated by a racist view of the leading historians of the time period until the 1950s. Essentially, it was written from a white Southerner point of view, and Reconstruction was seen as a tragic era where Southern whites were the victims of incompetent Blacks and corrupt white Republicans. Early Black historians like William Wells Brown and George Washington Williams writing in the 1870s and 1880s saw the period as tragic because the freedmen had been elevated beyond their previous status without proper preparation: “The government gave him [the freedmen] the statute-book when he ought to have had the spelling book; placed him in the Legislature when he ought to have been in the school-house.” (Williams). They thought that the establishment of public schools in the South was one of the only good things to come out of Reconstruction.
One fictional work that influenced the upcoming Dunning School of Reconstruction (see video below) was the popular novel, The Clansman, by Thomas Dixon in 1905. It was an “unabashed celebration of the Ku Klux Klan” that saved the South from Radical Republicans’ attempt to “Africanize” the South. This novel served as the basis for the hugely popular film, Birth of a Nation, released in 1915 to wide acclaim and massive audiences.
In the old school or William Dunning interpretation, Reconstruction was a miserable failure that blundered in giving freedmen their rights (which they weren’t ready for for a variety of reasons, but usually racist theories about intelligence and human nature), but Andrew Johnson and the Klan were portrayed as the heroes of the era because they tried to ease the country back together painlessly (Johnson) and pushed for restoration of home rule (Klan). Reconstruction governments were filled with scalawags and carpetbaggers who corrupted the states and raised taxes. The true victims here during this period were Southern whites. In this old school, we see a major critique of the federal government’s expansion and exercise of federal power over the states. Behind much of this interpretation is the opinion that was popular at the turn of the 20th Century that white people of Anglo-Saxon (English) or Northern European descent were superior to the rest of the world. We see a lot of this nonsense in the previously mentioned silent blockbuster from 1915, Birth of a Nation (link here if you wanna check it out), and the epic Gone With the Wind in 1939. Part of the reason that this Dunning School of Reconstruction had such a lasting impact was that there was a huge push towards reconciliation in the late 19th Century, and William Dunning’s book on Reconstruction was full of heavily researched details which set the standard for Reconstruction histories going forward.
In the 20th Century, Black historians like W.E.B. DuBois depicted Reconstruction as a tragedy because of its failure to secure civil rights for African Americans throughout the country in his 1935 book, Black Reconstruction (link to the audio book on YouTube here). While he stated that there were minor successes like education for Black Americans, he lamented the violence that racist whites inflicted upon Black Americans – lynching had reached peak numbers in the 1890s, and white society attributed this to inherent Black criminality (but we all know the real story).
Later on in the mid to late 20th Century, under some of the new interpretations, especially the Progressive and Neo-Progressive / New Left historians in the 20th Century, the Dunning interpretation is flipped on its head. Andrew Johnson was a racist who stood in the way of the idealist Radical Republicans who wanted to give freedmen their full and equal rights. The Klan was not the protector of the South but a haphazard terrorist organization that kept blacks from voting and intimidated both whites and blacks in the South. And the Southern state governments, Republican by nature, may or may not have helped out the freedmen. One thing is certain: the governments, from the local (Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall) and state all the way up to the federal level (see the Grant administration) were corrupt. Moral standards were low during this time period and many people (as we’ll see in one of our next units) are in it to make a quick million or two. Here is an extended interview with historian Eric Foner on Reconstruction who wrote the most influential book on Reconstruction in the past 40 years (also one of my favorite living historians).
Your job: Discuss the importance of historiography, and think about whether or not Reconstruction was a success of a failure. Use your notes, readings of primary sources and the textbook, articles and videos (Reconstruction: The Revolution That Failed among others) to back up your thoughts on this topic.
1. Historiography is a very important study that always needs to be used. It corrects crucial flaws made by historians of the past in order to gain an improved understanding of historical events. This process helps to weed out the biases of historians in the time period. These biases come from the time period and the beliefs of the historian. It also helps expand the perspective of history rather than just showing one side. Historiography quite literally “rewrites history” by being able to reflect on historical events from a different perspective. Although the events themselves are not rewritten, the interpretations of them are.
This heavily applies to Reconstruction. Like the article says, Southern whites perspective was the perspective shown in the first historical reflections and theses. This perspective detailed that Reconstruction was a complete failure that was full of corruption. Radical Republicans of the North gave African Americans rights prematurely, unfairly raised taxes. The KKK and Andrew Johnson were praised as heroes for trying to stop this disaster. When this topic was revisited and revised (historiography), this perspective was completely overthrown. It debunked the racist beliefs and the wrong notions that the Southern whites were the victims of this event. Without a revision of history from a different perspective, everyone would have the wrong idea about a crucial turning point in American history. False media would continue to spread, which would only strengthen these distorted beliefs. This is why historiography is so important. It corrects mistaken analysis of the past.
2. I think Reconstruction was progress rather than being just a success or complete failure. Reconstruction was a stepping stone that had many positive effects, while it also failed to meet the goals of the nation and left gaping weaknesses that would manifest over time. The goals of Reconstruction were restoring the Union, rebuilding Southern society and economy, and passing legislation to guarantee rights for the freedpeople. Radical Republicans heavily pushed for these goals to be met. They passed the 14th and 15th amendments which ensured citizenship and male suffrage to all regardless of race. In order to have the ability to fully be reinstated to the Union, previously succeeded states had to rewrite their state constitutions. These revisions removed any laws pertaining to slavery, and allowed universal male suffrage. The Southern economy also started industrializing creating the term “New South”. Eventually, the Union was completely restored with lots of legislation passed to help guide this new era.
However, Reconstruction had many shortcomings. Due to Andrew Johnson, terrorist groups/mobs like the Klan, Southern backlash, and weak enforcement of these legislative acts, Reconstruction can be viewed as a failure. Andrew Johnson allowed many ex-Confederates the ability to rejoin the Union far too easily and gave lots of land back to Southern aristocrats. As Burns hypothesized, the lack of organized thoughts can be blamed for this failure. There were no thoroughly thought out plans that were heavily enforced. Reconstruction needed to completely unroot Southern Society and change the North. However, the leaders in charge were too unorganized to come up with a correct plan and weren’t capable of fully understanding how to solve these problems. These errors led to acts like voter suppression, black codes, and mob violence (among many other forms of retaliation, corruption, and shortcomings). Although the legislation was passed, it failed to be enforced. African Americans were not able to experience their “full freedom” and some even were just slaves under a different name.
This is why, in my opinion, Reconstruction can’t be labeled as just a success or simply a failure. It is far too complex to fall under a lone category. Reconstruction achieved many of its goals including creating rights for blacks. Reconstruction also failed to enforce these acts which continued fierce sectionalism, led to the oppression of the newly gained rights of African Americans, and did not recreate Southern society on a wide scale. That is why I consider Reconstruction as progress. It was a turning point in American history that led to good widespread change but did not change enough as it should have.
After learning about historiography and reconstruction, I believe historiography is extremely important because without it, we would struggle to see all sides of history. If we always learn history from the singular perspective, we will not always learn the complete picture of the time. For example, if we only learn history from the positive angles we may never learn the bad things that happened. If there was no historiography, it would be much harder to learn about all angles and sides of historic events. Another instance that this could happen would be if we only learn about history from the side of men, we will not learn how that same period affected women. Historiography plays a huge roll in how we study history especially because without it our understanding of history would never change and become more accurate. History written in 1850 is going to be tremendously different to history written in 2021. If you are always learning the same point of view and from the same values, you are never going to learn the whole truth.
After learning about Reconstruction, I believe it was both a success and a failure. Reconstruction was an obvious success because it helped to rebuild the United States into a cohesive unit with a single government. Another reason that Reconstruction was a success is because it established many laws that helped lead to more rights for African Americans. For example, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments abolished slavery, gave African-Americans the right to vote, and established citizenship laws. These also led to some terrible consequences. Because of Reconstruction, many white Southerners greatly resented African Americans. This led to, specifically, the Jim Crow Laws, KKK, and Black Codes. Additonally, the 15th amendment was not a win for women who had to wait another 50 years to get the right to vote. Overall, I believe that Reconstruction had both positive and negative consequences.After learning about historiography and reconstruction, I believe historiography is extremely important because without it, we would struggle to see all sides of history. If we always learn history from the singular perspective, we will not always learn the complete picture of the time. For example, if we only learn history from the positive angles we may never learn the bad things that happened. If there was no historiography, it would be much harder to learn about all angles and sides of historic events. Another instance that this could happen would be if we only learn about history from the side of men, we will not learn how that same period affected women. Historiography plays a huge roll in how we study history especially because without it our understanding of history would never change and become more accurate. History written in 1850 is going to be tremendously different to history written in 2021. If you are always learning the same point of view and from the same values, you are never going to learn the whole truth.
After learning about Reconstruction, I believe it was both a success and a failure. Reconstruction was an obvious success because it helped to rebuild the United States into a cohesive unit with a single government. Another reason that Reconstruction was a success is because it established many laws that helped lead to more rights for African Americans. For example, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments abolished slavery, gave African-Americans the right to vote, and established citizenship laws. These also led to some terrible consequences. Because of Reconstruction, many white Southerners greatly resented African Americans. This led to, specifically, the Jim Crow Laws, KKK, and Black Codes. Additonally, the 15th amendment was not a win for women who had to wait another 50 years to get the right to vote. Overall, I believe that Reconstruction had both positive and negative consequences.After learning about historiography and reconstruction, I believe historiography is extremely important because without it, we would struggle to see all sides of history. If we always learn history from the singular perspective, we will not always learn the complete picture of the time. For example, if we only learn history from the positive angles we may never learn the bad things that happened. If there was no historiography, it would be much harder to learn about all angles and sides of historic events. Another instance that this could happen would be if we only learn about history from the side of men, we will not learn how that same period affected women. Historiography plays a huge roll in how we study history especially because without it our understanding of history would never change and become more accurate. History written in 1850 is going to be tremendously different to history written in 2021. If you are always learning the same point of view and from the same values, you are never going to learn the whole truth.
