Month: July 2019
Eyewitness Account of the Joyous First 4th of July Celebration in Raleigh NC since Fort Sumter: A Contrast in Black and White
The end of the Civil War was a joyous time for many Southerners who were able to once again openly celebrate the national Independance Day,…
Carl Schurz Warned That a “System of Terrorism” Was Taking Hold in the Post-War South in 1865
Carl Schurz arrived in South Carolina in the middle of July, 1865. He had been sent by new president Andrew Johnson to investigate the condition…
German General Carl Schurz Begins His Investigation of the Post-War South
Union General Carl Schurz began his inspection tour of the South just a month after the last Confederate forces surrendered. Schurz, a German refugee, embarked…
Eric Foner on the Impact of the Dunning School on the Understanding of Reconstruction: Videos
Historian Eric Foner’s course on Reconstruction was videoed a few years ago and posted on-line. These segments look at the influence of the Dunning School…
William Dunning Explains the Restoration of Peace (and White Supremacy) in 1877 When Reconstruction Collapsed
This is the final installment of a four-part series on historian William Dunning. While the recent rise of the so-called Alt-Right has been a sad…
Reading William Dunning, Founder of the Dunning School: A Deep Dive Into Scholarly Supremacism
While William Dunning is often discussed in Reconstruction Era Studies, he is little read today except by academic historians and Neo-Confederates. I think that it…
Who the Hell Is William Dunning? The Man Behind the Distortion of Reconstruction
During the first half of the 20th Century William Dunning of Columbia University was the seminal figure in the study of the Reconstruction Era. Dunning,…
Why Your Teacher Told You Lies About Reconstruction: William Dunning & the Miseducation of America
William Dunning was the Columbia University professor credited with creating the academic school that established the scholarly attack on Radical Republican Reconstruction policies. Dunning is…
Podcast: Eric Foner Interviewed on Reconstruction
Here is an interesting podcast of an interview with Eric Foner, the preeminent living scholar of Reconstruction. The sound quality is only OK and the…
When Southern Whites Boycotted and Blacks Embraced the Fourth of July During Reconstruction
Many Americans are familiar, at least with the title, with Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” What they…
Recent Comments