Louisiana Reconstructed, 1863-1877

Louisiana Reconstructed, 1863-1877 PDF Author: Joe Gray Taylor
Publisher: Lsu Press
ISBN: 9780807100844
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Louisiana Reconstructed, 1863-1877

Louisiana Reconstructed, 1863-1877 PDF Author: Joe Gray Taylor
Publisher: Lsu Press
ISBN: 9780807100844
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Book Description


Spectacular Wickedness

Spectacular Wickedness PDF Author: Emily Epstein Landau
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807150169
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
From 1897 to 1917 the red-light district of Storyville commercialized and even thrived on New Orleans's longstanding reputation for sin and sexual excess. This notorious neighborhood, located just outside of the French Quarter, hosted a diverse cast of characters who reflected the cultural milieu and complex social structure of turn-of-the-century New Orleans, a city infamous for both prostitution and interracial intimacy. In particular, Lulu White -- a mixed-race prostitute and madam -- created an image of herself and marketed it profitably to sell sex with light-skinned women to white men of means. In Spectacular Wickedness, Emily Epstein Landau examines the social history of this famed district within the cultural context of developing racial, sexual, and gender ideologies and practices. Storyville's founding was envisioned as a reform measure, an effort by the city's business elite to curb and contain prostitution -- namely, to segregate it. In 1890, the Louisiana legislature passed the Separate Car Act, which, when challenged by New Orleans's Creoles of color, led to the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896, constitutionally sanctioning the enactment of "separate but equal" laws. The concurrent partitioning of both prostitutes and blacks worked only to reinforce Storyville's libidinous license and turned sex across the color line into a more lucrative commodity. By looking at prostitution through the lens of patriarchy and demonstrating how gendered racial ideologies proved crucial to the remaking of southern society in the aftermath of the Civil War, Landau reveals how Storyville's salacious and eccentric subculture played a significant role in the way New Orleans constructed itself during the New South era.

The Louisiana Scalawags

The Louisiana Scalawags PDF Author: Frank J. Wetta
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807147486
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
During the Civil War and Reconstruction, the pejorative term "scalawag" referred to white southerners loyal to the Republican Party. With the onset of the federal occupation of New Orleans in 1862, scalawags challenged the restoration of the antebellum political and social orders. Derided as opportunists, uneducated "poor white trash," Union sympathizers, and race traitors, scalawags remain largely misunderstood even today. In The Louisiana Scalawags, Frank J. Wetta offers the first in-depth analysis of these men and their struggle over the future of Louisiana. A significant assessment of the interplay of politics, race, and terrorism during Reconstruction, this study answers an array of questions about the origin and demise of the scalawags, and debunks much of the negative mythology surrounding them. Contrary to popular thought, the southern white Republicans counted among their ranks men of genuine accomplishment and talent. They worked in fields as varied as law, business, medicine, journalism, and planting, and many held government positions as city officials, judges, parish officeholders, and state legislators in the antebellum years. Wetta demonstrates that a strong sense of nationalism often motivated the men, no matter their origins. Louisiana's scalawags grew most active and influential during the early stages of Reconstruction, when they led in founding the state's Republican Party. The vast majority of white Louisianans, however, rejected the scalawags' appeal to form an alliance with the freedmen in a biracial political party. Eventually, the influence of the scalawags succumbed to persistent terrorism, corruption, and competition from the white carpetbaggers and their black Republican allies. By then, the state's Republican Party consisted of white political leaders without any significant white constituency. According to Wetta, these weaknesses, as well as ineffective federal intervention in response to a Democratic Party insurgency, caused the Republican Party to collapse and Reconstruction to fail in Louisiana.

Reconstruction in the Cane Fields

Reconstruction in the Cane Fields PDF Author: John C. Rodrigue
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807152633
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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In Reconstruction in the Cane Fields, John C. Rodrigue examines emancipation and the difficult transition from slavery to free labor in one enclave of the South -- the cane sugar region of southern Louisiana. In contrast to the various forms of sharecropping and tenancy that replaced slavery in the cotton South, wage labor dominated the sugar industry. Rodrigue demonstrates that the special geographical and environmental requirements of sugar production in Louisiana shaped the new labor arrangements. Ultimately, he argues, the particular demands of Louisiana sugar production accorded freedmen formidable bargaining power in the contest with planters over free labor. Rodrigue addresses many issues pivotal to all post-emancipation societies: How would labor be reorganized following slavery's demise? Who would wield decision-making power on the plantation? How were former slaves to secure the fruits of their own labor? He finds that while freedmen's working and living conditions in the postbellum sugar industry resembled the prewar status quo, they did not reflect a continuation of the powerlessness of slavery. Instead, freedmen converted their skills and knowledge of sugar production, their awareness of how easily they could disrupt the sugar plantation routine, and their political empowerment during Radical Reconstruction into leverage that they used in disputes with planters over wages, hours, and labor conditions. Thus, sugar planters, far from being omnipotent overlords who dictated terms to workers, were forced to adjust to an emerging labor market as well as to black political power. The labor arrangements particular to postbellum sugar plantations not only propelled the freedmen's political mobilization during Radical Reconstruction, Rodrigue shows, but also helped to sustain black political power -- at least for a few years -- beyond Reconstruction's demise in 1877. By showing that freedmen, under the proper circumstances, were willing to consent to wage labor and to work routines that strongly resembled those of slavery, Reconstruction in the Cane Fields offers a profound interpretation of how former slaves defined freedom in slavery's immediate aftermath. It will prove essential reading for all students of southern, African American, agricultural, and labor history.

