Reconstructing America

Edited by Andrew L. Slap, East Tennessee State University

The Reconstructing America series explores the many different ways the United States reconstructed itself as a nation and society after the Civil War. The series provides new perspectives on the traditional understanding of Reconstruction as a contemporary event from 1865 to 1877, such as the political, military, and constitutional issues in the immediate postwar years. The series also explores the new scholarly understanding of Reconstruction as a larger historical process, expanding the geographical, chronological, and historical scope of the period beyond the South and into the late nineteenth century. Such works deal with the broad social, cultural, gender, racial, intellectual, economic, environmental, military, international, and religious aspects of a country and people trying to reconstruct themselves. Bringing together innovative examinations of Reconstruction as a contemporary event with broad studies elaborating upon the process of Reconstruction is central to this series.

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Unforgettable Sacrifice

Unforgettable Sacrifice

Hilary N. Green, Edda L. Fields-Black

Hilary N. Green

Rediscover the Civil War through the voices that refused to be silencedUnforgettable Sacrifice offers a groundbreaking exploration into the heart of African American memory of the Civil War, challenging...

ISBN: 9781531508524

Our Onward March

Our Onward March

Jonathan D. Neu

Jonathan D. Neu

Provides vital new evidence that Union veterans remained stubbornly opposed to the nation’s reconciliationist tendencies and unwilling to surrender the causes for which they foughtUnion soldiers’...

ISBN: 9781531509019

A Contested Terrain

A Contested Terrain

AnneMarie Brosnan

AnneMarie Brosnan

A testament to the resilience and determination of Black North Carolinians to achieve educational equalityThis book examines the educational experiences of Black North Carolinians during the American...

ISBN: 9781531509293

Embracing Emancipation

Embracing Emancipation

Ian Delahanty

Ian Delahanty

Challenges conventional narratives of the Civil War era that emphasize Irish Americans’ unceasing opposition to Black freedomEmbracing Emancipation tackles a perennial question in scholarship on the...

ISBN: 9781531506872

The Civil War and the Summer of 2020

The Civil War and the Summer of 2020

Hilary N. Green, Andrew L. Slap, Andre E. Johnson, John Bardes, Karen Cook Bell, Daryl A. Carter, Beau D. Cleland, Emmanuel Dabney, Adam H. Domby, Myisha S. Eatmon, Barbara Gannon, Scott Hancock, William Horne, LeeAnna Keith, Jonathan Lande, Anne Marshall, Jaime Amanda Martinez, Nicole Turner, Samuel Watts

Edited by Hilary N. Green and Andrew L. Slap

Contributor(s): John Bardes, Karen Cook Bell, Daryl A. Carter, Beau D. Cleland, Emmanuel Dabney, Adam H. Domby, Myisha S. Eatmon, Barbara Gannon, Scott Hancock, William Horne, LeeAnna Keith, Jonathan Lande, Anne Marshall, Jaime Amanda Martinez, Nicole Turner and Samuel Watts

Investigates how Americans have remembered violence and resistance since the Civil War, including Confederate monuments, historical markers, college classrooms, and history books.George Floyd’s murder...

ISBN: 9781531505004

Abolitionist Twilights

Abolitionist Twilights

Raymond James Krohn

Raymond James Krohn

Provides unique insight into Reconstruction’s downfall and Jim Crow’s emergence.In the years and decades following the American Civil War, veteran abolitionists actively thought and wrote about...

ISBN: 9781531505608

Continent in Crisis

Continent in Crisis

Brian Schoen, Jewel L. Spangler, Frank Towers, Alice Baumgartner, Beau D. Cleland, Susan-Mary Grant, Amy Greenberg, John Craig Hammond, John W. Quist, Brian Schoen, Andrew L. Slap, Jewel L. Spangler, Frank Towers

Edited by Brian Schoen, Jewel L. Spangler and Frank Towers

Contributor(s): Alice Baumgartner, Beau D. Cleland, Susan-Mary Grant, Amy Greenberg, John Craig Hammond, John W. Quist, Brian Schoen, Andrew L. Slap, Jewel L. Spangler and Frank Towers

Written by leading historians of the mid–nineteenth century United States, this book focuses on the continental dimensions of the U.S. Civil War. It joins a growing body of scholarship that seeks...