After learning about Reconstruction, I believe it was both a success and a failure. Reconstruction was an obvious success because it helped to rebuild the United States into a cohesive unit with a single government. Another reason that Reconstruction was a success is because it established many laws that helped lead to more rights for African Americans. For example, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments abolished slavery, gave African-Americans the right to vote, and established citizenship laws. These also led to some terrible consequences. Because of Reconstruction, many white Southerners greatly resented African Americans. This led to, specifically, the Jim Crow Laws, KKK, and Black Codes. Additonally, the 15th amendment was not a win for women who had to wait another 50 years to get the right to vote. Overall, I believe that Reconstruction had both positive and negative consequences.
Historiography is important because it is the history of the history of a topic or time period. Historiography deeply shows how history has been written in the past and it has different interpretations of different events. In the article it says, “Historiography allows us to understand the wide range of historical interpretations and how differing perspectives have shaped the representations of historical fact. It helps us adopt a more critical lens in understanding history as relative, as a subject that has been manipulated by those telling it and reclaimed by those who have participated in it. It encourages to seek out the biases in historical accounts and understand the subjective nature of historical writing.” This quote is stating that historiography is important in many different ways. In the article it says, “Reconstruction was seen as a tragic era where Southern whites were the victims of incompetent Blacks and corrupt white Republicans”. People like William Wells Brown and George Washington saw this period as tragic, they thought that the only good thing that came from Reconstruction was public schools in the south. The article says, “In the old school or William Dunning interpretation, Reconstruction was a miserable failure that blundered in giving freedmen their rights…but Andrew Johnson and the Klan were portrayed as the heroes of the era because they tried to ease the country back together painlessly and pushed for restoration of home rule”. This quote is saying that in the older interpretation, Reconstruction was seen as a bad thing, a failure that mistakenly gave freedmen their rights. Johnson and KKK were seen as the heroes who tried to push for the Klan ruling. In the more recent years, Reconstruction has also been a tragedy because of failure to secure civil rights for African Americans. Although there has been some success for example, education for Black Americans, it was still more of a tragedy than anything. In my opinion, Reconstruction was both a success and failure.
Historiography is extremely important whenever you are looking back at something in history. Bias is real and it is extremely prominent in some, if not most, resources used for information today. Knowing where you got your information from and the background on that person or place is extremely vital in knowing how accurate that source is. Lots of the information makes certain people or groups of people victimized in situations where it should be the complete opposite. People from the 1850s and before have much different beliefs than people from the 1950s and same goes for people from the 2000s. As more voices were allowed to be heard, stories changed and new ideas of the truth to the history was discovered. As more voices from people of color and women were brought to light, things that we thought were set in stone changed. People who have claimed to be the victim have turned around and become the villain. It is always extremely important to take a look where and who your source is, and how reliable that information is. Reconstruction is told differently depending on where you’re getting your information from, hence historiography. I think there one major thing that can be seen as a plus is the public schools in the south and education for African Americans. Although along with this were tons of horrible things inflicted on groups of people, specifically African Americans. The amount of violence, hate, and racism that they had to experience everyday was horrible. People thought that they were given too much power too fast and that they weren’t going to be able to handle it. There were so many opinions floating around about how the government should handle reinstating and what punishments would be given to the south. Reconstruction was revolutionary and changed so many things in America.
Historiography is very important, especially because of how radically historian’s views have changed over time. Reconstruction is a topic that everyone’s views have changed over time, and only the views of the most radical historians would have aligned with modern ideas about the time period. Not only were historians in the 20th century very racist when discussing reconstruction and the laws and amendments that followed, but they mostly took into account only one side of the story. They focused on the ideals of white southerners (mostly white supemecists) and not the history of the people being impacted by the new laws! Early historians, who say reconstruction was a failure because it left white plantation owners butthurt over losing profits when their slaves were freed, not only fail to take into account the entire picture, but sympathize with violent racists. Historiography ensures that we can update these accounts to inform people about the importance of looking at reconstruction as a failure through the lens of poor former slaves who were free, but left to fend for themselves against extreme attacks from angry white southerners without the help of the federal government. Reconstruction was in no doubt a failure, but not because white plantation owners lost money or property. It was a failure because it set up black people for years and years of violence and unfair treatment with no real ability to fight back. When white people faced violence, the could easily sue and go to court over serious crimes, but when white supremacists attacked black people, they faced systemic challenges when attempting to sue the people that hurt them, including the fact that many judges (especially in the south) would defend the white person no matter what they did. Reconstruction set the stage for years of systemic problems not only in the south, but across the nation. Historiography helps us recognize that.
Historiography is important too many things we relate to today. If we believed these scholars from back then without any evidence we wouldn’t know what was true and was manipulated in history. I think that the Reconstruction area was a failure. I think that it was a fail because of what happened in that era. We wrote the 14th amendment thinking it would help with African America inequality in the South. When then the Supreme Court said it’s up to the independent business whether they except the African Americans. Many places started rejecting African Americans for what they looked like. Soon Southerns start killing African Americans. They would have lynche’s. Lynche’s are public acts committed to African Americans. Many were hangings to show what would happen. Kid’s would be dismissed to go to the lynche’s. African American’s had to live in fear during this period. Later once movies start coming out they made Southerns seem good. One movie called Birth of a Nation. Which made the K.K.K. seem good. This premiered in the White House. Which made it seem like the South was doing good things. This is an example of why historiography is needed. If we didn’t have historians providing information. We might still believing this stuff to this day. Many African American’s fled to the north. Over 6 million fled from the South. When they went to the North. The later found out it wasn’t much better. Chicago 1919 there were lynches. Which resulted the 40 African Americans were dead. You later find out that Supreme Court had replaced the 14th amendment with White Supremacy around the country. Which is why the Reconstruction was a fail. Why historiography is so important so we know what really happens and not something made up to make things look and seem better.
Histography is vital to our understanding of the times before us for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons I believe histography is important is because of the number of perspectives. My whole life, I have been taught history through the white man’s eyes. Whether it was slavery, Native Americans, or even World War 2. I never got history from another perspective, until I took AP US History. Whether it was based on credibility, I get a more complex view of history now. Histography is the biggest contributing factor of this, whether it’s facts that were pished aside in history but still, never forgotten.
In my opinion, I feel that reconstruction was a success through the white man’s eyes. They got the Union back together, the confederacy followed the laws they added for the most part. All of their goals were fulfilled. The primary purpose of Reconstruction was just to get the Union back together, nothing more. So what does that leave behind? The 4 million slaves from the Confederate states, that the Union had no idea what to do with them. They established the 14th amendment which was meant to protect the rights and liberties of black males. Securing the right to vote. They gave them properties and for the most part, black people in the South were a success. We can give that victory, to the military presence in the south.
After the military felt their job was done, they leave the South, and the angry former slave owners were in power again. These years of “reconstruction” were torture, for black Americans. Private Groups like the Klu Klux Klan or the Proudboys would terrorize black men when it was time to vote. They would see a black family walking down the street, and terrorizing them. Churches, homes, businesses were burned to the ground. Even so, when these issues were brought to the Supreme Court, the rulings were never in the black man’s favor. Not only were lives were extracted from the souls of African Americans, but the rights were simply crushed as well.
All in all, Reconstruction achieved all its goals. The goal was to bring the Union back together. The south stopped rebelling, they ended Slavery yipee! But, for the 4 million black people? Their lives, rights, and dreams were taken from them, in an instant. Reconstruction were great years for some, but devastating for the rest of us.
Historiography is the study of the methods of historians and the interpretations of the past. It shows why historical events have been interpreted so differently over time. Historiography helps people understand different points of view and why sections of history were interpreted in the way they were. For example, historians from the 1890’s might interpret a historical event completely differently from a historian in the 1950’s. I think that Reconstruction was both a failure and a success. During Reconstruction slavery was successfully emancipated which freed millions of slaves. The newly freed African Americans were able to start anew and live their lives according to their choices and not according to a master that controlled them. They were able to get real jobs and work in politics as senators or congressmen. It was a new beginning for education as well. Many African Americans were able to become educated and schools started to open up to a more equal and diverse community. However, Reconstruction also brought newly founded secret societies such as the Ku Klux Klan. They aimed to intimidate African Americans and white reformers. These groups would use violence to send their messages across. They burned black owned buildings and murdered freedmen because they didn’t agree with the white Republicans in power or with the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Not only did free African Americans have to deal with these societies but they also had to deal with discrimination and hatred from everyday people. Many people in the south did not agree with the fourteenth amendment and tried to prevent any African Americans from voting. The Whites believed that Blacks shouldn’t have the same rights. Southeners remained racist and discriminatory against freed slaves. Many southerners wanted Black Codes to be enforced during the reconstruction era. These Black Codes had the ability to limit African American rights such as the right of renting land and borrowing money and the right to testify against whites in court. It is of my opinion that while the premise of Reconstruction and its initiation was positive, long term it became a failure. As equal rights were not enforced, African Americans remained limited and discriminated against and many led lives not much improved from slavery.
Historiography is very important to help understand the ideas and morals of people in different time periods. Historiography looks at the way that a time period was analyzed based on the present day ideals. Reconstruction is looked at very differently by historians in the nineteenth century and historians now. Back in the nineteenth century, racist white people were seen as the “good guys”, while now they are seen as being wrong and horrible to black people. I think that overall, reconstruction was a failure because even though slavery was emancipated, new loopholes and attitudes were created against the freed people. In the article, Reconstruction Historiography, the last paragraph explains that there were small successes for freed people like new education options, churches, and no more true slavery. Slavery was gone but black rights were still nonexistent. Different amendments like the Fifteenth, Fourteenth, and Thirteenth Amendment were passed, supposedly giving rights to freed people. Most white people from southern states were unhappy with these amendments and used different methods to stop black people from voting and accessing their other rights. In the portrait, Reconstruction Historiography, it explains how polls were moved in times and locations, votes were miscounted on purpose, and gerrymandering occurred. When these methods stopped working different organizations were made to terrorize the freed people into not voting. One of these groups was the Ku Klux Klan. During the article from the blog it explains how back when this organization was around they were seen as protectors. Now, they are seen as what they truly were, a terrorist and racist group. Along with lack of voting rights, the government wouldn’t supply the freed slaves with land. They were promised land but the promise wasn’t kept and they were left with no land. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendment gave black people the right to be a citizen, be free of slavery, vote, and own land but enforcement was lacking and loopholes were made around these laws to discriminate black people. In the eyes of black people’s rights and treatment, reconstruction was a failure. While reconstruction brought the union back together, there were still numerous political divides with the rights of black people which made it difficult to fully restore the nation into a unified country.