A Short History of Reconstruction [Updated Edition]

A Short History of Reconstruction [Updated Edition] PDF Author: Eric Foner
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062384074
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
From the “preeminent historian of Reconstruction” (New York Times Book Review), an updated abridged edition of Reconstruction, the prize-winning classic work on the post-Civil War period which shaped modern America. Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the quest of emancipated slaves’ searching for economic autonomy and equal citizenship, and describes the remodeling of Southern society; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and one committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans. This “masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history” (New Republic) remains the standard work on the wrenching post-Civil War period—an era whose legacy still reverberates in the United States today.

Hidden History of Louisiana's Jazz Age

Hidden History of Louisiana's Jazz Age PDF Author: Sam Irwin
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467153427
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Step backstage in this look at little-known and utterly fascinating aspects of Jazz Age Louisiana. New Orleans' early jazz greats like Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory and Buddy Bolden had fascinating careers, but Hidden History of Louisiana's Jazz Age is filled with tales of murder, lust and adventure. Clarinetist Joe Darensbourg of Baton Rouge ran away and joined the circus three times before the age of 20. The Martel Band of Opelousas witnessed a legal public hanging of a convicted serial murderer in 1923 Evangeline Parish. Trumpeter Evan Thomas of Crowley could have been a rival to Satchmo but was cut down on the bandstand in the Promised Land neighborhood of Rayne, La. Author Sam Irwin explores the odd and quirky in these fascinating stories of the Roaring Twenties.

Louisiana Native Guards

Louisiana Native Guards PDF Author: James G. Hollandsworth, Jr.
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807151599
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Early in the Civil War, Louisiana's Confederate government sanctioned a militia unit of black troops, the Louisiana Native Guards. Intended as a response to demands from members of New Orleans' substantial free black population that they be permitted to participate in the defense of their state, the unit was used by Confederate authorities for public display and propaganda purposes but was not allowed to fight. After the fall of New Orleans, General Benjamin F. Butler brought the Native Guards into Federal military service and increased their numbers with runaway slaves. He intended to use the troops for guard duty and heavy labor. His successor, Nathaniel P. Banks, did not trust the black Native Guard officers, and as he replaced them with white commanders, the mistreatment and misuse of the black troops steadily increased. The first large-scale deployment of the Native Guards occurred in May, 1863, during the Union siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana, when two of their regiments were ordered to storm an impregnable hilltop position. Although the soldiers fought valiantly, the charge was driven back with extensive losses. The white officers and the northern press praised the tenacity and fighting ability of the black troops, but they were still not accepted on the same terms as their white counterparts. After the war, Native Guard veterans took up the struggle for civil rights - in particular, voting rights - for Louisiana's black population. The Louisiana Native Guards is the first account to consider that struggle. By documenting their endeavors through Reconstruction, James G. Hollandsworth places the Native Guards' military service in the broader context of a civil rights movement thatpredates more recent efforts by a hundred years. This remarkable work presents a vivid picture of men eager to prove their courage and ability to a world determined to exploit and demean them.

Encyclopedia of the Reconstruction Era [2 volumes]

Encyclopedia of the Reconstruction Era [2 volumes] PDF Author: Richard Zuczek
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313013993
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 933

