Southern Reconstruction and Its Aftermath: APD and HPE Perspectives

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The abolition of slavery required a fundamental restructuring of social, political, and economic institutions in the South in the years following the Civil War. While the era of Southern Reconstruction (1865-1877) was short-lived and ultimately “failed,” this period by and large marked the first time in American history that the U.S. took a step towards a racially inclusive democracy. Yet, scholars of American Political Development (APD) and the U.S. Historical Political Economy (HPE) have paid comparatively little attention to this important time period. This panel explores the Reconstruction era and its consequences for state-building and racial politics from a variety of perspectives, bringing both APD and HPE approaches into a conversation.

Susanne Schwarz asks how the expansion in black political power during Reconstruction influenced Southern criminal justice systems. Using a novel database on prison admissions, she tests to what extent black officeholding during Congressional Reconstruction affected state-sponsored violence against freedmen in the form of incarceration.

Michael Weaver explores the impact of Reconstruction-era reparations on black communities. While universal reparations never materialized for formerly enslaved individuals, Black Union Navy sailors received one-time cash transfers from the Federal government. Michael Weaver shows that these “targeted” reparations increased real estate wealth, literacy and mobility out of the Confederacy after the Civil War.

Amaan Charaniya, Jordon Newton, William Nomikos, and Michael Olson explore how state-building during Reconstruction shaped policies in the short and long term. Using novel roll call vote data from Southern state legislatures, they demonstrate the consequences of federal troop presence during Reconstruction for state legislative representation in the short and medium run.

Robert Mickey and David Waldner shed light on the question of why Reconstruction ultimately failed and develop a broader theory for explaining the relative success of nation-building efforts. This theory is centered on state capacity and its effects on the coalitional possibilities in the states undergoing transformation. 

Daniel Blinderman examines how political trends in the post-Reconstruction era affected variation in public goods provision among states in the U.S. South in the early 20th century. In particular, he argues that legacies of social mobilization from the Populist mobilization in the 1880s and 1890s can help us understand divergences in party factionalism and redistribution across Southern states.

Sub Unit

• Division 7: Politics and History

Individual Presentations

• Black Political Power and Incarceration: Evidence from the Reconstruction South - Susanne Schwarz, Swarthmore College

• The Effects of Federal Wealth Transfers to Black Sailors during Reconstruction - Michael Weaver, The University of British Columbia

• Reconstruction, Redemption, and Representation - Michael P. Olson, Washington University in St. Louis; Amaan Charaniya; William G. Nomikos, University of California, Santa Barbara

• Reconstruction as Unsuccessful Nation-Building - Robert Mickey, University of Michigan; David Waldner, University of Virginia

• The Redistributionist Legacy of Southern Populism during Redemption - Daniel Blinderman, University of Michigan

Chair

• Jeffery A. Jenkins University of Southern California

Discussants

• David Alexander Bateman Cornell University

• Mayya Komisarchik University of Rochester