Historiography is so crucially important in education now more than ever. With historiography, students are able to obtain a better understanding of how different the times were and how social standards and society then differs from today. It also helps us question whether or not we are learning biased information or really just correct information in general, based on who we are learning it from. With Historiography we know that events can and have been manipulated or changed to fit someones or a group of people’s agenda. One example of this happening in America, as stated in the blog, is during the Civil Rights era when racist groups like the KuKluxKlan pushed the idea that they were “protecting the south”, when in reality, they were just a hate filled group that spreaded terroisim throughout the Black Community. Whether or not Reconstruction was a success or a failure could be argued both ways. We know that Reconstruction was and is seen as bad for many reasons. Some might say because of the racism whites had, some might say because of the lack of leadership, and some might say because of the stupid leaders. All valid reasons, but some people might believe there were some good outcomes of Reconstruction. Like Black-American schools, more Black-Americans were getting an education and becoming successful. Some might also say Reconstruction was good because Black-Americans were getting pretty big roles in government like becoming senators and a part of the supreme court. But does the good outweigh the bad? In my opinion no, it does not. The daily life of a Black-American person during this time seems horrendous and the pain they have endured is unimaginable. Overall Reconstruction had endless negative effects and like stated in the blog, there were only minor successes and the bad really outweighed the good. (Word Count:304)
Historiography is analyzing and interpreting history and how it was written through different perspectives. It allows those studying it to have a deeper understanding of why the thoughts and reasonings during a time period were the way that they were. Historiography is important because, as stated in this article, “It helps us adopt a more critical lens in understanding history as relative, as a subject that has been manipulated by those telling it and reclaimed by those who have participated in it”. This “history of the history” can be used in an example such as the Reconstruction era. The Reconstruction told through the eyes of Southerners was something that was just wrong and was something that ruined a society that wasn’t even corrupt in the first place (leading to the ‘Lost Cause’ belief/mourning). In the eyes of the newly emancipated slaves, Reconstruction was a step towards positive change and equal rights but it also invoked fear. Ultimately, the Reconstruction had ended up being a failure. In the Amend video we watched in class earlier today, the class observed the brutal treatment of black freedmen after the 14th amendment had been passed. Lynchings were at an all-time high, African Americans who could have been government officials were run completely out of the South, the label massacre was used often because there were so many black people being murdered. Even in the North, the video explained how “the North was full of empty promises,” and “Northern violence was no different from Southern violence”. If the Reconstruction had been a success, then the 14th and 15th Amendments would not have taken the turn that they did. There was bound to be opposition but in the end, the reaction the policies during the Reconstruction received and the treatment of emancipated slaves led to horrible laws and codes being put in place. Codes such as the black codes and sharecropping and the Jim Crow Laws were put in place in the 1870s and continued for many years to come. If the Reconstruction was anything, it was a failure with barely any silver lining.
Historiography is important for a number of reasons. For one, it helps us understand why some historical events have been interpreted so differently over time. It helps us examine not only the history itself but the characteristics that shape the recordings of it. Historiography lets us study history with a critical eye and understand what biases and why may have shaped that historical period. While also ensuring that we don’t fall victim to these same mistakes that some previous historians have made in the past. Ultimately, historiography gives us an appreciation of how factors that shape and after the recording of history shape and alter our interpretation of it as a result.
I feel that Reconstruction was both a failure and a success for different groups of people. It was a failure in that Federal and State governments failed to secure the rights guaranteed to former slaves by constitutional amendments. Radical republican governments were unable/unwilling to enact land reform or to provide former slaves with economic resources needed to break the poverty cycle they had been in. State Republican parties could not preserve black-white voter alliances that would have enabled them to stay in power and continue political reform. Racial bias was a national problem as Northerners became more absorbed in westward expansion and industrialization than the issue of slaver. And finally the Supreme court undermined the power of the 14th and 15th Amendments. On the other hand, It was a success because it accomplished its goals of creating social and political revolutions despite economic collapse and opposition of the White South. Freed African Americans participated at all levels of government for a while. State Governments started funding public schools open to all citizens. African Americans established schools, churches and families denied to them during slavery. There was some redistribution of land after the shut down of plantations. And finally, the 14th and 15th Amendments were passed, giving blacks more rights and freedom.
Historiography is important because it shows the study methods or the interpretations of the historians in the past, like how historians from different time periods may interpret things differently from each other and have different stories. The article talks about how people from the 1850 and 1950s and now in 2021 may be studying the same thing but they all have different outcomes. Another reason that historiography is important is because it’s important to know where the information came from and who started it because there is a possibility for people to be biased about information and may not give the full story or they may leave out important parts. Reconstruction was both a success and a failure the reasoning why reconstruction was a success was because during reconstruction the emancipation of slaves happened. Not only did the emancipation have but there were also amendments that were passed to help get rid of slavery like the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. But as I said before I believe that reconstruction was good and bad but the reasoning as to why it is bad is because many people did not like the idea of reconstruction and didn’t like that african americans were now considered citizens, the people who thought this mainly white southerners, and wanted to do something about it. So one of the failures of reconstruction was the reaction from the southerners and what they did about it like the klu klux klan, and the black codes, and people not treating African Americans fairly because there was no law passed about social classes and how to treat them. Reconstruction got African Americans free but reconstruction also made lots of people angry which did not go very well, which is why I believe that reconstruction was both a success and a failure.
After reading this blog, using the example of Reconstruction, I can say historiography is not only important, but crucial. Some historians may write opinion-based with a narrow perspective, while others write from closely examining primary sources. History can’t be told from the eyes of only one person; especially when there are millions of other eyes that watched critical events unfold. It is important to see past events through several different points of views from people of all backgrounds. This helps us understand history more accurately. Point of view can also differ between people of the same era, experiencing the same things. Continuing with the example of Reconstruction, the North saw Reconstruction as a positive thing while Southerners felt like they were completely betrayed. “By contrast, Reconstruction in the North was more about opportunities created by the war, and these extended throughout northern society…A Northern-dominated Congress passed legislation remaking Southern governments and turning Southern society upside down with civil and political rights for African Americans” (Slap).
I think Reconstruction was both a success and a failure depending on who you were and what role you took part in during the time of Reconstruction. For example, like W.E.B. DuBois said, Reconstruction was a failure in respect to blacks “because of its failure to secure civil rights for African Americans” (Wickersham). Others might see it as successful because blacks gained voting rights, overlooking the bad things (KKK, lynching, etc.). Some perspectives see Southern whites as the victims instead of the blacks who were massacred. Other than what the blacks suffered through, Reconstruction can be viewed as a success because our nation was united again and we secured the 3 “Reconstruction Amendments.” “Reconstruction was a success in that it restored the United States as a unified nation: by 1877, all of the former Confederate states had drafted new constitutions, acknowledged the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, and pledged their loyalty to the U.S. government. Reconstruction also finally settled the states’ rights vs. federalism debate that had been an issue since the 1790s” (SparkNotes).
I like to think about Reconstruction as a giant wound that the Civil War left for the states to decide how to heal, the wound cut in deeper than people thought, and some may see a scar while others don’t. Hopefully that makes sense.
Historiography is very crucial to the way we interpret history in the modern-day and age. It is very important because the way historians are influenced by the time period they are from may affect the way they view and retell history. Historiography can show us the difference between historians from the 1850s and 2020. Obviously, there is a huge time gap there, but the way history has been analyzed has changed as well. Another important note would be how history is not only told by white males anymore but is told by men and women of all races. Historiography helps us to realize old biases against certain time periods or actions of the past and view it with a clearer mind. Information can become twisted and certain points in history could end up being told wrong, which is why historiography is so important. For example, the reconstruction era had mostly been told from a racist point of view up until the 1950s. Mostly it was told as to where the southern people were victims to “incompetent blacks” and southern white republicans. As people of today, we certainly do not view the reconstruction era the same way it was viewed before 1950. Personally, I believe that reconstruction was neither a success nor a failure. In my opinion, there were both good and bad that came out of reconstruction, but overall I believe there was some progress made on the road to equality for blacks. Some of the goods that came out of reconstruction includes abolishing slavery, and the 14th and 15th amendments. But there was bad that came with reconstruction too, like the fact that black people were not protected against violence from whites, and the government was weak at enforcing laws. Many African Americans at this time felt like they were living only because the white men allowed them to, stripping them of the full freedom they had been promised. This is why I do not believe reconstruction was a failure or success, but rather a time period where we can learn from past mistakes and use them to make our country better and get equality for everyone.
Historiography is incredibly important because it helps us understand and see history from different points of views. It also makes us think about the different biases and how based on the person writing the article or story it could be a completely altered account of what actually happened. Throughout history we can see examples of where historiography comes into play, it helps us to see other perspectives on things we thought we already knew about. Reconstruction is a good example that shows how necessary historiography is. There was point in history where people believed or were convinced that the civil war wasn’t actually about slavery, that the whites weren’t to blame, that blacks brought it upon themselves with their criminal acts, or that slavery was necessary and a good thing. We know that these are all wrong, but because of who had dominant control over the marketing, millions of people believed these awful wrong claims.
Reconstruction was a failure overall, but there were a small number of good things that came out of it. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were ratified during reconstruction. These were major steps for equal rights, but sadly white supremacy found a way around them. Loopholes were formed and during this period in time the number of lynching’s reached peak height. In opposition to the Fifteenth Amendment, white Southerners formed mobs, put fees on polls, closed polling places early, and even discarded blacks votes. The Klan and Johnson were some of the big reasons that America took one step forward but two steps back. Although it seems as though reconstruction had absolutely nothing good come out of it, there were a few things. Black education greatly increased, and the number of black churches rose much higher. In my opinion the cons greatly out way the pros, making reconstruction a failure.
