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 era Presents 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 captions Contains biographical entries that provide insight into the lives of key people from the period Includes an extensive annotated bibliography that encourages readers to explore issues in more depth

This book explores the remarkable partnership of Joseph and Harriet Hawley, a married couple from Connecticut whose lives were transformed by overlapping experiences in the American Civil War era. When Joseph became the colonel of the 7th Connecticut Infantry Regiment in 1862, Harriet ignored family advice and social convention, and travelled to Union military headquarters at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where Joseph's regiment was stationed. From that bold beginning, she spent the next three years as a visitor at field hospitals, a teacher at freedman's schools, a wartime journalist, a ward nurse, and her husband's informal advisor and publicist. Moving in and around the scenes of military action, she lived and worked in spaces usually reserved for men and took on responsibilities that implicitly challenged conventional understandings of women's physical and emotional dependency. While Joseph struggled for recognition and promotion in the brutally competitive environment of Union military politics, Harriet shrewdly used her own personal contacts with power brokers in Hartford and Washington to protect his interests and those of his men. And as the terrible realities of the Civil War pushed them both to the brink of physical and emotional collapse, Harriet and Joseph remained committed to the cause and found ways to sustain their devotion to both Union and emancipation in the very worst moments of the conflict.

Theodore Parker was one of the most controversial theologians and social activists in pre-Civil War America. A vocal critic of traditional Christian thought and a militant opponent of American slavery, he led a huge congregation of religious dissenters in the very heart of Boston, Massachusetts, during the 1840s and 1850s. This book argues that Parker's radical vision and contemporary appeal stemmed from his abiding faith in the human conscience and in the principles of the American revolutionary tradition. A leading figure in Boston's resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law, Parker became a key supporter of John Brown's dramatic but ill-fated raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859. Propelled by a revolutionary conscience, Theodore Parker stood out as one of the most fearless religious reformers and social activists of his generation.

This book covers the full spectrum of daily life among slaves in the Antebellum South, giving readers a more complete picture of slaves' experiences in the decades before emancipation. In their daily struggles to forge lives of dignity and meaning within an inhuman system, slaves in the Antebellum South demonstrated creativity, resilience, and an insatiable desire to be free. The Daily Life of African American Slaves in the Antebellum South focuses on their struggles to create lives of meaning and dignity within a brutal and repressive system. This volume provides a comprehensive examination of the institution of slavery from the perspective of the slaves themselves. Readers can explore the family life, religious beliefs, political activities, intellectual aspirations, material possessions, and recreational pursuits of enslaved people. The book shows that enslaved people were tightly constrained by the harsh realities of the oppressive system under which they lived but that they found ways to forge lives of their own. The book synthesizes the latest and best literature on slavery and gives readers the opportunity to examine history through the lens of daily life using primary source documents created by slaves or former slaves. Provides readers with an understanding of the daily lives of enslaved African Americans Depicts how slaves struggled to create lives of dignity and meaning within a system designed to dehumanize them Points out important ways in which slaves resisted slavery Links the history of slavery to the larger history of Antebellum America Uses primary source documents and slave narratives to provide a supporting voice to the text

By the standards that historians usually use to judge presidents, John Quincy Adams was a failure. Although better qualified for the office than any American of his generation, he served for only one term and was unable to accomplish any of the most cherished goals set forth so boldly at the beginning of his presidency. Yet John Quincy Adams has not shared the fate of other presidential "failures" that have faded almost entirely from the national memory. This book provides a concise, synthetic biography of Adams that seeks to integrate the themes of his life into an understandable whole that explains both the successes and failures of his extraordinary career. Using his published journals and writings as basic sources, the book presents a succinct narrative of Adams' career that draws upon the best scholarship on his life and times.

By the standards that historians usually use to judge presidents, John Quincy Adams was a failure. Although better qualified for the office than any American of his generation, he served for only one term and was unable to accomplish any of the most cherished goals set forth so boldly at the beginning of his presidency. His election to the presidency in 1824 was itself fraught with controversy and charges of political corruption and he was soundly defeated in his bid for re-election by Andrew Jackson. To many contemporaries and even some historians, Adams has appeared completely out of touch with the democratic revolution that was transforming American life at the time. He seemed a relic of a discredited, eighteenth-century political world. Yet John Quincy Adams has not shared the fate of other presidential "failures" who have faded almost entirely from the national memory. Indeed, a steady stream of excellent biographies has issued forth from historians who continue to find his life and presidency illustrative of important themes in nineteenth-century American political and cultural history. Adams has gained significant ground on earlier critics and has re-emerged as a first-rate diplomat and as a principled leader. The intention of this book is to provide a concise, synthetic biography of Adams that seeks to integrate the themes of his life into an understandable whole that explains both the successes and failures of his extraordinary career. Using his published journals and writings as basic sources, the book seeks to present a succinct narrative of Adams' career that draws upon the best scholarship on his life and times.