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The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North, 1865-1901 Paperback – March 1, 2004

4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 85 ratings
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Historians overwhelmingly have blamed the demise of Reconstruction on Southerners' persistent racism. Heather Cox Richardson argues instead that class, along with race, was critical to Reconstruction's end. Northern support for freed blacks and Reconstruction weakened in the wake of growing critiques of the economy and calls for a redistribution of wealth.

Using newspapers, public speeches, popular tracts, Congressional reports, and private correspondence, Richardson traces the changing Northern attitudes toward African-Americans from the Republicans' idealized image of black workers in 1861 through the 1901 publication of Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery. She examines such issues as black suffrage, disenfranchisement, taxation, westward migration, lynching, and civil rights to detect the trajectory of Northern disenchantment with Reconstruction. She reveals a growing backlash from Northerners against those who believed that inequalities should be addressed through working-class action, and the emergence of an American middle class that championed individual productivity and saw African-Americans as a threat to their prosperity.

The Death of Reconstruction offers a new perspective on American race and labor and demonstrates the importance of class in the post-Civil War struggle to integrate African-Americans into a progressive and prospering nation.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    330 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harvard University Press
  4. Publication date
    March 1, 2004
  5. Dimensions
    6.4 x 0.88 x 9.22 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0674013662
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0674013667
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“The Death of Reconstruction offers a provocative explanation of why Northerners after the Civil War gradually and often reluctantly abandoned their efforts on behalf of the Southern freedmen. Not ignoring virulent racism directed at African Americans, Richardson shows that it was less race than class that brought about the end of Reconstruction. An important, impressively documented book, The Death of Reconstruction is a work comparable to David Montgomery's Beyond Equality as a major reinterpretation of the post-Civil War period.”―David Herbert Donald, author of Lincoln

“Heather Richardson's The Death of Reconstruction is a work of genuine originality and imagination. Steeped in remarkable research, this is a persuasive account of how economic world views drove Northerners' retreat from Reconstruction; it makes us view Reconstruction from a different angle and helps explain, as well as any book has, the deep significance of individualism in American life in the late nineteenth century.”―David W. Blight, author of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory

“[Richardson] makes extensive use of contemporary newspaper articles, periodicals, speeches, and personal accounts to capture this tumultuous era in American history. Highly recommended for academic libraries.”―Robert Flatley, Library Journal

“In The Death of Reconstruction the author's main concern is with attitudes in the North, not in the states of the former Confederacy. She notes that most Northerners had little direct contact with blacks, because only 10 percent of them lived in the North. In the years immediately after the war, the Republican press in the North took a benign view of blacks as a group, portraying them as poor but eager to work their way to prosperity as free labor...The most interesting aspect of this book is the reminder it affords that the debate over "affirmative action" is not a modern phenomenon but can be traced back to the 19th century...[Richardson's] focus on class conflict is a useful addition to other writings on the Gilded Age.”―John M. Taylor, Washington Times

“At last readers have an explanation of why the Republican Party, founded in antislavery, dedicated to emancipation, and the political inspiration for the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution, abandoned those causes in favor of an ideology which acquiesced in the disenfranchisement of blacks and in the triumph of Jim Crow. Arguing that Republicans came to see the majority of African Americans as potential labor radicals in the tradition of the Paris Commune and the labor agitation of the US strikes of the late 19th century, [Richardson]...documents that this led to political abandonment...This is an important contribution for all historians who want a better understanding of the South or the African American experience, and anyone who wants good political history.”―T. F. Armstrong, Choice

About the Author

Heather Cox Richardson is Associate Professor of American History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press (March 1, 2004)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 330 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674013662
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674013667
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.4 x 0.88 x 9.22 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 85 ratings

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Heather Cox Richardson

Heather Cox Richardson

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Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
85 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