Historiography is important in order to reassess information that we know to be false. In order for history to be taught in classrooms all around the world, we have to make sure that it is historically correct, and historiography helps us do that. Historiography helps historians understand the different points of views throughout history and help determine which is correct and which ones have changed and been altered over time. Historiography also can tell us why certain people thought certain things and also show historians and students what may have influenced them to think or do something.
Reconstruction can be either a success or a failure or it could be both. It all depends on which part of history you look at. If you look from a southern perspective it was a success but from a northern perspective reconstruction was a complete failure. I think it was a failure, because although slaves gained emancipation, along with the right to vote and other things, bad things still over powered the good. Sure slavery wasn’t around anymore but racial inequality still existed, and a hatred towards African-Americans still existed. Not to mention the sudden spike in lynchings after emancipation which kept increasing. And yes there were Amendments passed like the fifteenth and the thirteenth, but it didn’t stop murders of innocent blacks from happening, and it certainly didn’t stop the amount of hate crimes performed on ethnic groups especially black people. Burning’s of religious buildings occurred, houses, places of business all burned or tore down because it was too painful to see black people thrive. And if people knew that by giving blacks rights it would take away opportunities from them like jobs, emancipation wouldn’t have happened. So no, I don’t think reconstruction was a success, because while it gave black people rights they already deserved the bad things that came with those rights were catastrophic, because it further oppressed black people and brought them back to almost enslaved times.
I think historiography is a very important topic to explore and discuss. People always say that trying the same things over and over again and expecting different results leads to insanity and they also say history repeats. WE do not want these things to happen. This is where historiography comes into play. By studying how we used to look at history, we can learn from our mistakes, and correct them, if needed. Also, by studying history, we can see where we went wrong and what was wrong with the thinking back then. As the article states, “It (historiography) encourages to seek out the biases in historical accounts and understand the subjective nature of historical writing.” This quote relates to my thinking because we both state how it is important to seek out the problems (biases) in our historical accounts and correct them. I feel that reconstruction was mostly a failure because the federal government failed to protect the people they had just freed. They passed two amendments that “protected” the freed black people, but in reality, the two amendments were not enforced, and black people were mercilessly attacked. However, the government did establish schools for black people and their eyes were opened to the world they had previously been not allowed into. Part of the problem from the federal government was from the leadership of Andrew Johnson. He stood by as the southern states passed the black codes that restricted black people from doing things. This also established separate but equal thinking. Ultimately, I view Reconstruction as a failure because they failed to finish their plan of making all people equal. They failed to finish the fight continued on from the civil war and black people were attacked and didn’t feel safe in the dangerous south, and even in parts of the north. I think if Lincoln had been the president, many of these things wouldn’t have happened, because he was from the north wasn’t as lenient towards slavery and black codes as Andrew Johnson.
Historiography is an essential field of study in modern America. Historiography allows us to think in terms of the perspectives of those who write history. We are able to take into account the potential biases, motives, or prejudices exhibited by the writer’s of history, and use this information to think more critically about the history we have been taught.
The United States has a more tumultuous and controversial history than almost any other country in existence, with a greater number of perspectives and cultures involved than anywhere else. When a country is so diverse in its viewpoints and ways of thinking, it is dangerous when the writers of our shared history are not themselves diverse in viewpoint. No matter what viewpoint our historians hold, the telling of a single narrative, or the interpretation of history through a single framework, leads to an unidimensional and often inaccurate picture of history. This certainly holds true for American history. We are lucky to have a healthy debate over the interpretation of our shared history, and to not be subjected to the interpretations of one partisan group, and this is thanks to historiography.
My interpretation of Reconstruction is that it was a success relative to the status of the country along with the intense hostility of former southern confederates and the lack of strong intellectual leadership. Reconstruction from its beginning was being undermined and weakened from every angle. President Johnson was an undeniable step down in leadership in relation to Lincoln, and as we learned in class, Johnson reeled back some of Lincoln’s more progressive ideas in order to faster reunite the country. Johnson was not interested in having the country pay the debt it owed, or to face the struggle of building a new better nation. Instead he sought to restore the nation as best he could to the state it was before the war.
Even the most important amendments of the time, the 14th and 15th, were weakened and maligned by the racist attitudes of former confederates, and those of the general public who still believed black people to be fundamentally inferior. Thought leaders failed to reconstruct the American value system to include black Americans. This fact alone doomed the theoretical implications of reconstruction. However, Reconstruction is a miracle of American history for achieving what little or brief progress it did. Regardless of the end result, Reconstruction paved the way for a greater, stronger social revolution, the Civil Rights Movement.
Historiography is important because it allows for a more evidence-based history and less bias within history. Less bias in story-telling can ensure a more accurate picture of past events and all of their effects, no matter how uncomfortable they are. Studying different time periods’ views on his history is history itself and hows the progression of societies opinion on a certain event. Analyzing these past views can also ensure that inaccurate information from that time period (e.g. “the Lost Cause Ideology”, depictions from Gone with the wind, etc.) is not spread and proven false with other evidence and reasoning.
Reconstruction was a failure all around, but not for the reason southern think it is. The entire goal of reconstruction was to unite the country after the civil war and give equal rights to African Americans, who were recently freed from slavery. However, the republicans initiating reconstruction barely did any of those things. As stated in the video played during class, The lack of federal enforcement in the southern states and a supreme court dominated by white supremacy allowed for racial tensions to continue just as they had before the war. Not did the systematic racism make certain of unequal black rights but it also empowered white supremacist groups like the KKK to assert what they believed was their “god-given superiority” through violent crimes and murders. A lot of this violence was a response to reconstruction but more specifically the 14th and 15th amendments which gave African Americans more rights and legal power. The south was lynching African Americans because their feelings were hurt over the civil war and these crimes were enabled by a weak federal government. Not only was there a weak reinforcement of reconstruction, but there were also many loopholes with it as well. These loopholes allowed for convict leasing, sharecropping, black codes, and slaughterhouse cases. As said in the textbook, Convict leasing, Black codes, and sharecropping were especially both legal ways to keep formerly enslaved people dependent on southern whites. The slaughterhouse case was an example of a white supremacist supreme court case and allowed states to have the primary authority of citizens’ rights, therefore weakening the civil rights enforcement by the federal government even more and causing the 14th and 15th Amendments to be weakened. All of these together completely missed the goal of reconstruction, which is most likely why it became a lost project after a couple of decades.
Historiography is an important study that applies a different lens and perspective when trying to interpret past events. The use of historiography can be vital to getting a glimpse of the political and social atmosphere of the time. One event where we can apply historiography is Reconstruction. Writings at the time of Reconstruction about the Reconstruction have a different opinion and bias as opposed to a present-day historian writing about Reconstruction. The period of Reconstruction was one of great uncertainty of what was to come next. During this time and for decades later, the people documenting the history were Southern white men who created a false pretense of Reconstruction. The narrative of Reconstruction that they created made it look as though it was corrupt. Reconstruction was documented as, “a tragic era where Southern whites were the victims of incompetent Blacks and corrupt white Republicans.” This narrative of Reconstruction that was pushed by Southern white men was accepted as fact – and shaped public opinion (for generations) and even influenced movies (like Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind). Historiography is important to consider when interpreting events like the Reconstruction because it forces us to pay attention to who is writing the history. Usually it’s the people in power that have the privilege to write history, and back then, it was Southern white men who were protecting their interests.
Overall, I think that Reconstruction was a failure. There was so much hope for Reconstruction; it was a potentially transformative moment in United States history to finally address the nation’s greatest moral sin – slavery. If properly implemented, it could have lifted Black people out of slavery with dignity and justice providing economic security (40 acres and a mule), public education, civic and voting rights, safety, and a path toward prosperity. Unfortunately, racism and white supremacy watered down Reconstruction.
Histography is important because it helps to show what bias the author of a certain thing might have had. Like it said in the article, different historians in different time periods will look at events differently. White southerners might view reconstruction as a bad thing because it leads to a lot of changes for black rights which they do not like, so if they were to write something it may not be accurate. One of the examples in the article was that white southern historians would write about how they were the victims instead of what was true which is why it is important to be able to see through that. I think that Reconstruction was both a success and a failure. Slaves were freed, but they were not given the necessary things after being freed to survive. Basically, after being freed they had barely any possessions and were expected to be able to do fine in society which is one of the failures of the Reconstruction. The amendments that were passed that gave rights to black people were a step in the right direction, but since the rights weren’t enforced it was mostly performative. It seemed as if the government didn’t care if black people could vote or not and like the article said, the government was very corrupt. That leads to another failure of the Reconstruction which is that all of the racist groups that appeared. The KKK among other white supremacy groups was formed to try to get rid of black people in the south. There were tons of racist attacks in this time period which is a big failure of the Reconstruction because law enforcement did not stop this from happening, and a lot of them did racist things as well. This is why the Reconstruction was a success but a failure at the same time, and that histography is important to truly understand what a historian is writing about.
Historiography is very important because It lets us look back on old accounts of history that old historians documented. It also shows us different interpretations of events coming from all different types of people and their biases. For example if a white racist and sexist man wrote history, we will know that his interpretation of or on something may have also been racist and sexist (bias). We can also see how times have changed in how we write, account for, and interpret history. It can help us learn right from wrong and how different people were right and wrong in accounting for history. I think that this is also very important to look at especially when studying the Reconstruction period, since there are many debates on whether it was a success or a failure. I think that in this context, Reconstruction was both a success and a failure for many reasons. For starters, It was a failure because there were horrible things that happened to black people after they got their ability to vote and become full, real citizens in America. There was also a period of time where they were being treated as slaves. There were also many racist groups that arose in this time period. For example, the Ku Klux Klan. There were also some good things that happened in Reconstruction, too. There were schools for blacks which were very good considering they didn’t have great schools before. They also had the ability to have churches and start families. Reconstruction also impacted the economy in a good way since there was more industrial workings in the North due to the inspiration of the new industrial workers. The fourteenth amendment and the fifteenth amendment also were passed, giving the rights to all citizens which helped everyone become almost equal (for a little bit of time).
