Description
This reference on the Reconstruction examines how Americans during the period dealt with issues involving work, religion, gender roles, politics, and racial equality. It begins with a chronology, then presents narrative chapters that detail wartime planning for Reconstruction, including free labor and educational experiments with former slaves; the attempts of President Andrew Johnson to restore the Confederate states to the Union; the conflict between the president and Congress for control of Reconstruction policy, its political, social, and economic consequences for Southerners, the role of African American leaders, and white supremacist violence; the defeat of Reconstruction through violence and fraud; and the return of white southern Democrats to power. Analytical essays follow, which address the impact of Abraham Lincoln's death on the period, the passage of southern black codes as a defining moment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and whether the policies of Congressional Reconstruction constituted a radical change. Also provided are primary sources and brief biographies of 23 individuals. Annotation ©2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
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Providing an exciting narrative of Reconstruction based on current scholarship, historical sources, as well as interpretive essays on special topics, this book offers real insight into a controversial and critical period in American history.Reconstruction: A Reference Guide covers the entire period of Reconstruction (1863–1877) with a special emphasis on the struggle for social and political equality in the post-Civil War South. The book's analytical essays, selection of primary documents, and biographies of key participants give readers an understanding of social, political, and economic changes that occurred during this important period as well as provide opportunities to explore more specific issues and debates. Synthesizing and building on the work of recent scholars, the book documents how the central struggles of Reconstruction revolved around the meaning of freedom for former slaves. The essays describe how a new and sometimes deadly conflict over equal rights and racial justice raged throughout the South in the post-Civil War period and generated a constitutional crisis in the nation's capital as former slaves created alliances with sympathetic whites and sought to build a biracial democracy in the former Confederacy. Readers will not only understand the facts and events of the period, but will also be introduced to historical sources and key interpretive debates.Provides readers with an understanding of Reconstruction based on the most recent scholarship and analytical essays that promote critical thinking about important issues of this critical eraPresents extensive primary source material that allows readers to interpret the period through the eyes of participants as well as dynamic visual images from the period accompanied by explanatory captionsContains biographical entries that provide insight into the lives of key people from the periodIncludes an extensive annotated bibliography that encourages readers to explore issues in more depth
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