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cover.indd 1 3/16/16 7:47 AM
 Contents vii

23.4.2 Economic Readjustment and Social Conflict 539 25.1.3 “Women’s Jobs” and “Men’s Jobs” 571
Postwar Battles: Gender and Race 539 • 25.1.4 Families in the Depression 571
Fighting for Industrial Democracy 539
25.1.5 “Last Hired, First Fired” 572
23.4.3 The Red Scare 540 25.1.6 Protest 573
23.4.4 The Election of 1920 542
Conclusion 542 25.2 Herbert Hoover and the Depression 574
Key Terms 542
25.2.1 The Failure of Voluntarism 574
Timeline 543
25.2.2 Repudiating Hoover: The 1932 Election 574

25.3 Launching the New Deal

24 577
Toward a Modern America: The 1920s 544 25.3.1 Action Now! 577
One American Journey 545 25.3.2 Creating Jobs 577
24.1 The Economy That Roared 546 25.3.3 Helping Some Farmers 578
24.1.1 Boom Industries 546 25.3.4 The Flight of the Blue Eagle 578
24.1.2 Corporate Consolidation 548 25.3.5 Critics Right and Left 578
24.1.3 Open Shops and Welfare Capitalism 548
25.4 Consolidating the New Deal 580
24.1.4 Sick Industries 549
25.4.1 Weeding Out and Lifting Up 580
24.2 The Business of Government 549 Social Security 580 • Money, Tax,
24.2.1 Republican Ascendancy 549 and Land Reform  581
24.2.2 Government Corruption 550 25.4.2 Expanding Relief 582
24.2.3 Coolidge Prosperity 550 From Then to Now: Social Security 583
24.2.4 The Fate of Reform 551 25.4.3 The Roosevelt Coalition and
24.3 Cities and Suburbs 551 the Election of 1936 584
24.3.1 Expanding Cities 551 25.4.4 Labor on the March 585
24.3.2 The Great Black Migration 551 25.4.5 Women and the New Deal 585
24.3.3 Barrios 553 25.4.6 Minorities and the New Deal 586
24.3.4 The Road to Suburbia 554 25.4.7 The New Deal: North, South, East, and West 588
The New Deal in the South  588 •
24.4 Mass Culture in the Jazz Age 555 The New Deal in the West 588
24.4.1 Advertising the Consumer Society 555 25.4.8 The New Deal and Public Activism 589
24.4.2 Leisure and Entertainment 555
25.5 Ebbing of the New Deal 589
24.4.3 The New Morality 556
25.5.1 Challenging the Court 590
24.4.4 The Searching Twenties 556
25.5.2 More Hard Times 590
24.4.5 Culture Wars 557
25.5.3 Political Stalemate 590
24.4.6 Nativism and Immigration Restriction 557
From Then to Now: The Culture Wars 558 25.6 Good Neighbors and Hostile Forces 590
24.4.7 The Ku Klux Klan 559 25.6.1 Neutrality and Fascism 591
Appeasement and More Neutrality 591
24.4.8 Prohibition and Crime 560
24.4.9 Old-Time Religion and the Scopes Trial 560 25.6.2 Edging toward Involvement 592
Conclusion 593
24.5 Herbert Hoover and the New Era 562
Key Terms 593
24.5.1 War Debts and Economic Expansion 562
Timeline 594
24.5.2 Rejecting War 563
24.5.3 Managing the Hemisphere 563 26 World War II 1939–1945 595
24.5.4 Hoover and the Final Triumph
One American Journey 596
of the New Era 563
Conclusion 565 26.1 The Dilemmas of Neutrality 597
Key Terms 565 26.1.1 The Roots of War 597
Timeline 566 26.1.2 Hitler’s War in Europe 598
26.1.3 Trying to Keep Out 598
25 The Great Depression and 26.1.4 Edging toward Intervention 599
the New Deal 1929–1939 567 The Collapse Of France And U.S.
Rearmament 599 • The Election Of 1940 600
One American Journey 568
26.1.5 The Brink of War 600
25.1 Hard Times in Hooverville 569 The Atlantic Charter  600 • Events
25.1.1 Crash! 569 In The Pacific 600
25.1.2 The Depression Spreads 570 26.1.6 December 7, 1941 601