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Book Description
Reconstruction sought to bring order from the tremendous social, political, economic, physical, and constitutional changes wrought by secession and the Civil War, changes that included the abolition of slavery, the expansion of governmental power and constitutional jurisdiction, the rise of the Republican Party, the explosion of northern industry and the national market, and the appearance of a social dynamism that supported struggles by new social groups for political and civil equality. In American history, Reconstruction is the term applied to the period 1862-1877, when the United States sought to bring order from the tremendous social, political, economic, physical, and constitutional changes wrought by secession and the Civil War.The decision by eleven southern states to attempt secession and reject the national government, and the decision by the federal government under President Abraham Lincoln to deny that attempt and enforce federal law, unleashed forces that forever changed the American Republic. These changes included the abolition of slavery, the expansion of governmental power and constitutional jurisdiction, the rise of the Republican Party, the explosion of northern industry and the national market, and the appearance of a social dynamism that supported struggles by new social groups for political and civil equality. No one anticipated the totality, the viciousness, and the intensity of the civil war, and as a result no one was prepared to deal with its consequences. Topics covered include who should direct Reconstruction; how the federal government treated conquered states, their governments, and their soldiers; the role of the freed people in the new republic; and how the war altered the Constitution, the party system, and the American economy, among many others. Many entries describe and analyze the lives, careers, and impacts of the individuals, North and South, black and white, who shaped the course of Reconstruction, including the following: Ames, Adelbert Bruce, Blanche K. Douglass, Frederick Gordon, John B. Hancock, Winfield S. Howard, Oliver O. Pinchback, Pinckney B.S. Revels, Hiram R. Sheridan, Philip H. Wade, Benjamin F. Other entries deal with broad topics and themes related to Reconstruction and its consequences, including the following: Abolition of Slavery, Black Politicians, Black Suffrage, Bloody Shirt, Economic Policies, Race Riots, Reconstruction, Theories of Scandals During Reconstruction, State Constitutional Conventions, Violence During Reconstruction. Still other entries cover a wide variety of events, groups, acts, agencies, and amendments that were part of the story of Reconstruction, including the following: American Indians, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands Compromise of 1877, Democratic Party, Fourteenth Amendment, Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Loyalty Oaths, Military Reconstruction Acts, Stalwarts, Tenure of Office Act. Among the more than 270 entries are 11 that discuss the course and consequences of Reconstruction in each of the former Confederate states, and 6 that discuss the outcome and significance of the presidential and key congressional elections held between 1864 and 1876. The encyclopedia also offers a timeline of Reconstruction, a bibliography of print and electronic information resources, a selection of primary documents, a table of important dates, numerous illustrations, and a detailed subject index.

Pistols And Politics

Pistols And Politics PDF Author: Samuel C. Hyde, Jr.
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807122709
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
In the nineteenth-century South, there existed numerous local pockets where cultures and values different from those of the dominant planter class prevailed. One such area was the Florida parishes of southeastern Louisiana, where peculiar conditions combined to create an enclave of white yeomen. In the years after the Civil War, levels of violence among these men escalated to create a state of chronic anarchy, producing an enduring legacy of bitterness and suspicion. In Samuel C. Hyde's careful and original study of a society that degenerated into utter chaos, he illuminates the factors that allowed these conditions to arise and triumph. Early in the century, the Florida parishes were characterized by an exceptional level of social and political turmoil. Stability emerged as the cotton economy expanded into the piney-woods parishes during the 1820s and 1830s, bringing with it slaves and prosperity -- but also bringing increasing dominance of the region by a powerful planter elite that shaped state government to suit its purposes. By the early 1840s, Jacksonian political rhetoric inspired a newfound assertiveness among the common folk. With the construction of a railroad through the piney-woods region at the close of the antebellum period and the collapse of the planter class at the end of the Civil War, the plain folk were finally able to reject the planters' authority. Traditional patterns of political and economic stability were permanently disrupted, and the residents -- their Jeffersonian traditions now corrupted by the brutal war and Reconstruction periods -- rejected all governance and resorted increasingly to violence as the primary solution to conflict. For the remainder of the nineteenth century, the Florida Parishes had some of the highest murder rates in the country. In Pistols and Politics, Hyde gives serious scrutiny to a region heretofore largely neglected by historians, integrating the anomalies of one area of Louisiana into the history of the state and the wider South. He reassesses the prevailing myth of poverty in the piney woods, portrays the conscious methods of the ruling planter elite to manipulate the common people, and demonstrates the destructive possibilities inherent in the area's political traditions as well as the complex mores, values, and dynamics of a society that produced some of the fiercest and most enduring feuds in American history.

Yellow Fever and Public Health in the New South

Yellow Fever and Public Health in the New South PDF Author: John H. Ellis
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813188423
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
The public health movement in the South began in the wake of a yellow fever epidemic that devastated the lower Mississippi Valley in 1878—a disaster that caused 20,000 deaths and financial losses of nearly $200 million. The full scale of the epidemic and the tentative, troubled southern response to it are for the first time fully examined by John Ellis in this new book. At the national level, southern congressional leaders fought to establish a strong federal health agency, but they were defeated by the young American Public Health Association, which defended states' rights. Local responses and results were mixed. In New Orleans, business and professional men, reacting to the denunciation of the city as the nation's pesthole, organized in 1879 to improve drainage, garbage disposal, and water supplies through voluntary subscription. Their achievements were of necessity modest. In Memphis—the city hardest hit by the epidemic—a new municipal government in 1879 helped form the first regional health organization and during the 1880s led the nation in sanitary improvements. In Atlanta, though it largely escaped the epidemic, the Constitution and some citizens called for health reform. Ironically their voices were drowned out by ritual invocation of local health mythology and by unabashed exploitation of the stigma of pestilence attached to New Orleans and Memphis. By 1890 Atlanta rivaled Charleston and Richmond for primacy in black mortality rates. That the public health movement met with only limited success Ellis attributes to the prevailing atmosphere of opportunistic greed, overwhelming debt, economic instability, and inordinate political corruption. But the effort to combat a terrifying disease not fully understood did eventually produce changes and the vastly improved health systems of today.