how did journalists’ perception of reconstruction change over the course of the program?

Who wrote the reconstruction of American journalism?

Help us by joining CJR today. Leonard Downie Jr. and Michael Schudson are the authors of "The Reconstruction of American Journalism."

Why is the old interpretation of reconstruction so popular?

In a discipline that sometimes seems to pride itself on the rapid rise and fall of historical interpretations, this traditional portrait of Reconstruction enjoyed remarkable staying power. The long reign of the old interpretation is not difficult to explain. It presented a set of easily identifiable heroes and villains.

How is reconstruction portrayed in the birth of a nation?

A series of scenes whose racism rivals that of D. W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation (1915) mainly portrays Reconstruction as a time when Southern whites were victimized by freed slaves, who themselves were exploited by Northern carpetbaggers. Only Georgia has a separate article about its experiences under Reconstruction.

How has journalism changed over the years?

Rather, journalism changed, sometimes dramatically, as the nation changed—its economics (because of the growth of large retailers in major cities), demographics (because of the shifts of population from farms to cities and then to suburbs), and politics (because early on political parties controlled newspapers and later lost power over them).

What changed the course of Reconstruction?

Reconstruction witnessed far-reaching changes in America's political life. At the national level, new laws and constitutional amendments permanently altered the federal system and the definition of American citizenship.

How did the Civil War change journalism?

New technologies and new demands for information during the Civil War changed journalism in many ways. The telegraph, invented in 1844, allowed newspapers to gather information from different locales and report the news more quickly.

What were the different views on Reconstruction?

These were divided into three opposing camps: Conservatives (democrats), Moderates, and Radicals. The Conservatives believed the South should be readmitted into the Union as soon as possible, but the Radicals and Moderates believed there should be consequences for succeeding.

How did society change during Reconstruction?

During the period, Congress passed three constitutional amendments that permanently abolished slavery, defined birthright citizenship and guaranteed due process and equal protection under the law, and granted all males the ability to vote by prohibiting voter discrimination based on race, color, or previous condition ...

How did news spread during the Civil War?

The primary way for the public to get news of campaigns, battles and other events during the Civil War was through newspapers. Newspaper companies printed stories sent to them from reporters who accompanied the armies or from letters sent to them by soldiers.

What form of writing was a reporting technique developed during the Civil War?

The telegraphThe telegraph, invented in 1844, meant that newspapers for the first time could gather and report the news in a timely manner. The usefulness of the telegraph led to the development of the Associated Press, the first cooperative news gathering organization.

How do historians view Reconstruction?

He and others now largely view Reconstruction as a dynamic, if violent, time that pushed Americans to confront poverty, racism, terrorism and white supremacy, among other ills. It gave birth, a century later, to the civil rights movement, and shaped some of our most important laws and institutions.

How did the South react to Reconstruction?

Most white Southerners reacted to defeat and emancipation with dismay. Many families had suffered the loss of loved ones and the destruction of property. Some thought of leaving the South altogether, or retreated into nostalgia for the Old South and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.

How did the South feel about Reconstruction?

The South was angry with how its people were treated after the war. The way they were treated meant they did not trust many people who were in politics. Many people today believe that Reconstruction was a total failure.

Why the Reconstruction was a success?

Reconstruction was a success in that it restored the United States as a unified nation: by 1877, all of the former Confederate states had drafted new constitutions, acknowledged the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, and pledged their loyalty to the U.S. government.

How did the economy change after Reconstruction?

During Reconstruction, many small white farmers, thrown into poverty by the war, entered into cotton production, a major change from prewar days when they concentrated on growing food for their own families. Out of the conflicts on the plantations, new systems of labor slowly emerged to take the place of slavery.

Did Reconstruction bring about revolutionary changes?

Reconstruction did bring about revolutionary changes because the fight for equality led to the establishment of certain amendments (13th, 14th and 15th) and Civil Rights Acts, which was a significant step that set the building blocks for future improvement.

What did revisionists emphasize in Reconstruction?

Unlike earlier writers, the revisionists stressed the active role of the freedmen in shaping Reconstruction. Black initiative established as many schools as did Northern religious societies and the Freedmen’s Bureau. The right to vote was not simply thrust upon them by meddling outsiders, since blacks began agitating for the suffrage as soon as they were freed. In 1865 black conventions throughout the South issued eloquent, though unheeded, appeals for equal civil and political rights.

Who wrote the history of reconstruction?

The work of “revising” the history of Reconstruction began with the writings of a handful of survivors of the era, such as John R. Lynch , who had served as a black congressman from Mississippi after the Civil War. In the 1930s white scholars like Francis Simkins and Robert Woody carried the task forward. Then, in 1935, the black historian and activist W. E. B. Du Bois produced Black Reconstruction in America , a monumental réévaluation that closed with an irrefutable indictment of a historical profession that had sacrificed scholarly objectivity on the altar of racial bias. “One fact and one alone,” he wrote, “explains the attitude of most recent writers toward Reconstruction; they cannot conceive of Negroes as men.” Du Bois’s work, however, was ignored by most historians.

How did reconstruction impact the lives of the Southern blacks?

