Reconstruction Beyond 150: Reassessing the New Birth of Freedom, ed. Orville Vernon Burton and J. Brent Morris

Despite its title, this is a work animated not only by the sesquicentennial of Reconstruction, but also by the thirty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Eric Foner’s field-defining Reconstruction: An Unfinished Revolution (1988). Editors Orville Burton and J. Brent Morris wear their Fonerian influence proudly, and their introduction to the collection engages explicitly with the contributions made—and gaps left—by Foner’s seminal work. To the extent that there is an overarching thesis to the collection, it is that Reconstruction created a generative environment and framework for further analysis that, almost four decades on, still allows for meaningful scholarly progress within the field. ‘Foner’s synthesis’, they maintain, ‘did not smother the field. Rather, it provided a foundation for unprecedented further research into aspects of Reconstruction he could only touch on’ (p. 3). The fourteen essays included, therefore, seek to view the period from a wide variety of perspectives and, in doing so, show how a commitment to building on, and finding a place within, the Foner thesis can lead to fascinating and enlightening new scholarship.

Essays from Arlisha Norwood and Troy D. Smith provide excellent examples of the value in this sort of perspective shift. Norwood’s examination of divorced freedwomen, and their interactions with federal and legal authorities in order to obtain those divorces, calls to mind works like Brandi Brimmer’s Claiming Union Widowhood (2020), yet carves out a unique space for an under-studied population of Black women. In doing so, Norwood is able to draw new conclusions about the role of the expanding federal state during Reconstruction, and about the various ways in which freedpeople interacted with that state. Smith, for his part, looks at the Civil War and Reconstruction from the perspective of Indian Territory, arguing that Reconstruction and post-bellum Indian Removal—culminating with the Dawes Act of 1887—can be viewed as mutually constitutive processes, in which the expansion of the federal state led to a loss of tribal sovereignty. Just as with Norwood’s chapter, Smith’s essay on Indian Territory takes the Foner framework and passes it through a novel prism, exposing new truths about Reconstruction in the West.

Each of the essays included in the book applies a similar methodology, using creative yet well-defined analytical categories to push at the boundaries of Reconstruction scholarship. Peter Wallenstein, for instance, contributes a chapter on Black electoral politics that focuses, specifically, on Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, arguing that the Black vote was not only critical in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, but that Black electoral politics extended far beyond the traditional 1876 date given for the overthrow of Reconstruction. J. Mills Thornton embarks on a close reading of Mark Twain’s 1889 novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, arguing that Twain’s story about the struggle between Yankee democracy and feudal atavism served as ‘an allegory about the possibility of Reconstruction’ (p. 211). Mark Elliot looks at the era through the lens of an emergent concept of human rights, while Mari N. Crabtree looks at the historiography of lynching, arguing that historians must complicate their existing understanding of racial violence in the nineteenth century.

In each of these essays (along with those not specifically mentioned), the generative power of the Foner thesis is clear. In seeking to exploit those gaps in Foner’s original work, and in the subsequent canon, the authors featured here prove that the field remains vibrant and full of possibilities. In this sense, Burton and Morris’s anthology is a resounding success, and they, along with each of the authors featured, deserve credit for their work in compiling a broad, exceedingly useful collection of innovative, imaginative scholarship.

For all that Reconstruction Beyond 150 does well, however, it still falls slightly flat in its inability to articulate a clear, holistic vision for the future of Reconstruction scholarship. The essays within certainly prove the usefulness of building upon the Foner model, but the anthology’s title seems to suggest an intent to push the field forward. Burton and Morris include no conclusion, and so the individual chapters are largely left to stand on their own, while the reader is left to piece together their own interpretation of the field’s future prospects without the aid of editorial synthesis. While this omission does not detract from the individual chapters, it does mean that the collection, on the whole, cannot make the impact it otherwise might have. Still, the quality of the work included means that this remains a relatively minor concern, as there is significant value in the collection’s impressive breadth.