Historiography is important because it gives us insight into what previous generations were taught and how they saw the world. For instance, we know that early to mid 20th century teachings showed reconstruction as an inherent evil against noble southern landowners, which can help us to understand why those people that were learning this way, notably those of the Baby Boomer generation, were so racist. All the things they were taught about the stories and journeys of black people in America depicted black people as inferior, stupid, and incapable of performing the basic duties of society. As history teachings have developed, we now teach about diversity and inclusivity, instead of perpetuating the atrocities committed against people of color in America. Historiography teaches us about the perspectives of people who learned history at different points in history and how those history teachings can perpetuate throughout entire generations of people. Simply based on the fact that the stereotypical Baby Boomer is an incredibly racist white man, I think it can be argued with relative ease that Reconstruction as a whole was a failure. The goals of Reconstruction were to incorporate black people into society and create a multi-racial, multi-cultural society. Especially considering what we saw in the documentary Amend: The Fight for America, Episode 2, I would say it’s very clear that Reconstruction and it’s ideals were a complete and utter failure. After learning the history and historiography of Reconstruction, I think we as a country have some serious reconstruction to still do, and a lot of reconciliation that needs to happen before we can consider ourselves a fair, equal, or just society. White people have committed numerous atrocities against people of color in the past, and continue to commit similar moral crimes, albeit lesser ones, but still crimes and atrocities nonetheless.
Historiography is very important to people that are learning about history. It shows the historian’s point of view and how it changed from time to time on a certain topic or area in history. Historiography shapes our understanding of what we’re learning because it helps us understand and look at different perspectives. It also helps us to improve our understanding of what’s going on in history and it gives us a different summary or explanation to show us what exactly happened.
In my opinion, I believe that the reconstruction was both a success and a failure. It was both these things in many ways. One way that it was a success, is that it basically removed slavery from the states and gave African Americans the opportunity to become free. One way that it was a failure is that it created lots of opposition towards the new amendments added to the constitution (13th, 14th, and 15th) that ended slavery and gave African Americans more rights. This opposition lead to the creation of different groups, one being, the Ku Klux Klan, known mostly as the KKK, that had tortured and killed African Americans for being free and having their rights. “White people of Anglo-Saxon (English) or Northern European descent were superior to the rest of the world,” (article) this quote can show how people in that time period were convinced the whites were superior because they were the ones ruling over the African Americans with all the groups and opposition to the new freedman. One last way that this was a success was because it gave the opportunity for the freedmen to have an education and make a living out of themselves. They could finally be free, have the right to vote, have the right to education, and so much more. Although this didn’t last very long it still gave them the opportunity to actually live and not be “superior pets” (video watched in class). There are multiple other examples of why this was a success but also a failure but these are a couple that really define the way African Americans were treated and what happened with their rights.
Historiography is very important when you are examining something in history. Different people from different circumstances can have a certain set view and it is very much involved in the majority of our resources that we get our information from today. Information can make certain people or groups of people minimalized in scenarios when the information should really be fully transparent towards all groups of people. It is important to know where you got the information from and the credibility of the writer or other source is critical in realizing if the source has pinpoint accuracy. When more people got rights and representation, opinions and biases were changed and there could now be a more broad view of history, because before the civil war, points of view were different across the United States compared to what they are now. When people became more aware of oppression against African Americans and women as well as others, perspectives changed on how history is viewed. When the Confederacy lost the Civil War they were first thought of as victims of the north bullying to get the rules that they wanted, whereas now people realize that the south did many things wrong to get into the war. It is very important to constantly take a look where and who your source is, and how reliable that information is. Reconstruction is too complex to be put in a good or bad category. Reconstruction achieved many of its goals including creating rights for blacks. I think there one major thing that can be seen as a positive in Reconstruction is that there were now public schools in the south and education for African Americans. Also, African Americans had the opportunity to move away to where they wanted to go instead of being stuck in slavery. Reconstruction also failed to enforce these acts which continued fierce sectionalism, led to the oppression of the newly gained rights of African Americans, and did not change Southern society to view African Americans as equals. Although along with this, there were many different awful things placed on groups of people, specifically African Americans. The amount of violence, hate, and racism that African Americans have had to experience everyday has been horrible.
Historiography is important because it allows us to see history from a different perspective in a sense. As we learned in the video and in the article, the perspective from which history is written is completely dependent on who wrote it, and what was happening at the time they wrote it. One example of this historical bias could be the image that we saw in the Amend episode. An excerpt from a textbook stated that millions of agricultural workers were brought from Africa to the US when in reality it was less than that, and they weren’t agricultural workers, but people kidnapped from their homes and forced to work as slaves. When studying history, we must get as unbiased of an opinion as possible, and only look at the facts, and not someone’s arbitrary opinion.
When it comes to Reconstruction, I believe that it was more a failure than it was a success. One of the main goals of Reconstruction, at least at first, was to make black people equal and citizens after they had been freed. The thirteenth amendment freeing all black people from slavery worked, but when it comes to the fourteenth and fifteenth, they didn’t turn out quite as well. The fourteenth amendment granted citizenship to all people born and naturalized in the US, which overturned the Dred-Scott Decision, which was definitely a good thing, but blacks still were not treated equally. While the federal government did state that black people were equal to whites, it was essentially up for states and private businesses to decide if they would treat black people equally, and in the south, we know that they didn’t. Another problem with reconstruction was that the government essentially gave up on fighting for equal rights for freed slaves. The federal government essentially believed they had done enough, and black people should stick up for themselves now. A final argument as to why reconstruction essentially failed was the rising popularity of sharecropping. Landowners would give tenants seed and tools and housing in exchange for a share of the crop, hence the name sharecropping, but what would often happen would be a spiral of debt for the tenant, and essentially being bound to the land. So in effect, it was just slavery with a different name. Though it was some what a failure, reconstruction did have some success in the fourteenth and fifteenth ammendments by allowing black men to vote, and like I said before, overturning the Dred-Scott decision and allowing black people to become citizens.
Histography is very important today and when talking about something in history. Histogrpahy is how a story or event could be written by different people and how different groups of people intercept those events. A person from the 1850s or even more recently like the 1970s would still view and interpret things differently from someone in our current day. In years before the 1950s most to all study of American history was written by white males, but following the civil war and the events that occurred after, people of different races and gender began writing their own history, with their own interpretations and point of view. Women would tell their stories about almost anything, but because the only interpretation people knew was the white man, these stories came as a surprise. With the addition of people of color and women in the study of American history, the topics expanded widely into not only just personal experiences but major stories, cultural events, etc. During reconstruction, almost all of the history was written by a white male southerner and his point of view and interpretation, because of this the reconstruction was viewed as the African Americans victimizing the whites. Certain writers during this time period believed and expressed their thoughts that newly freed enslaved people were pretty much given too much freedom to fast, or without “preparation”. These people thought that the only good thing that came out of the reconstruction was the new public schools across the south. The common similarity between these white writers was that reconstruction was a major failure, because of the freedman, this left people in the twentieth century shocked, considering later finding out that all of these men, to no surprise, were white supremacists and racists. During this time period, there were different morals, that are constantly changing. Even now, our perceptions of events in our society currently will be different from how people will view the same events in fifty years.
The interpretation of history and the events from the past are shaped differently by historians. Historiography helps to understand why these interpretations have been explained differently over time. Not only does historiography analyze the actual history itself, but also the events and characteristics that influence how history is represented. Our textbook and articles show that different perspectives have shaped how historical fact is characterized. As stated in the report, the importance of historiography “helps us adopt a more critical lens in understanding history as relative, as a subject that has been manipulated by those telling it and reclaimed by those who have participated in it.” After studying Reconstruction, especially from different viewpoints, I believe it was both a success and a failure. It reestablished the United States as a unified nation. By 1877, all new constitutions were drafted for the former confederate states, three new amendments created, and loyalty vowed by all. While these are examples of success, however, Reconstruction was a failure by most historians. Until the 1950s, the representation of the period of Reconstruction had been controlled by racist views from leading historians of that time. As explained in the article, “historians in the 1850s would look at the events of the American Revolution differently than historians in the 1950s and those in 2020”. Whether the view is from a white Southerner or an interpretation from William Dunning, the failures are tragic based on their own biases and periods. One consequence that occurred after the Reconstruction was the anger felt by the Southern whites towards African-Americans.
In contrast to the historians during the Reconstruction, those from the 20th century, specifically Eric Foner, had a completely different interpretation of the events that occurred. In conclusion, the Reconstruction had negative and positive results, clearly detailed by the historian telling the story. Without historiography, we would only have singular accounts of history and struggle to understand the subjective nature of the past.
I believe that Historiography is a very important thing for a few different reasons. The first reason that I believe it is important is because it gives people a bunch of different views about a certain time period. As the article was saying, up until the 1950s most historians were basically white males. A white male may give a completely different view on a period than a black female might. If that time period was good to a certain group of people, they will retell it like it was the best thing ever. Take slavery for example, slave owners said that slavery wasn’t as bad as people thought is was and that they believed that black people were actually treated well. On the other hand, escaped slaves told soldiers the real horrors of slavery and not the lies that owners had been spreading. Another reason that I think historiography is important is because it can force to look back on events with different perspectives. If someone with a different background looks back on a situation and has a different opinion about it, they can share that opinion with others and have them rethink it as well.
I believe that reconstruction was an overall failure for many different reasons. The first reason is that it did not really change much about the South’s government. When Reconstruction first occurred and black males were given the right to vote, a few Southern governments got filled with black leaders and it was considered a partial success. But soon after, many hate groups like the KKK started terrorizing black people and stopped them from voting for other black people. This quickly shifted the power in the South back to an almost 100% white government. The second reason I think that reconstruction was a failure was that it gave rise to lots of hate against black people. As I mentioned earlier, in the South, groups like the KKK started to form to terrorize and murder black people if they tried to use their freedoms and take back power from white people. This hate eventually spread to the North and many daily aspects of life became segregated. These are the two reasons that I believe that reconstruction was an overall failure.
