The subtitle of this book is “The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War”. This is a non-fiction, serious history book which covers the entire country from the end of the Civil War until 1901; the Reconstruction era. Instead of focusing mainly on the South, Richardson looks at many specific issues the whole country was facing. Although much of this was related to reconstruction after the Civil war, she studies it through the prism of everything else that was also going on at the time. This makes for a very detailed look at our history. There were a number of incidents that I had never heard of before, but that would have been front page news at the time. Richardson tries to put all of this in the perspective of a middle class American from that era.
In fact, that is kind of the point of this book. Richardson discusses how attitudes from the East & South influenced people’s perceptions of the West, and how the attitudes of Westerners influenced their perceptions of the East & South. All of these perceptions and attitudes combined to form what we now consider as the middle class. In addition to more familiar sources of historical information, Richardson tracks several individuals with differing viewpoints through this time period. She uses their own words to illustrate their reactions to events.
This is a book that I need to remember to refer to when I am researching individuals in this time frame. One of the things I try to do is imagine what life for my ancestors would have been like. Sometimes, it’s easy to learn what they would have worn, and what they would have eaten, and what medicines would have been available to them. But understanding the attitudes and sentiments that were prevalent in those time frames would probably involve reading digitized newspaper front to back. Richardson has done most of that work for us. Of course, there are always at least two sides to every issue, and we may not be able to determine where our ancestors stood on every controversy of their day, but at least we can find out what those controversies were!
If this was your family, how would you research them? This book covers a lot of territory, both figuratively and literally. If you know where your ancestors were, and a little bit about what their lives were like between 1865 and 1900, this might give you some idea of what their attitudes might have been. I read this book several years ago, and put eight markers in it then. Upon re-reading it, I put in two more. If your ancestors moved West in this time frame, this book might give you an inkling of why. Check newspapers where they lived; at least one of my ancestors was listed as belonging to a short-lived political party. Even how they named their children might tell you something about them – I had two great uncles who served in the Union army who each named a son Ulysses.