Civil War and Reconstruction, 1832-1877
Fall 2006
Professor John McClymer Fuller Hall, Room 112


"Mustered Out," the demobilization of a black regiment in Arkansas, 1865

Description: Part Two of a four course survey of U.S. history from the end of the Seven Years' War to the present. All are designed to enable teachers to familiarize themselves with the core events and developments emphasized in the Massachusetts frameworks. We will pay particular attention to the documents of the era and to strategies for successfully introducing secondary and middle-school students to their study. In addition to our weekly meetings, there will be three one-day workshops led by guest scholars. Attendance at two of the three entitles participants to a fourth credit for this course. The workshops are also open to WPS and other area teachers who are not enrolled in this course.

We will read several important secondary works AND examine relevant primary materials. Participants will submit notes addressing questions about both primary and secondary sources at least one hour prior to class meeting. I will use these notes to organize our discussions. These discussions will have several foci: 1) How have historians sought to make sense of the topic under discussion? 2) Where does the topic fit within the frameworks? 3) What sorts of strategies can teachers use to make this topic come alive to their students?

Participants will have a good deal of latitude in choosing materials to examine. We will all work our way through the assigned readings. In additon, I have collected a range of online materials. They provide different points of entry into the topics we will be examining. Some are drawn from an NEH funded curriculum development project WPS teachers, Old Sturbridge Village, the American Antiquarian Society, and Assumption College are working on. Course participants will choose whatever approach most piques their interest. Part of my role will be to suggest how these different materials and approaches fit (or do not fit) together. I will take my lead from Jacques Barzun:

. . . the ultimate unifying force of an age is its predicaments: the urgent demands, the obstacles to social peace or progress, . . . things that alert minds cannot ignore; every living thinker or artist works to fulfill these calls or deny them in some way. The ways differ but converge on the challenge. — Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence

Requirements: In addition to doing the reading and submitting the notes, all participants will research and write a course project. This can take the form of detailed lesson plans covering some portion of the materials under review. Participants will be able to draw upon the expertise of two experienced high school teachers in designing their projects. They are Colleen Kelly, History and Social Science Curriculum Liaison of WPS, and Harry Richardson, former history teacher at Grafton and Shrewsbury high schools and former assistant principal of Grafton High.

Alternatively participants can create a documentary project modeled on those at the Women and Social Movements online journal edited by Tom Dublin and Kitty Sklar. Each of the projects will be organized around a question and will have three components: 1) an introductory essay of approximately 1,000 words exploring the significance of the question, its place in the historical literature, and the rationale for choosing these particular 10-12 documents; 2) a brief head note for each document that identifies author(s), audience(s), and historical context; 3) annotated versions of the documents that identify allusions, define key terms, and provide whatever additional information a student reader would need.

Further details are here.

Readings:
Perry Miller, The Life of the Mind in America from the Revolution to the Civil War
Kathryn Kish Sklar, Women's Rights Emerges Within the Anti-Slavery Movement, 1830-1870: A Brief History with Documents
David Potter, The Impending Crisis
James M. McPherson, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution
Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction, 1865-1877

Some Themes:

1. Slavery and Race: Slavery was the great dilemma Americans confronted. Most whites would doubtless have preferred not to think of it at all or to content themselves with saying that it was the "peculiar institution" of southern states. But the rush westward and the divergent visions of the West Northerners and Southerners developed forced everyone to confront the issue. They did so in the context of a deep and pervasive prejudice against people of color. This racism provided a powerful, if perverse, bond of union. How this bond frayed is a key part of the story of the coming of the war. How whites, North and South, reforged that bond is a key part of the story of Reconstruction and beyond.

2. The Pace of Change: Our period witnessed the beginning of the modern age in which we continue to live. Had Julius Caesar somehow found himself in Boston in 1832, he would have had comparatively little difficulty in adjusting to his new world. There would have been plenty of people, almost all of them men, who knew enough Latin for him to communicate. Indeed they would have learned Latin by studying his Gallic Wars. His knowledge of canal building and civil engineering generally would have guaranteed him lucrative employment. In fact, Caesar would have known more about these subjects than anyone he met. There were no chariots, but Caesar would have found driving a carriage sufficiently similar so that he probably would not have needed much practice. The republican government in the United States would have been most familiar. It was based, to some considerable extent, on the Roman Republic he had overthrown. The religion would have been strange, but he had often encountered new religions during his military campaigns. About the only really significant thing Caesar would not have understood immediately, aside from mechanical clocks and water-driven looms, was the steam engine. It was different from anything he had ever known, and better. The engines were used largely in the mines. The principal source of power until the railroad revolution was well underway was water. Caesar understood how that worked and, given his superior knowledge about building and sealing canals, could have improved upon most of the mill races he would have encountered.