ISBN: 9781531501297

Reimagining the Republic

Reimagining the Republic

Sandra M. Gustafson, Robert Levine, Molly Ball, Nancy Bentley, Tess Chakkalakal, Sarah E. Chinn, Mark Elliott, John Ernest, Annemarie Mott Ewing, Jennifer Rae Greeson, Sandra M. Gustafson, Mary Hale, DeLisa D. Hawkes, Christine Holbo, Carolyn Karcher, Almas Khan, Gregory Laski, Alex Zweber Leslie, Robert Levine, Brook Thomas, Kenneth Warren

Edited by Sandra M. Gustafson and Robert Levine

Contributor(s): Molly Ball, Nancy Bentley, Tess Chakkalakal, Sarah E. Chinn, Mark Elliott, John Ernest, Annemarie Mott Ewing, Jennifer Rae Greeson, Sandra M. Gustafson, Mary Hale, DeLisa D. Hawkes, Christine Holbo, Carolyn Karcher, Almas Khan, Gregory Laski, Alex Zweber Leslie, Robert Levine, Brook Thomas and Kenneth Warren

Albion W. Tourgée (1838–1905) was a major force for social, legal, and literary transformation in the second half of the nineteenth century. Best known for his Reconstruction novels A Fool’s Errand...

ISBN: 9781531501372

Reconstruction and Empire

Reconstruction and Empire

David Prior, Adrian Brettle, Christina C. Davidson, Rebecca Edwards, Mark Elliott, Andre Fleche, Gregg French, Lawrence B. Glickman, Reilly Ben Hatch, David V. Holtby, Justin F. Jackson, DJ Polite, David Prior, Brian Shott

Edited by David Prior

Contributor(s): Adrian Brettle, Christina C. Davidson, Rebecca Edwards, Mark Elliott, Andre Fleche, Gregg French, Lawrence B. Glickman, Reilly Ben Hatch, David V. Holtby, Justin F. Jackson, DJ Polite, David Prior and Brian Shott

This volume examines the historical connections between the United States’ Reconstruction and the country’s emergence as a geopolitical power a few decades later. It shows how the processes at work...

ISBN: 9780823298655

Freedoms Gained and Lost

Freedoms Gained and Lost

Adam H. Domby, Simon Lewis, Bruce E. Baker, Adam H. Domby, Don H. Doyle, Brian K. Fennessy, Michael Fitzgerald, Hilary N. Green, Ethan Kytle, Simon Lewis, Holly Pinheiro, Sergio Pinto-Handler, Shannon Smith, Felicity Turner, Samuel Watts

Edited by Adam H. Domby and Simon Lewis

Contributor(s): Bruce E. Baker, Adam H. Domby, Don H. Doyle, Brian K. Fennessy, Michael Fitzgerald, Hilary N. Green, Ethan Kytle, Simon Lewis, Holly Pinheiro, Sergio Pinto-Handler, Shannon Smith, Felicity Turner and Samuel Watts

Reconstruction is one of the most complex, overlooked, and misunderstood periods of American history. The thirteen essays in this volume address the multiple struggles to make good on President Abraham...

ISBN: 9780823298167

Remaking North American Sovereignty

Remaking North American Sovereignty

Jewel L. Spangler, Frank Towers, Robert E. Bonner, Christopher Clark, Jane Dinwoodie, Steven Hahn, Ryan Hall, Benjamin Johnson, Pablo Mijangos, Mary Ryan, Andrew Smith, Jewel L. Spangler, Marcela Terrazas y Basante, Frank Towers, Andrew L. Slap

Edited by Jewel L. Spangler and Frank Towers

Contributor(s): Robert E. Bonner, Christopher Clark, Jane Dinwoodie, Steven Hahn, Ryan Hall, Benjamin Johnson, Pablo Mijangos, Mary Ryan, Andrew Smith, Jewel L. Spangler, Marcela Terrazas y Basante and Frank Towers

This book explores the tumultuous history of state making in mid-nineteenth- century North America from a continental perspective. Essays by experts on Canadian Confederation, the U.S. Civil War, Mexico’s fight against French imperialists, and indigenous Americans shed new light on events traditionally studied as separate national stories.

ISBN: 9780823288441

Reconstruction in a Globalizing World

Reconstruction in a Globalizing World

David Prior

David Prior

As one of the most complexly divisive periods in American history, Reconstruction has been the subject of a rich scholarship. Historians have studied the period’s racial views, political maneuverings,...

