The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865 1877

CHAPTER 22

The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865–1877

G. Developing Historical Skills

Interpreting Photographs and Drawings

Answer the following questions about the photographs and drawings in this chapter.

1. Educating Young Freedmen and Women, 1870s

What appears to be the average age of the students in the photograph? What does the dress of the students suggest about the freedmen’s attitudes toward education? From their positioning in the photograph, how might you describe the teachers’ relationships with the children?

2. Sharecroppers Picking Cotton

What tasks are the sharecroppers engaged in? Is there possibly a gender division of labor among the field workers? How does the white man in the background—likely the landowner—display his social and economic superiority to the black sharecroppers?

3. Freedmen Voting, Richmond, Virginia, 1871

What appears to be the economic status of the new black voters portrayed here? How does their condition differ from that of the voting officials, black and white? What does the drawing suggest about the power of the newly enfranchised freedmen?