IMPORTANCE OF HISTORIOGRAPHY
Historiography is an important study as it gives us an insight into various interpretations of historical events. Not only does it give different perspectives, but it also challenges the biases created by first-hand historians. History, such as American history, is complex. Because of the complexity of American history, historiography may require a thorough knowledge of facts and understand of individual historians. There are many notable, controversial topics in American history that contain reasonable and often conflicting interpretations. An example given in the article where historiography may apply is the varying interpretations of Andrew Johnson and the Ku Klux Klan. Historians who lived contemporarily with the Reconstruction Era thought Andrew Johnson and the KKK were the heroes of the era for trying to hold the nation together. However, historians of the twentieth century interpreted Andrew Johnson and the KKK as racists who got in the way of the Radical Republicans who wanted to help the freedmen gain their equal rights.
WAS THE RECONSTRUCTION A SUCCESS OR A FAILURE?
In my opinion, the Reconstruction is both a success and failure (more as a failure). One of the contributing factors for the failure of the Reconstruction is Andrew Johnson’s presidency. He had adopted a soft policy, he had been openly against granting the freedmen equal rights, allowed former Confederate leaders to be in power, advocated the black codes, and urged the South to reject the fourteenth amendment. In the 1866 off-year election, Johnson had campaigned against the Republicans. Also, he had violated the Tenure of Office Act. These actions had caused the Radical Republics to make efforts to impeach the president. During the Reconstruction, African Americans gained freedom, granted citizenship and equal protection from the law, be able to hold public office, and voting rights all through the passing of thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments. However, the fifteenth amendment proved to be weak when Southern whites made efforts to prevent blacks from voting. They had use voter fraud techniques to sabotage the black ballots. When these techniques proved to be ineffective, the Southern whites used violence and terrorism, thus came the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan. Southern whites used guns or whips to frighten away blacks from voting places. The upcoming events after the Reconstruction Era through the mid-20th century would proved the failure of the Reconstruction. In Cruikshank case, the fourteenth amendment was deprived off of its function. The case ruled that the fourteenth amendment did not protect citizens from violence from private citizens. In Plessy v. Ferguson, the case ruled that blacks and whites would have equal rights but segregated in public places. Lynching became a widespread occurrence. All of these events led to the birth of Jim Crow.
Historiography is a very important study that we need to see a clear picture. It shows different perspectives, from different people at times, in different classes, and with different backgrounds. It also helps expand the perspective of history because when you piece all the different perspectives together you can see a more clear factual history, instead of one with extreme bias.
I think that reconstruction was a failure, in the beginning of reconstruction it looked like it would work. Black people were expanding their roles and lives, but because of little enforcement and the south still being very racist, reconstruction crumbled. The amendments passed ended up just being words in the south, the government did not enforce the rules in southern states, so they were able to undermine the 14th with no consequence. The amendments also said nothing about private citizens so it allowed southern whites to do whatever they wanted, and what they did was turn the south into a nightmare for blacks. They would kill them with any excuse and scare them from going into office, making them lose even more power. However one important “good” thing that happened in the south in reconstruction was their change in economy. After the war people from the north moved to the south and with them brought their ideas of industry. For the first time in its history the south was starting to follow in the north’s path and make industries and factories. This is why I think that reconstruction was a failure. The main ideas of reconstruction were to reunite the union and give black people rights, while after a prolonged time under these new governments, the country did unite. But it took longer than it should have because as many problems as it fixed new pines came up and black people never got their rights in this period.
Historiography is incredibly important. It shapes the way we, children in schools, and society as a whole views different topics- and it’s important to acknowledge how historiography has changed over time. We need to look at which voices and views have been silenced in the past to ensure that it doesn’t continue to happen. Media shapes historiography, and historiography shapes media. Movies such as Gone with the Wind and The Birth of a Nation were born from the views of the Lost Cause and Dunning school, and upon the public viewing them, it surely only added to these narratives. If we want certain narratives to be abolished or embraced, we need to think about the historiography of our time and recognize that speeding new messages through media can be the key to combatting other narratives.
Reconstruction in my opinion did not go incredibly well. Sure, some black people in some places had more rights than before. But if the goal is to ensure equality and safety for people of all races (which it should be of course) then the government failed massively. The fact that things like lynchings happened so long after African Americans were supposed to be free of oppression is a daunting and unquestionable sign that Reconstruction was a failure. Politics can be messy and difficult, and maybe there wasn’t much Northern politicians could do to combat the evasive tactics of Southern politicians at times, but it still stands that these terrible and disgusting acts of violence were allowed to happen. Republicans should have, at the very least, made it so that there were no loopholes in Reconstruction laws to be exploited. Many of these loose ends opened the door for further injustices. How is it possible that even after slavery was supposed to have ended, prisoners (who were disproportionately black, of course) were still sold off to wealthy landowners for profit, and forced to work against their will? If that’s not what you call a failure of Reconstruction, I don’t know what would be.
Case in point, in order to honor the legacy and suffering of those who were enslaved, and in order to achieve the world of equality that we strive for, we need to help promote the right ideas through media and through politics. We need to think smart and engage in productive discussions, and hopefully dissuade people from being sly and evasive (especially in politics) when it comes to defending peoples’ rights.
Historiography is incredibly important to help us understand the opinions and views of many different people throughout many different points in time. It helps show us why different people thought what they did. With Historiography we can sensor out some of the bais from certain historians and the different views that many different historians had on certain events. For example historians from the 1900s would be much more racist or unjust compared to most historians today, and Historiography can help us filter out some of that bias. I think that the Reconstruction was a partial failure. While trying to bring back together the north and the south was something necessary I think it could have been handled much better. During reconstruction both the 14th and 15th amendments were passed with goals of giving right to former slaves. The 14th amendment gave equal rights to all men in the country. But independent businesses and land owners still had rights to not accept African Americans on their land. Because of slavery many African American men were already viewed as the inferior race by many white people. And because of this racism sprouted and independent businesses did not allow African Americans on their land. And while you could still say there were some upgrades there for the African American men, there was the downside of their lives being tormented by the Ku Klux Klan. Many Lynches started happening by racist southerners that had African Americans fearing for their lives on the daily. So in my opinion the 14th amendment didn’t really do anything at the time. But the 15th amendment that gave rights to vote was a step in the right direction. This was another way of giving equal opportunity that could not be tampered with by others. While there was the issue that there were many more African Americans in the south, causing a large increase in voting power in the southern states I still see the 15th amendment as a success. And because of this I think that the Reconstruction was only a partial failure.
I believe historiography is extremely important to understanding history itself. Looking at how historians viewed previous historical events can teach you a lot about the time period the event was interpreted. You can see an example of this when you compare interpretations of the civil war written in the late 1800s to civil war interpretations written in the modern day. Southern historians in the late 1800s might have been confederates, racists, and against reconstruction and their biases can affect their interpretations. Now in the modern day we have more diverse historians whose interpretations of the civil war reflect our new ideals and information. Historiography is also important because it can help you decipher how true an interpretation can be. When reading about historical events you can check to see when your document was written then take into consideration events and social biases around during the time period in which it was written. I think learning about this study can change the way we study history and is very important.
I feel like the Reconstruction was a success depending on how you looked at it. This can also be an example on why historiography is important. Based on what we saw in the video we watched in class, the reconstruction was a horrible failure for southern confederates. They treated it as a terrible thing and longed for the ways on the antebellum south. Freed black people were “ruining their civilization”. If you look at it from the perspective of white northerners, the reconstruction was a slight success. They brought eh Confederacy back to the Union and freed the slaves. Of course the northerners faced criticism and bickering over how to handle the reconstruction but at the end of the day they did their best. In a portrait we read for class it talked about how northerners did not fully grasp the concept of freedom and I believe this ties to their feelings towards the reconstruction. Finally if you look at reconstruction through the eyes of freed African Americans things get complicated. On the one hand, as we learned about in class, slaves were free and were given the ability to vote and experience other rights. On the other hand, these rights were set up with negative loopholes and even though they were freed from slavery they were set into sharecropping , which was a slavery substitute, and were harshly treated by white supremacists during the time period. With historiography we can look through all these different interpretations and learn the story of the civil war. Categorizing the Reconstruction as either a success or a failure is hard when the topic is so complex.
In my opinion historiography is important. Historiography allows you to see how different people view what’s going on around them and what may be influencing how people think and write about history. Historiography is also important because peoples views on history change over time, like in the past whites wrote about how slavery was good or at least vital to their life, and in later years people have viewed slavery as a horrible thing. Also if we didn’t look back at old history and see what was going on at the time we might not get the full story or what really happened, people will write what their story and what they felt was right, as breaking history into his story or just the writer’s story would suggest. If we look back for evidence of what really happened instead of just a writers/historians word then we would be able to verify things actually happened the way they said.
I believe that the Reconstruction succeeded at some things yet failed at others. The Reconstruction was meant to help unify the union, rebuild the South and getting freedmen’s rights. The reconstruction was successful in adding amendments to the constitution to give black people rights. The reconstruction helped integrate black people into the United States, it got them a way to get jobs and homes, and live with their families, however it did not fully integrate them into white people’s society because many white people in the United States but mainly in the South felt that black people were inferior and should not have all the same rights. The reconstruction did not really succeed because there was really no way to get everyone on the same page on what freedmen should be able to do and no real way to enforce the new laws, because of this there was much violence against the blacks. In my opinion the reconstruction succeeded in ways some but not all.
1. I think that histography is important because it allows us to look at historical things from today’s perspective. I think that it is crucial we take a step back and look at history through another lens because many things have changed and we have different mindsets. Looking at historical events through different lenses and eliminating bias lets us get a more collective idea about what happened rather than having two different stories about the same event. Many events in the past are only tolled through the views of whites and blacks. This is part of the bias that many historical situations face and a reason why historiography is important.