Plunk Caesar down in 1877, and he would have been at a loss. There would still have been plenty of people who understood Latin, including a fair number of women. But nothing he knew how to do, from leading troops to building roads, would have been of any use in this new world. Chariot driving would give him no insight into the railroad. People routinely travelled distances in hours that had taken him, and the people of 1832, weeks. And they communicated instantaneously over telegraph and telephone wires, utilizing some force he had never heard of, electricity, which was, it turns out, the same as lightning! Even war had changed. Grant and his lieutenants had invented modern warfare, that is, they had figured out how to take advantage of railroads, telegraphs, interchangeable parts, and other features of the industrial revolution. The people of 1877 had an infinitude of tools, or so it would have seemed. And they used them to create a seeming infinitude of new products, many of them creature comforts, which they manufactured in huge factories.

Most crucially, perhaps, the people of 1877 lived with the expectation of change. They did not assume that their lives would be much like the parents'. They did not assume that they would continue to live in the same town or state or even region. Change, not continuity, had become normative.

Currier and Ives, "Progress of the Century" (ca. 1876)

3. The West: The Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812 required the British to remove their forts from the Ohio Valley. When they did, they effectively abandoned their Native American allies who had to confront the waves of settlers and then the U.S. government on their own. It was an uneven contest. Americans, North and South, relentlessly and remorselessly pushed the tribes out of their way. Our period begins with the decision of the state of Georgia to dispossess the Cherokee and ends with Plains Indians still giving sporadic battle to the U.S. Cavalry, composed mostly of black Civil War veterans.

Northerners and Southerners both sought to seize the opportunities they saw the West offering, a process that inevitably produced conflict. Both North and South were expanding, but in different ways. Consider the Erie Canal. This linked the Great Lakes to the Atlantic and turned New York into the Empire State with New York City becoming the financial capital of the nation. The canal served as a school for civil engineering, and canal alumni would go on to build the country's railroads. The canal led to the first "boom town," Rochester. In 1820 it did not exist. Ten years later, tens of thousands lived and worked there. Northern expansion, in short, helped create the transportation revolution. It spurred urbanization. It encouraged industrialization. It was transformative. The North did not merely grow. It continuously reinvented itself.

Southerners, in contrast, sought to transplant the plantation system. As they acquired new lands, they put them to familiar uses. They did not seek to lead the way in the transportation revolution or in the industrial revolution. It would take a century for the South to take the lead in textile production, for example. There were fewer cities in the South, and they grew more slowly.

These differences were already obvious in 1832 when Tocqueville came to write Democracy in America. They might, he feared, imperil the Union.

4. Republicanism, the Market, and Evangelicalism: Americans sought to make sense of the bewildering possibilities they faced by employing three frames within which they sought to organize their ideas, hopes, and fears. One was republicanism. Whether they were organizing a new territory or a society to ban the delivery of mail on Sunday, Americans wrote constitutions. They elected officers. They held meetings in which they used parliamentary rules of order. They assumed that the majority should rule, that individuals were free to do as they pleased so long as they did not interfere with the rights of others, that everyone was entitled to have and express an opinion. Americans of 1832 had witnessed the passing of the revolutionary generation, and they gloried in the success of the republic.

Capitalism provided another powerful frame. Each man was supposed to find his own way in the world and could, Americans believed, because the market rewarded talent and perserverance. If you worked hard, you would succeed. Success did not necessarily mean great wealth. It meant independence. There were few great fortunes in the 1830s. There were a great many farms and shops and stores. Getting ahead meant winning a place for yourself and your family.

Evangelical Protestantism thrived during the first three quarters of the nineteenth century. Millions found salvation in the Second Great Awakening. Church membership grew rapidly. To meet the chronic shortage of clergy, Home Missionary societies formed. Boosters starting towns that they hoped would become the next Rochester routinely began by organizing a church. The denomination did not matter. If a Baptist minister was available, it would be Baptist. If a Methodist or a Presbyterian were available, it would be Methodist or Presbyterian. What mattered was that there be preaching.

All three frames were sets of institutions and behaviors, in short, as well as ways of thinking. Much of the time they converged. All three emphasized the individual, for example. At other times they conflicted. Jackson opposed the measure curtailing mail delivery on the Sabbath citing the First Amendment. In the 1850s the Know-Nothings adopted a strong evangelical platform but also directly threatened republican principles. The market reinforced some evangelical teachings. Businessmen were among the first, for example, to endorse Temperance. It also extolled selfishness.

