As part of this, he outlines the rise of northern liberal ideology during the early 1870s that argued against preferential government involvement and increasingly saw Reconstruction as a costly distraction from "real" economic issues.
Another central theme is the failure and limitations of free labor ideology, which was championed during the Civil War and even afterwards, but was often either ignored when faced with on-the-ground political action to empower blacks or co-opted by racists to lobby for less federal government intervention. Reconstruction was not a simple declension story, but one that occurred unevenly. Additionally, he argues for a non-linear narrative, one that progressed in fits and starts and was quite different in different areas of the South. Although it failed to live up to the ideals that it began with, it did enact real and radical change on Southern society - especially the unprecedented move of enfranchising millions of black men so quickly and establishing parts of the political and social framework (such as education) that they would rely on for decades.įoner re-centers the narrative of Reconstruction to be told largely from the perspective of black Southerners, arguing that they were the key players during the era and wielded real influence. Foner dismisses the Dunning school as ludicrous, and takes a middle position between the Revisionists and Post-Revisionists. Finally, Post-Revisionists in the 1970s and 1980s argued that Reconstruction was, in fact, largely limited and conservative in nature and failed to enact real change for black people. This interpretation enjoyed a lengthy shelf-life until the Revisionists of the 1940s-1960s recast Reconstruction in a much more positive light, championing the progressive nature of reformers. Around the turn of the century, the William Dunning school of Traditionalists emphasized the tragedy of Reconstruction that crushed white southerners beneath greedy northerners and blacks that were unfit for self-rule.
Foner works in a lengthy historiographic tradition. Eric Foner offers a synthesis of the Reconstruction Era of American history, from the Emancipation Proclamation to Redemption with the Compromise of 1877.
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