2. I think that reconstruction was a success and not a success. It was successful because many blacks gained freedoms and rights. Some blacks rose to office and government positions, all gained the right to vote, and were freed from slavery. While in the south many horrible things arose in response to free blacks, such as the klan, lynching, and riots. Black people got a realization or a wake-up call allowing them to think with the mindset of an American. This new idea of America and life allowed for many important establishments such as black schools, churches, and communities. These were all large accomplishments for blacks as a society. They also kept southern offices clean and not corrupt, for a period of time. Blacks gained many rights that they didn’t have before and these rights and freedoms allowed them to grow and develop a new culture free of slavery or other influences. There were problems such as white retaliation, making it harder for southern blacks (majority wise) to express these newly acquired rights. This restriction on expressing their rights made reconstruction not as productive/successful as it could have been.
historiography is important for multiple reasons, like helping interpret the past and how it was interpreted differently over time. Along with that, different interpretations and point of views have shaped representations of history. By helping us view history and stories with a critical eye, it has also saved us from becoming victims to false stories and biased interpretations. For example, Reconstruction as told by Southern whites was completely wrong and misleading, and it was primarily just to make themselves look better. After The Civil War and Emancipation, KKK terrorism and violence spread throughout the South for years and history textbooks almost altered the facts to make them seem anything other than terrible.
I believe that Reconstruction was a failure and a success. On one hand, it helped rebuild America into a single government, and despite economic collapse and devastation of the White South, it managed to create several social and political revolutions. African Americans established schools, churches, and community centers, and gained freedom with the passing of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Freed African Americans participated in politics and all levels of government. on the other hand, it also had countless flaws and failures. Federal Governments and State governments failed to secure protection that was supposed to be guaranteed to former slaves, using things such as the 14th Amendment. Racial bias was a massive national problem and northerners cared more about continuing to expand west and more industrialization than the issue of slavery and the South. Radical republican governments were also unwilling to enact land reform to provide former slaves to help get the out of the poverty cycles they were in and struggling with. State republican parties were also unable to preserve black-white voter alliances that would allow them to stay in power and continue political reform. One of the biggest failures was that African Americans were left facing discrimination and poverty after emancipation.
Historiography is very important in studying about events of the past. According to Merriam-Webster, historiography is “the writing of history”. It is critical because it can change our views on the past depending on who writes it and how we read it. Without historiography, we would have no records of what we have learned or any history whatsoever. Historiography allows us to see how our views of the past changed depending on the time period. It is critical that we study historiography so that we do not make the same mistakes as predecessors. The importance of historiography could be seen through the example of the way historians have written about the Reconstruction. In the early 20th century, where the majority of the historians were white, the Reconstruction was viewed as a success and Andrew Johnson was considered a martyr because he tried to help the country be united by pardoning Southern wealthy landowners and welcoming Souther leaders back to the government. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan normalized the idea of white supremacy to most white Americans and gave valid reasons to why there need to be “segregation”. However, with the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movement, Reconstruction was viewed differently. It was not a success, but rather a failure in government, as historian W.E.B. Dubois argued, Reconstruction failed to secure civil rights and that violence against blacks increased during that period. In James MacGregor Burns’ “Reconstruction: The Revolution that Failed,” he argued that Reconstruction was a failure as the leadership in the government did not do what they were supposed to do. Congress was given too much power that in the end, the new government under president Ulysses Grant, did little to help blacks gain social, economic, and political powers. In the end Reconstruction was a failure. The Republicans tried to do many things, but they did not enforce the laws they passed. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were passed to give blacks equal protection and voting rights, but the government did not actively do anything to enforce it. As Burns argued in his writing, Reconstruction was a failure, because it was trying to achieve everything, but it didn’t gain anything. Although there were some successes, the way Congress passed laws sidestepping the executive and judicial branches, made white people mad which led to an increase in white supremacy as they felt that they were the superior race. The KKK used methods of intimidation and violence to overthrow Republican state governments in the South and African-American leaders. It led to segregation as the majority of white people think that they could not be equal to blacks. The Reconstruction failed to change the mindset of whites who had a hard time viewing former “slaves” to be equalled or has the same power as they do. In the end, the Reconstruction did give blacks some rights, but it had led to whites thinking of different ways to oppress the rights of African-Americans.
Historiography is important because an author’s life experiences — or in this case, the time period in which they lived — completely shapes the way they see and document things. If someone who believes in Dunning’s interpretation writes about how horrible Reconstruction is and someone who’s never heard of it reads their work, their view of Reconstruction will be warped. They might never consider that it had pros in addition to its cons. Historiography is highly impacted by bias, but it also allows us to see into the minds of historians of the past and compare them to modern ideologies. This is important because it allows us to have critical thinking about what people thought back then as they were living through events. I believe that Reconstruction was overall a failure, but it led to important changes. One of its issues was when Radical Republicans failed to protect freed people from the wrath of white Southerners. Sharecropping, basically a glorified slave system, thrived in this time period. Reconstruction also led to intense violence against African Americans, especially in the South. Many felt that the 15th Amendment was unjust by allowing them to vote with little education. Around this time, white supremacists were trying to prove that African Americans were physically and psychologically less human than whites. Though Reconstruction had many issues, it also had its own successes. It mended the United States after the Civil War. Eventually, all previously Confederate states rejoined the Union, ratified the new Amendments, and pledged their loyalty to the U.S.A. Reconstruction also led to strides in the African American community that we still see to this day. They created black churches, schools, and printing presses. This allowed for a sense of unity in a time when they felt as if they were completely separate and unwelcome in the South.
Historiography is important because the studies help historians understand how history was interpreted in different ways over time. Historiography helps to show different perspectives and interpretations of history of many years. There are more complex ideas shown through historiography. The way history was taught in the early 1900’s is completely different than the history taught in say the 1990’s. The Reconstruction was both a failure, and a success. There are many biases throughout history and the way it enters our school systems. The Emancipation of slavery and the new opportunity for Black Americans to be more involved in the government through voting (14th & 15th Amendement) made the Reconstrution Era a success. Although Emancipation and granting free Blacks the right to vote, much violence followed these things and made life horrible for Blacks. Freed Blacks were able to obtain new jobs and find more opportunities in their “new world”. They were allowed to create a new of their own. Not only could they find new jobs and create platforms for themselves, but they could also become educated. Nonetheless, amongst these great opportunities a new group the “Klu Klux Klan” became a new large force against Black Americans. The plan of the KKK was to create fear in the black race, and to push them back to their previous ways of living (in complete fear of white people). Being that white Americans during this time believed they were superior to blacks, they did everything they could to keep their “superiority”. This included everyday terrorizing, brutally beating, and killing blacks. At a time, not only Southerners became the issue of brutality amongst the black race, but so did the Northern states. In some ways the Reconstruction had more negative impacts on the Black race then good ones, but the good ones were the most important things to focus on.
Historiography is very important in seeing different perspectives of history and how they differ from one another. When the two main sides of Reconstruction wrote in history, they each saw it differently. The southern democrats, which wrote most of the history shared and taught, claimed Reconstruction was a failure due to giving black people freedom and rights because “they weren’t ready for it.” In 1914, J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton said “Reconstruction was an attempt to Africanize the Southern states and an attempt to ‘deprive the people’ through misrule and oppression of most that life held dear.” Many southerners at the time would agree with this statement, which basically claimed black people getting rights is making the south similar to Africa, which makes no sense because America is not a white country, they just took over. Native Americans lived on these lands for years before white people unruly claimed America for themselves. Hamilton also claimed that they were “depriving the people” but meant white people. He and many others still didn’t see black people as citizens of the USA. In the mid-1900s, historians started to rewrite what previous historians thought of Reconstruction. They started by also claiming Reconstruction was a failure, but because of black people not getting enough rights and support from the government. Because black people didn’t get civil rights, some governments put into place laws that limited what black people could do. They also created convict leasing which was very similar to slavery. Looking at the historiography, we can see how those people felt during those times and how their words impacted society. I also believe Reconstruction was a failure due to what historians in the 1950’s said; black people didn’t gain civil rights. They were given a false sense of security, believing they were going to gain equality and more rights but were constantly targeted by the people.
The importance of historiography helps us understand why historical events have been interpreted so differently over time. Historiography helps us examine not only history but also the characteristics that shape the recording of history itself. As history is being interpreted in many different ways by people on the outside looking in and people who were involved we get the full picture and biases on the situation and historical events. This way of interpreting motivates its readers “to seek out biases in historical accounts”. These biases change with the time period for explaining, now talking about slavery in history we see it as this cruel inhuman act that wasn’t necessary or fair. But in slavery’s time period a white southern historian would see it as a normal economic system that was needed because African Americans weren’t smart enough or capable enough to do anything else. Historians all write and rewrite the same historical events just in a different opinionated perspective.
Historiography was a big part of the perspectives on whether or not reconstruction was a success or a failure.
Reconstruction can be argued in favor of both success and failure from many perspectives. Each perspective can be because of racism, leadership being uneducated or none at all, and the KKK being the protectors of the south. One of the historical views was that the white southerners saw reconstruction as a “tragic era” where they were the victims to the African Americans and corrupt white Republicans. When other historians thought this era was tragic because the government just put African Americans into government positions without any prior knowledge or preparation. Some saw reconstruction as a positive thing though because more African Americans got a proper education and big roles in government. The event depicted in the blog was the same historical event and the same failing reconstruction though it was just two different reasons why based on their biases.
In my opinion, reconstruction was more of a failure because as African Americans started to get more freedom it was a bigger threat not more than slavery but it was almost like they never left. African Americans still had to fear for their lives being lynched, put in jail for anything, terrorized, and so much more horrific events.
1. I believe that historiography is very important, for many reasons. One of them is, it helps us understand why historical events have been interpreted so differently over time. WIth historiography, we can further understand not only what happened, but also broader characteristics that shape the recording of history itself. Also, historiography lets us study history with a critical eye. We can understand what opinions and biases may have shaped the specific historical period. Because of that, it can help us make sure we don’t blindly trust what we read from historians years ago. Not only that, it ensures we don’t fall victim to these same mistakes that previous historians may have made. That is why I believe that historiography is very important.
