Reconstruction

3 Pages 856 Words

“Reconstruction: An Unfinished Revolution”



Events that have occurred through out history can usually be traced by the writings, theories, and research of that time; what is commonly considered “Historical facts”. In spite of this dominant idea that the interpretations of those events are factual, Histories interpretations involve both change and progression. As time progresses societies ideas change with it and the interpretations of certain events in history usually evolve with that passing time. This idea that histories interpretation are susceptible to change is seen in the changing attitude towards Americas post Civil War Reconstruction as Eric Foner points out in his essay “ The New View of Reconstruction”.
“In the past twenty years, no period of American history has been the subject of a more thoroughgoing reevaluation than reconstruction- the violent, dramatic, and still controversial era following the Civil War. Race relations, politics, social life, and economic change during reconstruction have all been reinterpreted in the light of changed attitudes toward the place of blacks within American society. If historians have not yet forged a fully satisfying portrait of reconstruction as a whole, the traditional interpretation that dominated historical writing for much of this century has irrevocably been laid to rest”(p. 8)
Interpretations of history are subject to changes as new information is revealed, different ideas are heard, and as new interpretations are introduced. Eric Foner demonstrates the changing views on Reconstruction by introducing modern and traditional interpretations of Reconstruction.
“Anyone who attended high school before 1960 learned that Reconstruction was a era of unrelieved sordidness in American political and social life.” The outlook on reconstruction during this time was that the “ignorant and child like freedmen… were incapable of properly...