However brief its sway, Reconstruction allowed scope for a remarkable political and social mobilization of the black community. It opened doors of opportunity that could never be completely closed. Reconstruction transformed the lives of Southern blacks in ways unmeasurable by statistics and unreachable by law. It raised their expectations and aspirations, redefined their status in relation to the larger society, and allowed space for the creation of institutions that enabled them to survive the repression that followed. And it established constitutional principles of civil and political equality that, while flagrantly violated after Redemption, planted the seeds of future struggle.

What was the conflict between government and society during radical reconstruction?

AN UNDERSTANDING OF this fundamental conflict over the relation between government and society helps explain the pervasive complaints concerning corruption and “extravagance” during Radical Reconstruction. Corruption there was aplenty; tax rates did rise sharply. More significant than the rate of taxation, however, was the change in its incidence. For the first time, planters and white farmers had to pay a significant portion of their income to the government, while propertyless blacks often escaped scot-free. Several states, moreover, enacted heavy taxes on uncultivated land to discourage land speculation and force land onto the market, benefiting, it was hoped, the freedmen.

What did the reconstruction government do?

Few modern scholars believe the Reconstruction governments established in the South in 1867 and 1868 fulfilled the aspirations of their humble constituents. While their achievements in such realms as education, civil rights, and the economic rebuilding of the South are now widely appreciated, historians today believe they failed to affect either the economic plight of the emancipated slave or the ongoing transformation of independent white farmers into cotton tenants. Yet their opponents did perceive the Reconstruction governments in precisely this way—as representatives of a revolution that had put the bottom rail, both racial and economic, on top. This perception helps explain the ferocity of the attacks leveled against them and the pervasiveness of violence in the postemancipation South.

What was the impact of the revisionist wave on the 1960s?

It was not until the 1960s that the full force of the revisionist wave broke over the field. Then, in rapid succession, virtually every assumption of the traditional viewpoint was systematically dismantled. A drastically different portrait emerged to take its place. President Lincoln did not have a coherent “plan” for Reconstruction, but at the time of his assassination he had been cautiously contemplating black suffrage. Andrew Johnson was a stubborn, racist politician who lacked the ability to compromise. By isolating himself from the broad currents of public opnion that had nourished Lincoln’s career, Johnson created an impasse with Congress that Lincoln would certainly have avoided, thus throwing away his political power and destroying his own plans for reconstructing the South.

When was reconstruction a time period?

Building upon the findings of the past twenty years of scholarship, a new portrait of Reconstruction ought to begin by viewing it not as a specific time period, bounded by the years 1865 and 1877, but as an episode in a prolonged historical process—American society’s adjustment to the consequences of the Civil War and emancipation.

What did Andrew Johnson's plan for reconstruction reflect?

At the end of May 1865, President Andrew Johnson announced his plans for Reconstruction, which reflected both his staunch Unionism and his firm belief in states’ rights. In Johnson’s view, the southern states had never given up their right to govern themselves, and the federal government had no right to determine voting requirements ...

What was the purpose of the reconstruction?

Reconstruction (1865-1877), the turbulent era following the Civil War, was the effort to reintegrate Southern states from the Confederacy and 4 million newly-freed people into the United States. Under the administration of President Andrew Johnson in 1865 and 1866, new southern state legislatures passed restrictive “ Black Codes ” to control ...

What did the Reconstruction Act of 1867 do?

The following March, again over Johnson’s veto, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which temporarily divided the South into five military districts and outlined how governments based on universal (male) suffrage were to be organized. The law also required southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment, which broadened the definition of citizenship, granting “equal protection” of the Constitution to formerly enslaved people, before they could rejoin the Union. In February 1869, Congress approved the 15th Amendment (adopted in 1870), which guaranteed that a citizen’s right to vote would not be denied “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

What happened after 1867?

After 1867, an increasing number of southern whites turned to violence in response to the revolutionary changes of Radical Reconstruction. The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations targeted local Republican leaders, white and Black, and other African Americans who challenged white authority.

How did emancipation change the Civil War?

Emancipation changed the stakes of the Civil War, ensuring that a Union victory would mean large-scale social revolution in the South. It was still very unclear, however, what form this revolution would take. Over the next several years, Lincoln considered ideas about how to welcome the devastated South back into the Union, but as the war drew to a close in early 1865, he still had no clear plan. In a speech delivered on April 11, while referring to plans for Reconstruction in Louisiana, Lincoln proposed that some Black people–including free Black people and those who had enlisted in the military–deserved the right to vote. He was assassinated three days later, however, and it would fall to his successor to put plans for Reconstruction in place.

What was the most radical development of reconstruction?

The participation of African Americans in southern public life after 1867 would be by far the most radical development of Reconstruction, which was essentially a large-scale experiment in interracial democracy unlike that of any other society following the abolition of slavery.

What were the laws of 1865 and 1866?

As a result of Johnson’s leniency, many southern states in 1865 and 1866 successfully enacted a series of laws known as the “ black codes ,” which were designed to restrict freed Black peoples’ activity and ensure their availability as a labor force. These repressive codes enraged many in the North, including numerous members of Congress, which refused to seat congressmen and senators elected from the southern states.