2. I like to see reconstruction and everything that happened during that certain time period to be not a success, or not a failure, but rather progress. The main goal that was present in the reconstruction, and the thing that people wanted to accomplish, was to redress the inequities of slavery and its political, social, and economic legacy, and also to solve all the problems in the states that left the union as a result of the war. While a task like this may seem easy, it might have been one of the most difficult things in our country’s history that we had to do, and as we all know, this was obviously not a complete success overnight. However, while most people stop at that and say that it was a flat out failure, I believe that reconstruction laid the groundwork for events in the future that eventually got us to the point that we are at today socially, for example the civil rights movement that took place in the 1960’s. That is why I believe that reconstruction was simply a process over time.
Historiography is essential to the teacher’s ultimate dream of teaching history as accurately as possible. Historiography makes us aware of potential biases and uncovers unique perspectives the authors might have had, while taking into account the drastic importance between distinguishing firsthand, secondhand, and thirdhand accounts. Without historiography, we would allow the “winners” to dictate the content of history textbooks forever (with the exception of the South in the Civil War). The larger your sample size, the more accurate your results–and the same logic applies here. If only women over the age of thirty were to record their relationship with the wage pay gap, their experiences might be completely different from women under the age of thirty based upon factors like generation, class, race, sexual orientation, upbringing, education, and employment. We need historiography to put the “results” of these historical documents into context to provide a closer truth.
While the Reconstruction began with great rigor and has supplied a few long-lasting procedures such as the 14th Amendment (which abolished slavery, gave black men the right to vote, and provided black soldiers and their wives citizenship), most of its reform efforts were temporary. Andrew Johnson’s pardonings and military governments towards the South as well as the North’s lack of interest in recreating the South led to the demise of the Reconstruction. Southern whites greatly resented black people and began to take extreme actions against them. This later led to black codes, Jim Crow laws, and the KKK being established.
Because legislations promising to defend the human rights of African-American citizens failed to be upheld for fear of violent white Southern uprisings, much of the new freedom black citizens had gained quickly backpedaled. Repealed acts led to hate crimes and from that sprung the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, which carried on until it reached its peak a century later in 1965. The Reconstruction effort was three steps forward and two steps back.
To say historiography is a necessity to studying historical events is an understatement. When you study history from different time periods, you read different people’s opinions on those time periods. For example, if you read history during the year 1807, it will probably be relatively negative towards America, because that was during the time of The Embargo Act of 1807, and that was a time of significant adversity for most of America. These views are clouded, biased, and don’t give you the full truth of what happened. If you take these views at face value without historiography, you are letting other people’s biased viewpoints shape your own perspective, and losing the important ability to make your own opinions.
Reconstruction and historiography have a direct relation to each other, because people with racist views writing about reconstruction considered it a dark time, and wrote in a way that victimized the southern whites. This is evident in the text, “Essentially, it was written from a white Southerner point of view, and Reconstruction was seen as a tragic era where Southern whites were the victims of incompetent Blacks and corrupt white Republicans. Early Black historians like William Wells Brown and George Washington Williams writing in the 1870s and 1880s saw the period as tragic because the freedmen had been elevated beyond their previous status without proper preparation.” In reality, this is completely off-base, and extraordinarily biased. Without studying the time period, and just reading the article, you may believe the whites were victims to the free blacks, which is not the case at all, rather the opposite.
In my opinion, Reconstruction overall was a failure. It wasn’t a complete failure, as there were some positives. Due to the positives an argument can be made for Reconstruction being successful, as any step forward, or any form of progress should be considered successful, especially compared to the years before of slavery. Even though these times for the blacks were not much better, if at all. A key successful point of Reconstruction is the addition of education for African Americans. This is an absolutely crucial advance for African-Americans, as education is a major step forward in the hunt for equality between whites and blacks. While there was still a long way to go then, and still a long way to go now, the addition of education is a starting point, and for that alone Reconstruction proved to be at least slightly successful.
While I wouldn’t consider it a failure, that’s not to say horrific things were a direct result of Reconstruction. White supremacy and violence against blacks in general rose to unprecedented numbers during Reconstruction. The white supremacists and their numerous supporters considered themselves protectors of the South. However, they were just a horrific group of terrible human beings, who lynched, beat, and did other awful things to blacks. The blacks had no way to escape this either, as the roots of systemic racism were dug so deep in the south, courthouses, government, etc. were corrupt and racist. This allowed for even more good treatment of the whites, and more blatant racism towards blacks. This tragedy that came as a result of Reconstruction is definitely something that could be used to argue Reconstruction was a failure.
Historiography is an important way to see how people viewed history, the differences of perspectives represented from the time they were alive, their location, and their class. These perspectives can give different sides of a story and put events into a new viewed format. Historiography can furthermore prove how it was important when it comes to reconstruction after the civil war, this was the different views and opinions as to if reconstruction was a success or failure.
As far as it goes it can be seen that reconstruction didn’t truly go well in the long run as after the Union soldiers left the whites in the south started to do everything in their power to suppress the black population. One way to support the claim is that in the video we watched in class on the 14th amendment. As the video showed there was a large amount of information given such as the fact that after reconstruction lynches started along with the start of the KKK. All in all the video stated that there were over 4000 lynchings of African Americans. Along with this the video pointed out that by 1901 the whites had all representation of the south in government positions. This goes against the reconstruction plan to let blacks be able to hold office positions in the government revealing another failure of reconstruction. Other than this we also saw more proof from the blog itself going on to say that the fact of President Johnson being racist and the Klu Klux Klan being a haphazard terrorist organization resisted what the Radical Republicans had implemented along with the 14th amendment after the end of the reconstruction period. One final example was a quote from one of the papers we received where it stated clear as day, “The years of reconstructions were years of revolutionary turmoil, with the element of passions predominant… the prevailing note was one of tragedy…” Clearly pointing out that the south thought of reconstruction as turmoil from what the north tried to do, and well the fact is if one doesn’t like something they will oppose it as they did after it was done.
Historiography is an important study towards the means of understanding history from every point of view. When using this study, the audience adopts a critical perspective to recognize subjects that had been altered. Many historical events are manipulated by biased opinions but historiography corrects and improves understanding. An example of differentiating views on the Reconstruction era and us of historiography can be found in the article. Andrew Johnson and the KKK were praised for their positive influence when being portrayed as heroes of the Reconstruction era. But with further analysis and correction using historiography, this racist perspective was overlooked and expanded into a more realistic view. In the article the true intentions of the KKK were to restrict black rights and intimidate their populations through terror and abuse; it was a terrorist organization. With revising and improving historical perspectives, crucial information can be portrayed accurately.
It is difficult to label Reconstruction as a singular success or failure. It has its negative and positive aspects therefore it is both a success and a failure. The goals for this era were the readmission and restoring Southern states into the Union, resolving the social and economic issues, and enacting laws to make formerly enslaved people equal. The Reconstruction rebuilt most of the U.S. under the rule of a singular government authority. Against Southern opposition, many laws were enacted during this era, such as the 13th, 14th, and 15th. Blacks gained legal citizenship, voting rights (only men, women gained voting rights 50 years later) and eradicated the institution of slavery. Sectionalism became more fierce after the 15th amendment, there were strong anti-black opinions by Southern states and officials. Jim Crow and Black code laws were established and there was a poll tax for voting; all these restrictions were filed towards the opposition of Blacks having rights. All in all, the Reconstruction was a significant era in U.S. history that ended with many benefits but failed to meet a common ground for whites and blacks.
Historiography is important because multiple perspectives of certain aspects of history can provide insight into different biases and the opinions that specific groups of people had during the time period being examined. As it mentions in the article, historians in the 1800s would look at the American Revolution significantly differently from those who were experiencing the Revolution, and from us now who are looking back on it. Having opinions and thoughts on historical events from people in all different time periods can provide many different puzzle pieces that can all be fit together to create one big puzzle, which includes all different viewpoints on each event. This then connects to the Reconstruction because different groups of people view the event differently, then and now. From prior portraits and in class notes, the conclusion that African Americans and abolitionists were excited to begin the Reconstruction is valid. Slavery had finally been abolished, and they were all ready to start the journey of making America more free and safe for all. On the other hand, white people and many women were much less enthusiastic because the white people had lost the war and lost slavery, which was a very influential part of their lives. Women still were denied access to vote, so they didn’t see the Reconstruction as giving them any more opportunities than they already had, or even just benefiting with more authority in their homes. There were also people who were very neutral on the whole reconstruction, and had similar opinions to both parties. If you were to look up opinions on the Reconstruction, a whole plethora of thoughts would come up, which is where historiography comes in. You can put all of the opinions together to create one common idea or one common issue that everyone had an opinion on. Looking at the Reconstruction from a 2021 perspective, I think it was definitely a fail and a positive. More amendments were created to support black people, which would then encourage women’s rights in the early 1900s. Though, black people were still treated poorly, regardless of the amendments that guaranteed voting rights and citizenship for ALL American citizens. White people still looked down upon them and decades of discrimination and systemic racism would follow, which is something many still face in today’s world. The Reconstruction was definitely a revolution with positive effects, but had exemplary negative outcomes that would impact America for generations to come.
1. Historiography is the study of how we studied history. This is very important for numerous reasons. One reason it is important is that it allows us to look back at what happened on top of how we used to interpret certain parts of history. Another reason that Historiography is important is it allows us to look back at our past mistakes in prejudices and see how previous scholars’ basis towards a group made them change the narrative of what actually happened. On top of that, we get to look back at the previous mistakes that we have made and learn from them so we do not repeat any of the discrimination we have had.
From my viewpoint Reconstruction was a failure with a mynute number of successes. For one even though African American males got the right to vote they would hang, be lynched, beaten, and murdered just for trying to vote. They were also stilled got treated as second-class citizens they couldn’t use the same drinking foundation, bathroom, store, and many other things. On top of that their work wasn’t any better with sharecropping. Even though they weren’t owned by the person they had no freedoms. They had to pay the owner of the land an insane amount of money/profits from the land and if they tried to quit any crops that they got to keep for themselves were taken. Something else to keep in mind is the numerous amounts of whites joining white supremacy groups like the Klu Klucks Klan and the While league. Because of these groups, many African American men and women were killed all for the color of their skin. To sum it all up I think that reconstruction had a few positive effects for the African American man but if you look at the bigger picture he was negatively affected in so many more ways.