The Republican Party of the 1850s fused these three frames in an especially powerful fashion.

Class Schedule

Sept. 5: Introduction — The Pace of Change, according to the Rev. Charles R. Harding; The Pace of Change, according to Ichabod Washburn; introduction to Alexis deTocqueville, Democracy in America. For Sept. 13, read THE PRESENT AND PROBABLE FUTURE CONDITION OF THE THREE RACES THAT INHABIT THE TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES and look over Tocqueville and Beaumont on Race paying particular attention to whom they talked with and with whom they didn't. John McClymer, "A Frame for Understanding Antebellum America" introduction and Part I. One hour before class submit notes discussing:

Sept. 12: Discussion of Tocqueville, THE PRESENT AND PROBABLE FUTURE CONDITION OF THE THREE RACES THAT INHABIT THE TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES and John McClymer, "A Frame for Understanding Antebellum America" introduction and Part I; introduction to Perry Miller, The Life of the Mind — we will read part one, on religion + McClymer, The Second Great Awakening, part of the "Our Living Past" project of the Worcester Public Schools, the American Antiquarian Society, Old Sturbridge Village, and Assumption College. (The image at right is the frontispiece of the The Testimony of a Hundred Witnesses). The goal is to acquaint you with some of the accounts of the revival and its impact. One hour before class submit notes discussing:

Sept. 19: Discussion of Perry Miller on "the steady burning of the revival" and its impact; we will devote some class time to reading and then discussing two hostile descriptions of revivals and camp meetings, one by Frances Trolloppe (mother of English novelist Anthony Trolloppe) and the other by Harriett Martineau, another Englishwoman. How do these accounts complicate, confuse, and/or deepen our understanding of the role of religion in America?

For Sept. 26 Choose ONE of the following to explore. We will do a show-and-tell session involving materials chosen from the list below. Select a passage or two that strikes you as particularly interesting, revealing, confusing.

  1. The Great Water Highway through New York State, 1829 — this is an anonymous account of a traveler from Pennsylvania, transcribed by a University of Rochester student. You may find the layout somewhat confusing but perservere.
  2. Marco Paul's Travels on the Erie Canal (1852) by Jacob Abbott — a children's book; "THE design of the series of volumes, entitled MARCO PAUL'S ADVENTURES IN THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE, is not merely to entertain the reader with a narrative of juvenile adventures, but also to communicate, in connection with them, as extensive and varied information as possible, in respect to the geography, the scenery, the customs and the institutions of this country, as they present themselves to the observation of the little traveler, who makes his excursions under the guidance of an intelligent and well informed companion, qualified to assist him in the acquisition of knowledge and in the formation of character."
  3. Some Account of a Trip to the "Falls of Niagara" Performed in the Month of May 1836 by Thomas S. Woodcock — "Everyone went to Niagara in the 1830s, and nearly everyone published something about the trip. Woodcock's account differs from most by adding the theme of business to the rhapsody. His journal is punctuated with factories. As a commercial observer he was keen enough to anticipate the collapse of the inflation of the early thirties as well as to record the evidences of immediate prosperity and the spectacular rise in land values in central and western New York."
  4. Tim Spaulding, Andrew Jackson on the Web — a very useful companion to Wiebe's discussion. If Wiebe says something that strikes you as odd, interesting, enlightening, see what you can find on this site that's relevant.
  5. Hal Morris' "Tales of the Early Republic" and Jacksonian Miscellanies — another useful companion.
  6. Three Ads from The North Star (1850) about alternative medicine.
  7. Sylvester Graham at the International Vegetarian Union — painless introduction to some of Graham's ideas.

One hour before class on Sept. 26 submit notes discussing:

"A Dead Rabbit, Sketched from life," Frank Leslie's Illustrated, July 18, 1857 — see THE FIVE POINTS By Gregory Christiano

One hour before class on Oct. 3, submit notes on John McClymer, "A Frame for Understanding Antebellum America" Parts II and IV and ONE of the following:

  1. The Lady's Guide to Perfect Gentility, in Manners, Dress, and Conversation, in the Family, in Company, at the Piano Forte, The Table, in the Street, and in Gentlemen's Society. Also a Useful Instructor in Letter Writing, Toilet Preparations, Fancy Needlework, Millinery, Dressmaking, Care of Wardrobe, the Hair, Teeth, Hands, Lips, Complexion, etc. By Emily Thornwell (New York: Derby and Jackson, 1856) — excerpted at the Women's History Workshop at Assumption College.
  2. Nineteenth-Century Advice Literature — collection of excerpts from popular advice books at the Women's History Workshop at Assumption College.
  3. Education in the 1850s — at the E Pluribus Unum project at Assumption College, focuses upon Worcester private and public secondary schools
  4. Horace Mann, Report No. 12 of the Massachusetts School Board (1848); Report No. 10 (1846) — No. 10 made the case for democracy and education; No. 12, Mann's last, summed up his educational philosophy.
  5. 1857: A Year to Forget, by Gregory Christiano — looks at the NYC Police and Gang Riots (the latter the basis for the opening scene of "Gangs of New York") and the economic Panic. For a contemporary song celebrating the Gang Riot, click here.
  6. New York City Police Report (1849) — Police Chief attempts to describe and quantify juvenile crime.

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oct. 3: Discussion of McClymer Parts II and IV; show-and-tell; we will devote part of the class to reviewing and discussing John McClymer, Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Riot of 1838; introduction to Theodore Dwight Weld and to American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses — this was, prior to the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the most influential anti-slavery publication. Weld had been a leading abolition speaker. When his voice failed, he took up the pen. He also married Angelina Grimké, hero of the Philadelphia Riot. Weld is, to use Emerson's expression, a representative man of the 1830s and 1840s. He was a Finney convert. Then he attended Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, which was founded by Lyman Beecher to head off Jesuit and Catholic influence in the West. Weld organized his fellow students to work with the free black population of the city, something whites disapproved of vigorously. Beecher attempted to placate the students and the Board of Trustees. Weld and his fellow students, calling themselves the "Band of Seventy," left Lane for the new Oberlin College where Charles Grandison Finney was both president and professor of theology. Browse through American Slavery As It Is OR the relevant section in the Second Great Awakening. We will do a show-and-tell session. Select a passage or two that strikes you as particularly interesting, revealing, confusing.

One hour before class on October 17 submit notes discussing:

  1. Student Protest at Lane Seminary at the University of Virginia's Uncle Tom's Cabin site
  2. An Appeal on Behalf of the Oberlin Institute In Aid of the Abolition of Slavery, In the United States of America by Theodore Dwight Weld (1839) — This was an appeal to British anti-slavery activists and contains an account of the dispute with Beecher.
  3. Narrative of Riots at Alton (Extracts), by Edward Beecher (1838) — Beecher was Lyman's son and Harriet's brother.
  4. Pro-Slavery Riot in Cincinnati — several contemporary accounts at the University of Virginia's Uncle Tom's Cabin site.

Oct. 7 at Old Sturbridge Village – Seminar on Antebellum Reform with Prof. Janette Greenwood of Clark University

Oct. 10: Columbus Day Holiday

Oct. 17: Discussion of American Slavery As It Is and related materials; show-and-tell; we will devote part of the class to reviewing and discussing John McClymer, The Kidnapping of Anthony Burns; introduction to Kathryn Kish Sklar, Women's Rights Emerges Within the Anti-Slavery Movement, 1830-1870: A Brief History with Documents + How do Contemporary Newspaper Accounts of the 1850 Worcester Woman's Rights Convention Enhance our Understanding of the Issues Debated at that Meeting?, by John McClymer (This is available on campus via a subscription.) OR the relevant sections of McClymer, A Narrative Guide to the Origins of the Woman's Rights Movement. We will do a show-and-tell session involving materials. Select a passage or two that strikes you as particularly interesting, revealing, confusing.

One hour before class on October 24 submit notes discussing:

Oct. 24: Discussion of Women's Rights Emerges Within the Anti-Slavery Movement, 1830-1870 and related materials; show-and-tell; introduction to David Potter, The Impending Crisis. We will read this carefully over a period of several weeks. First up, chapters 1-6, which take the story from the end of the Mexican War through Compromise of 1850.

Professor Sklar writes: Hi John -- Thanks so much for this! I SO enjoyed reading the teachers' comments.
You made my week. What a grand course you are conducting. Lucky them!

Kitty

One hour before class on October 31 submit notes discussing:

  • What is teachable among these materials?
  • What contextual (background) information will I need to present to students?
  • How do these materials deepen, complicate, and/or confuse my understanding of sectional competition?

