Current Reading in March 2021

I finished They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers. This interesting and extremely valuable history, recently published, explores the role of women in the slave system and economy of the southern U.S. during the centuries before the Civil War. Jones-Rogers uses extensive research in contemporary newspaper accounts, WPA History Project testimony of formerly enslaved people and court records as well to show that many women in the South owned slaves of their own and were simply subservient to their husbands when it came to slave owning and economic considerations of all sorts. Women were often "left" slaves in their parents' wills and were also given slaves as "gifts" by their parents when they married. Furthermore, many couples signed what we'd now called pre-nuptual agreements stipulating that wives would retain complete control of their own slaves and all other financial interests. Jones-Rogers tours the multi-faceted world of slave owning and shows that women were often mens' equals when it came to wheeling and dealing for profit, and also for savagery in their treatment of their enslaved workers. The work is important particularly, I think, in that it is an detailed treatment of the pervasive nature of the slave system in the American south: all whites took part, not just men, in all facets of the system.

Have you read anything about Reconstruction in the South after the Civil War. I just finished "Splendid Failure" by Michael Fitzgerald. The message is as the title implies-I'm wondering if there is anything else out there.

>2 PeterK712: I don't believe I've read anything directly concerning Reconstruction itself, yet, although I have one or two such on my history shelves awaiting my attention. I recently read Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow. That book covers the period that begins with the collapse of Reconstruction and runs through the post-WWI era. As to whether "there is anything else out there," a quick google of "books reconstruction" might bring up a few. :)

Just completed Minuteman: A Technical History of the Missile That Defined American Nuclear Warfare by David Stumpf. This is a very detailed look at the Minuteman program from a technical standpoint with an amazing amount of information. Quite a number of photos and illustrations included. Only recommended for the truly involved enthusiast.

Peter (and Rocket, and anyone else): There is enough about Reconstruction out there to keep you engaged for as long as you choose to stay with it. I would start with Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 by Eric Foner, which has been the standard single work on the subject for many years now. There are two more recent works, The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post–Civil War North and West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War by Heather Cox Richardson, which focus on how the country grew weary of Reconstruction and collectively chose to move on from it. A book that I haven’t yet read, but I see on a lot of lists and intend to read, is After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War by Gregory P. Downs.

Rocket mentioned the work on the Jim Crow era by Leon F. Litwack, which is actually the third of a trilogy on which Litwack spent his entire academic career, and they are all worth reading. In order, they are North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790–1860 which, as one particular word in the title suggests, is 60 years old but not outdated; Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery which covers the years of Reconstruction; and the previously-mentioned Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow. I have been thinking of taking the time to reread all three of these. (I read the first as an undergraduate history major and that, to be honest, was a long time ago!)

Related to all this is the study of the historical memory of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and a book not to be missed is Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory by David W. Blight, which won several prizes. I also like The Southern Past: A Clash of Race and Memory by W. Fitzhugh Brundage. This is a subject on which more and more is being written.

I don’t know if we are supposed to link to other websites here, but it’s a nonprofit academic site, so I’m going to take a chance. It’s a fairly recent and short “Reconstruction Reading List” which also goes back in time to discuss the changing ways in which historians have looked at Reconstruction since about the turn of the twentieth century. Not surprisingly, attitudes toward Reconstruction correlate almost exactly with attitudes toward African Americans and race in general. Here’s the site:

https://s-usih.org/2016/01/reconstruction-reading-list/

Hope you find something worthwhile here.

>5 danharness: Thanks for all of that! I have in fact read the second and third of the Litwack books you mentioned, Been in the Storm So Long as well as Trouble in Mind.

I have on my shelf awaiting my attention a book titled Reconstruction: The Battle for Democracy 1865-1876 by James S. Allen. Are you familiar with that book?

I know of it, but I haven't read it. Allen was a Marxist, and in his time that caused mainstream historians to hold their noses. To most of us nowadays, of course, thatʼs not a problem; you just have to keep his perspective in mind as you read. Iʼm pretty sure I have read some more favorable views of him in more recent historiographical sources. If you give me a couple days, I will see what I can dig up. It was once one of the (too many!) books floating around in my mind that I hoped to read, but as I said, so far I haven't.

If you have read Litwackʼs two later works, you really ought to read North of Slavery, too. It was a pathbreaking book when it appeared in 1961 and I don't think it is an understatement to say that it became part of the intellectual underpinning of the civil rights movement. It was definitely a book that you had to read if you were of a progressive mentality on college campuses back in the late 60s/early 70s. Its black paperback cover is etched in my memory!

>7 danharness: Thanks for that. I will get to North of Slavery sooner or later, I hope. I have over the past year or so, been reading from a book list about racism in America and African American history in general that a good friend of mine named Kim Nalley, a wonderful jazz/blues singer who is also a PhD candidate at Cal-Berkeley, put together. I've skipping around on the list, reading one of these books around every third book I read.

You can find the list with Kim's descriptions on this post if you're interested:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/328107#7428565

That’s a great list; I bookmarked it for myself. Black Power was definitely another of those books that everyone “had” to read and carry around back in my college days. On the other hand, oddly enough, I don't remember ever hearing of The Souls of Black Folk while I was in college. I only discovered it, as well as Capitalism and Slavery, about 20 years later.

As for James Allen's book which you inquired about, I wasn't able to locate the source of my awareness of it, which is frustrating because I know that I read a brief discussion of it somewhere, sometime. But even though it would never be the first book which one would recommend as a one-volume history of Reconstruction, I'm sure it’s worth reading. It would probably best be approached in its own historical context, having been written at a time when Dunning’s racist interpretation of Reconstruction still prevailed in America. And also by paying attention to your own agreement and disagreement with Allen’s Marxist ideology. He was apparently an active Communist Party member when he wrote it.

If you read it, let us know what you thought of it.

Just finished an excellent Trolley Car Treasury: A Century of American Streetcars - Horsecars, Cable Cars, Interurbans, and Trolleys by Frank Rowsome Jr.