History 397AR - ST-AmerReconstruction&Reunion

This course examines the social, political, economic, and cultural history of the era of Reconstruction and Reunion. We will investigate the forces that drove Reconstruction in the North, South, West, and abroad during and after the U.S. Civil War and the destruction of slavery. We will attend to conflicts over the meanings of freedom and the government's role in securing freedom for its citizens among freed people, white and black northerners, suffragists, white southerners, western farmers, and Native Americans in the postbellum period. The course concludes with the North's withdrawal from the South, the rise of legal segregation, legal disfranchisement, lynching, and white sectional reunion during the wars of 1898. At various points during the semester, we will reflect critically upon the ways in which Reconstruction and Reunion have been remembered and represented in history and popular culture.

Open to Seniors, Juniors & Sophomores only. Previous courses in either the US to 1876 or the Civil War Era recommended.