Jim Cavanaugh
12/03/03
HIST 583
Critique #6
Edwards, Laura. Gendered Strife and Confusion: The Political Culture of
Reconstruction. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
Laura Edwards’ book, Gendered Strife and Confusion: The Political Culture of Reconstruction, concerns itself with the political and social aftermath following the Civil War. During Reconstruction, Edwards argues, political and social conflicts had a great deal to do with how the south was interpreting traditional race, class, and gender roles.
Edwards’ thesis is that because of the emancipation of the slaves, the traditional household, headed by a man, fell apart. The power structure of the south was entirely based upon the idea of the man as the head of the household. By “man”, Edwards means in particular, white upper-class men. The power and political structure of the south was based on dependents and independents. Prior to the Civil War, one defined himself by how many dependents one had under him. (The use of gendered language in the previous sentence is intentional.) Because of emancipation, the number of those who could be considered technically “dependent” dropped, dramatically. It is the conflicts in the household and demands for independence by black men and women that Edwards argues were responsible for much of the strife during reconstruction.
Edwards used Granville County, North Carolina as the case study for the book. It would have served her argument better had she broadened her scope for the book a bit more. How were households run in the tobacco growing states compared to the states further south that grew cotton? How did gender roles compare in the southern border states to the deep-south states? While the reader cannot fault the author for her chosen topic, if one wants a more broad view of reconstruction, one must look elsewhere. At several points in the book the author implies that similar events that took place in GranvilleCounty, took place all over the south. While this may well be true, the author cites few, if any, examples of the similar events. Her decision to use a county in North Carolina may have simply been a matter of convenience as she received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina.
The book consists of six chapters that stand up rather well on their own. Each one could just as easily be an essay in an academic journal. While each one holds up well on its own, there seems to be little segway between each chapter even though they are all related to the same topic.
The first chapter contains most of the main arguments of the book. It is entirely about marriage and households. Here, the author first points out that the household prior to the Civil War was the south’s most integral institution. After the Civil War, the south found it difficult as it had to recognize the marriage of African-Americans and had to devise a plan on how to recognize the marriage of two people who prior to emancipation had no civil, political, or legal rights. Many slaves married informally, simply agreeing to be a couple, and were never married by a member of the clergy. Consequently, there was little paperwork on slave marriages making marriage between ex-slaves a problem after emancipation. Marriage among African-Americans was also much different than that of whites, especially upper-class whites. Edwards notes that African-Americans figured out that marriage was integral to their independence. It seemed especially important for men to get married as this signified they now had dependents. If one has dependents, one must be independent. Marriage was important for ex-slaves as it was often their first act as legal, rights holding (albeit few), citizens.
Chapter two, discusses labor in great depth. African-American males desired to provide for their families. It was their ability to provide for their families that provided a testament to their manhood and thusly a testament to control their own destiny. Much of the idea of independence that Edwards constantly refers to is the ownership of land. Few African-Americans owned land after the Civil War and consequently most had to work as laborers on an ex-slaveholders farm. Many blacks lobbied for, according to Edwards, “adequate compensation, proper regulation of the hours of labor, and the means of protection against rapacious and cruel employers.” African-Americans challenged the idea that land equaled independence. Former masters, who were used to getting what they want, were highly upset when the slightest mistake might be made by an African-American servant or laborer. On pages 104 and 105, Edwards writes about Daniel Bullock, whose son worked for Robert Kirkland. Kirkland claimed that Bullock’s son took to long to finish his work and whipped him. Bullock confronted Kirkland and told him that the only man who had the right to administer physical punishment to his son was himself.
The third chapter is all about the households of elite whites. Edwards discusses, in great detail, how hard it was on southern men to lose the Civil War. Specifically, men found it difficult to view themselves as pillars of manhood now that their slaves had been freed and their homeland torn apart. These were the things that the Confederacy was supposed to have stopped and they were entirely unsuccessful. More and more, women began taking control of household affairs. Sarah Elliot, apparently the model of southern womanhood, began writing for the Oxford Torchlight, one of the GranvilleCounty newspapers during reconstruction and also wrote her own book, Mrs. Elliot’s Housewife. Edwards states that in Elliot’s book, the best way to exercise power and duty was, “a well regulated, systematic management of household affairs.”
Chapter four touches upon gender-roles in African-American and poorer white households. In this chapter, Edwards states that poorer whites and African-American women seemed to possess more freedom, in many respects, than elite white women. Poorer women were more likely to make their private affairs, public. They were more likely to at least attempt to divorce or simply leave a husband who beat them than elite white women. This likely has a great deal to do with the fact that the woman’s role in the elite household was to take care of the family no matter what occurred. A proper woman would not let such private matters become public, thereby disgracing her family.
Both the fifth and sixth chapters have a great deal to do with politics and civil rights. Much of what is contained in these chapters reaches back from the first. Edwards states that the acquisition of property is based upon intelligence. One cannot rise up and own property if one is not at least moderately intelligent. The disenfranchisement of African-Americans is based in a great deal on this idea. In the post-reconstruction era, literacy tests were administered to see if one could vote. Since many blacks could not read as they had absolutely no access to education, they failed the literacy test. Not coincidentally, those in power, those who owned the land, passed the literacy tests. The southern elites believed that the “best men” should be the ones with the political power. Not coincidentally, these “best men” turned out to be southern Democrats. The Oxford Torchlight often ran editorials bashing Republican officials and referred to Democrats as the best citizens. The newspaper, according to Edwards linked, “the political ‘best men’ to the ‘rich men’.” Democrats used supposed “character” and linked that to education, thereby disenfranchising most blacks.
Overall, this text, while suffering from repetition from time to time, provides a new way to interpret reconstruction. It has a very cross-discipline appeal to it. A historian, sociologist, political scientist, or anthropologist would all find this book very interesting.