Oct. 31: Discussion of Potter, The Impending Crisis, chapters 1-6; introduction to McClymer, Bleedin' Kansas, part of the "Our Living Past" project of the Worcester Public Schools, the American Antiquarian Society, Old Sturbridge Village, and Assumption College — the narrative closely tracks Potter's account. For Nov. 7, read Potter, chapters 7-10 and use Bleedin' Kansas as a companion site. When Potter says something that strikes you as odd, interesting, enlightening, see what you can find on this site that's relevant. Select several passages for show-and-tell.

One hour before class on Nov. 7 submit notes discussing:

  • What is teachable among these materials?
  • What contextual (background) information will I need to present to students?
  • How do these materials deepen, complicate, and/or confuse my understanding of sectional competition?

Zachary Taylor. 1849 daguerreotype by Mathew Brady

Nov. 7 : Discussion of Potter, chapters 7-10; show-and-tell; introduction to McClymer, DRED: THE DRED SCOTT CASE AND THE COMING OF THE WAR, part of the "Our Living Past" project of the Worcester Public Schools, the American Antiquarian Society, Old Sturbridge Village, and Assumption College. For Nov. 14, read Potter, chapters 11-14 and browse DRED.

One hour before class on November 14 submit notes discussing:

Nov. 14: Discussion of Potter, chapters 11-14 and DRED; introduction to Richard Ladner, Crisis at Fort Sumter. For Nov. 21, read Potter, chapters 15-20.

One hour before class on Nov. 21 submit notes discussing:

Nov. 18 at AAS – Seminar on Frederick Douglass’ Narrative with Prof. David Blight and Tom Thurston of Yale University

Nov. 21: Discussion of Potter, chapters 15-20 and Crisis at Fort Sumter; introduction to James M. McPherson, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution

One hour before class on Nov. 28 submit notes discussing:

Harper's Weekly, Sept. 13, 1862 — the "News from Minnesota" was an uprising of the Dakota Sioux; the Indian nations in the Indian Territory had seceded from the U.S. and joined the Confederacy.

Nov. 28: Discussion of McPherson, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution; we will devote some time to reviewing and discussing John McClymer, The Fort Pillow Massacre of 1864 OR John McClymer, The Dakota Conflict of 1862; introduction to Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 + John McClymer, Emancipation and Freedom

One hour before class on Dec. 5submit notes discussing:

Dec. 2 at Assumption – Seminar on the Rhetoric of Race and Reform, 1865-1871 with Prof. Lucia Knoles of Assumption College

Dec. 5: Discussion of Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 + McClymer, Emancipation and Freedom

Dec. 12: Projects Due

Additional Resources:

E Pluribus Unum Project at Assumption College — archive of primary materials, interpretive essays, and lesson plans on the 1770s, 1850s, and 1920s created by John McClymer and Lucia Knoles. It was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and chosen by the NEH as one of the "richest" humanities sites online

Women's History Workshop at Assumption College — focused upon the 1850s, this site explores the First National Woman's Rights Convention of 1850 and the context in which it was held. It was created by John McClymer with funding from the NEH and was also chosen for inclusion on Edsitement.

Shaping the Values of Youth: Sunday School Books in 19th Century America — a digitization project completed by Central Michigan University and Michigan State University. Probably the easiest way to use the collection is to click on Sunday School Books by Category.

19th Century Schoolbooks at the University of Pittsburgh — digital editions of 140 schoolbooks and two surveys of historic schoolbooks by John Nietz, the founder of the Nietz Old Textbook Collection.

John McClymer, Thomas Wentworth Higginson: A Represenatative Life of the 1850s at E Pluribus Unum Project.

The Murder of Rosa O'Malia — Inquest and trial records of a brutal homicide of an Irish immigrant in Cleveland's Irish shantytown.

Excerpts from slave narratives at Digitial History by Steven Mintz

"What to the Slave is the Fourth of July," part of the Our Living Past project

by Lucia Knoles

Documenting the American South — "a digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to Southern history, literature, and culture. Currently DocSouth includes nine thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs."

The Draft Riots of 1863 at the Lincoln Institute/Lehrman Institute — the Lincoln Institute contains information on Lincoln organized on a state by state basis.

The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson at HarpWeek — primary materials from Harper's Weekly.

The Andrew Johnson Impeachment Trial at Famous Trials at the University of Missouri Law School at Kansas City

"An Erie Raid" by Charles F. Adams, North American Review (April 1871) — the epic struggle between Commodore Vanderbilt and Daniel Drew, Jay Gould, and Jim Fiske for control of the Erie Railroad. Must reading if you ever wondered by early industrialists were called "Robber Barons."