R. Byam
5.0 out of 5 stars Deja vu all over again
Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2021
Verified Purchase
History was not a strong subject in my education journey. And, having read both this book and her book, How the South Won the Civil War, I’m blown away by the similarities to today’s events. We never learn, it seems. As I once said, we have not moved too far from the mouth of the cave.
6 people found this helpful
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Jeff Prochaska
5.0 out of 5 stars You really do not understand the reconstruction until you read this!
Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2021
Verified Purchase
This is book really opened my eyes and helps to explain our current political disaster. It shows that Democracy is a a work in progress, and not complete by a long shot. It also shows how we all need to work hard to prevent the shallow and hateful thinking of the southern past still poisons our society today.
12 people found this helpful
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Jo M.
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Historian Author.
Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2021
Verified Purchase
Always informative with Heather Cox. Keeps you interested all the way through and reminds you of things I remember in history.
4 people found this helpful
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Bobby D
5.0 out of 5 stars This remarkable book presents a polyphonic view of race and ...
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2018
This remarkable book presents a polyphonic view of race and labor relations in the United States from the end of the Civil War to the end of the 19th Century. Richardson uses truly impressive research to document the views of Northerners and Southerners; Democrats and Republicans; Blacks and Whites; Conservatives, Moderates, and Radicals. Moreover, she follows the development of these views through 35-years as Democrats and Republicans struggle to build a national coalition for their party in the wake of the Civil War and the dawn of the international labor movement.

This book is not a "beach read" for two reasons:

First: Keeping track of which faction is which requires a fair amount of effort from the reader. There are a dozen or so factions. And it is often the case that what was a Democratic point of view at that time has become a Republican point of view today -- and vice versa. That actually encourages examining the view itself, and not pidgeonholing the view through political labelling. But it is work.

Second: The author's use of quotes from newspapers, periodicals, and speeches of the time period means that much of what we read was written some 150-years ago. In our post-Hemmingway (and post-Gunning-Fox-Index) world such quotes can seem stilted and wordy. Even where the author is paraphrasing source material, the flavor of the 19th Century writing comes through -- and this means more work for the reader.
Nevertheless, I view the style of the quotes and paraphrases as essential to establishing a feel for the time period.

This book lends itself to a 'compare and contrast' discussion of viewpoints in its time period and viewpoints today. It describes the foundation for many of today's views, albeit often with different labels. Richardson writes as a reporter of history more than as a political advocate. She lets the quotes convey the opinions of the time.

So, five-stars or four?
The book's content is certainly deserving of five-stars.
But what about the amount concentration required from the reader?
Well, I'll go with a mental version of the Free Labor model for my decision.
In the end, the knowledge gained was well worth my effort.
Moreover, the effort was rewarding in and of itself.
Five Stars!
27 people found this helpful
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Samuel W. Coulbourn
4.0 out of 5 stars We really haven’t come very far since 1868.
Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2020
Verified Purchase
Heather Cox Richardson, in The End of Reconstruction takes a longer view of this period after the Civil War. right up to the Twentieth Century, providing more analysis of American progress and failure over the years.
Richardson gave this picture of Black land ownership in 1870: Only 6.7% of African- Americans owned land, almost half of Black landowners owned less than 20 acres. Prominent African-American leaders were usually freeborn, educated, somewhat prosperous, and biracial. Men listed in census as “mulatto” were four times more likely than regular Blacks to own land. For most freedmen, they worked for former masters, who usually tried to reinstate an economic system as close to slavery as possible.
Follow the story of progress of African-Americans as they have fought to become Americans, entitled to all the privileges of white Americans….here we are in 2020, and we have seen months of mistreatment and murder of Blacks… Black Lives Matter protests, and a President seizing on the moment to fan the flames of racial hatred, turning the grievances of Black Americans into distrust of law enforcement and threats of a Marxist society if we should honor the Black grievances.
We really haven’t come very far since 1868.
16 people found this helpful
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Danae
2.0 out of 5 stars Too long, too descriptive, too repetitive
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2015
Verified Purchase
Okay, so I've almost finished the first chapter, and all I get is an extremely biased Utopian view of the North's ideals on Southern prosperity and circular reasoning. Richardson repeats herself several times with different evidence, but it's always the same idea. Chapter 1 could be much shorter if she just got down to the point.
10 people found this helpful
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