ISBN: 9780823278312

Too Great a Burden to Bear

Too Great a Burden to Bear

Christopher B. Bean

Christopher B. Bean

This work focuses on Bureau agents at a more personal level. The answers illuminate who officials believed qualified–or not–to oversee the freedpeople’s transition to freedom. Officials in Texas desired those able to meet emancipation’s challenges. That meant northern-born, mature, white men from the middle and upper-middle class, and generally with military experience.

ISBN: 9780823271764

Preserving the Constitution

Preserving the Constitution

Michael Les Benedict

Michael Les Benedict

“Americans’ ideas about constitutional liberty played a crucial role in the history of Reconstruction. They provided the basis for the Republican program of equal rights; ironically, they also set...

ISBN: 9780823225545

The Retreats of Reconstruction

The Retreats of Reconstruction

David E. Goldberg

David E. Goldberg

This book examines how de facto segregation unfolded and operated at the New Jersey shore after the Civil War. Weaving together histories of race, leisure, and consumption, it argues that the politics of mass consumption contained early desegregation efforts and prolonged Jim Crow.

ISBN: 9780823272723

The Great Task Remaining Before Us

The Great Task Remaining Before Us

Paul A. Cimbala, Randall M. Miller

Edited by Paul A. Cimbala and Randall M. Miller

Through informative case studies, this illuminating book remaps considerations of the Civil War and Reconstruction era by charting the ways in which the needs, interests, and experiences of going to...

ISBN: 9780823232031

Freedwomen and the Freedmen's Bureau

Freedwomen and the Freedmen's Bureau

Mary J. Farmer-Kaiser

Mary J. Farmer-Kaiser

Established by congress in early 1865, the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands—more commonly known as “the Freedmen’s Bureau”—assumed the Herculean task of overseeing the transition...

ISBN: 9780823232123

Confederate Phoenix

Confederate Phoenix

Edmund L. Drago

Edmund L. Drago

In this innovative book, Edmund L. Drago tells the first full story of white children and their families in the most militant Southern state, and the state where the Civil War erupted. Drawing on a...

ISBN: 9780823229383

The Doom of Reconstruction

The Doom of Reconstruction

Andrew L. Slap

Andrew L. Slap

In the Election of 1872 the conflict between President U. S. Grant and Horace Greeley has been typically understood as a battle for the soul of the ruling Republican Party. In this innovative study,...

ISBN: 9780823227105

Educational Reconstruction

Educational Reconstruction

Hilary N. Green

Hilary N. Green

Book explores the post-Civil War creation of African American public schools in Richmond, Virginia and Mobile, Alabama. Urban African Americans and their partners redefined American citizenship, created essential educational resources, and ensured that children had access to a quality education taught by African American teachers at the turn-of-the-twentieth century.

ISBN: 9780823270125

The Political Reconstruction of American Tobacco, 1862-1933

The Political Reconstruction of American Tobacco, 1862-1933

Patrick Mulford O’Connor

Patrick Mulford O’Connor

A deeply researched and clearly argued account of the mutual growth of the federal government and the modern tobacco Nearly everything about the United States tobacco economy changed in the generation...

ISBN: 9781531510596

New Men

John A. Casey, Jr.

John A. Casey, Jr.

New Men uncovers the narrative of veteran reentry into civilian life and exposes a growing gap between how former soldiers of the Civil War saw themselves and the representations of them created by late nineteenth-century American society. This gap generated a new conception of the “veteran” still influential today.

ISBN: 9780823265398

Emma Spaulding Bryant

Emma Spaulding Bryant

Ruth Currie

Edited by Ruth Currie

Emma Spaulding's life might have been the simple story of a nineteenth-century woman in rural Maine. Instead, wooed by the ambitious John Emory Bryant, the Yankee Reconstruction activist and Georgia...

ISBN: 9780823222742

The Civil War Confiscation Acts

The Civil War Confiscation Acts

John Syrett

John Syrett

This book is the first full account in more than 20 years of two significant, but relatively understudied, laws passed during the Civil War. The Confiscation Acts (1861–62) were designed to sanction...

ISBN: 9780823224906

"A Free Ballot and a Fair Count"

"A Free Ballot and a Fair Count"

Robert Michael Goldman

Robert Michael Goldman

“A Free Ballot and a Fair Count” examines the efforts by the Department of Justice to implement the federal legislation passed by Congress in 1870–71 known as the Enforcement Acts. These laws...

ISBN: 9780823220847