A01_GOLD3310_08_SE_FM.indd 7 1/6/16 9:32 PM

 viii Contents

26.2 Holding the Line 601 From Then to Now: Homeownership

26.2.1 Stopping Germany 601 and Suburbs 626
The Eastern Front And The Battle
27.2 Truman, Republicans, and the Fair Deal 628
Of Stalingrad 601
27.2.1 Truman’s Opposition 628
26.2.2 The Survival of Britain 602
27.2.2 Whistle-Stopping across America 628
The Battle Of The Atlantic 602 •
North Africa 603 27.2.3 Truman’s Fair Deal 630
26.2.3 Retreat and Stabilization in the Pacific 603 27.3 Confronting the Soviet Union 631
The Battles Of The Coral Sea And Midway 604
27.3.1 The End of the Grand Alliance 631
26.3 Mobilizing for Victory 604 27.3.2 The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan 632
26.3.1 Organizing the Economy 604 27.3.3 Soviet Reactions 633
26.3.2 The Enlistment of Science 605 27.3.4 American Rearmament 633
26.3.3 Men and Women in the Military 606 27.4 Cold War and Hot War 634
Native Americans In The Military 606 •
27.4.1 The Nuclear Shadow 634
African Americans In The Military 606 •
Women In The Military 607 27.4.2 The Cold War in Asia 635
27.4.3 NSC-68 and Aggressive Containment 636
26.4 The Home Front 607
27.4.4 War in Korea, 1950–1953 637
26.4.1 Families in Wartime 608
27.4.5 The Politics of War 637
26.4.2 Women in the Workforce 608
Consequences Of The Korean War 639
From Then to Now: Military Draft or
Volunteer Military 609 27.5 The Second Red Scare 640
26.4.3 Ethnic Minorities in the War Effort 610 27.5.1 The Communist Party and the
Loyalty Program 640
26.4.4 Clashing Cultures 611
27.5.2 Naming Names to Congress 641
26.4.5 Internment of Japanese Americans 611
27.5.3 Subversion Trials 641
26.4.6 The End of the New Deal 612
27.5.4 Senator McCarthy on Stage 642
26.5 War and Peace 613 27.5.5 Understanding McCarthyism 642
26.5.1 Turning the Tide in Europe 613 Conclusion 643
The Campaign In North Africa 613 • Key Terms 644
The Invasion Of Italy 613 • Soviet Advances
And The Battle Of Kursk 613
Timeline 644

26.5.2 Operation OVERLORD 614

26.5.3 Victory and Tragedy in Europe 615
The Battle Of The Bulge And The Collapse 28 The Confident Years 1953–1964 645
Of Germany 615 • The Holocaust 616
One American Journey 646
26.5.4 The Pacific War 616
28.1 A Decade of Affluence 647
26.5.5 Searching for Peace 618
28.1.1 What’s Good for General Motors 647
Truman And Potsdam  618 • The Atomic
Eisenhower And The Politics
Bomb 618
Of The Middle 647 • The New Prosperity 647
26.5.6 How the Allies Won 618
28.1.2 Reshaping Urban America 648
Conclusion 619
28.1.3 Comfort on Credit 648
Key Terms 620
28.1.4 The New Fifties Family 648
Timeline 620
The Impact Of Television 649 • Stay-At-Home
Moms And Working Women 649

27 The Cold War at Home 28.1.5 Turning to Religion 650

and Abroad 1946–1952 621 28.1.6 The Gospel of Prosperity 651
28.1.7 The Underside of Affluence 651
One American Journey 622
From Then to Now: Medical Research
27.1 Launching the Great Boom 623
on Polio and AIDS 652
27.1.1 Reconversion Chaos 623
27.1.2 Economic Policy 623 28.2 Facing Off with the Soviet Union 653
27.1.3 The GI Bill 624 28.2.1 Why We Liked Ike 653
27.1.4 Assembly-Line Neighborhoods 624 28.2.2 A Balance of Terror 654
Isolation And Discrimination 625 28.2.3 The American Approach to the Cold War 654
27.1.5 Steps toward Civil Rights 625 28.2.4 U.S. Alliances and the Third World 655
27.1.6 Consumer Boom and Baby Boom 625 28.2.5 Containment in Action 655

A01_GOLD3310_08_SE_FM.indd 8 1/6/16 9:32 PM

 Contents ix

28.2.6 Global Standoff 657 29.5 Nixon, Watergate, and the Crisis of the Early 1970s 685
28.3 John F. Kennedy and the Cold War 658 29.5.1 Getting Out of Vietnam, 1969–1975 685
“Vietnamization” And The Secret War
28.3.1 The Kennedy Mystique 658
Against Cambodia 686 • Stalemate
28.3.2 Kennedy’s Mistakes 658 And Cease-Fire 686
28.3.3 Getting into Vietnam 660 29.5.2 Nixon and the Wider World 686
28.3.4 Missile Crisis: A Line Drawn in the Waves 660 29.5.3 Courting Middle America 687
28.3.5 Science and Foreign Affairs 661 29.5.4 Oil, OPEC, and Stagflation 687
28.4 Righteousness Like a Mighty Stream: 29.5.5 Americans as Environmentalists 688
The Struggle for Civil Rights 661 29.5.6 From Dirty Tricks to Watergate 688
28.4.1 Getting to the Supreme Court 662 From Then to Now: Energy Worries 689
28.4.2 Deliberate Speed 662 29.5.7 The Ford Footnote 691
28.4.3 Public Accommodations 664
29.6 Jimmy Carter: Idealism and Frustration
28.4.4 The March on Washington, 1963 664 in the White House 691
28.4.5 Religious Belief and Civil Rights 666 29.6.1 Carter, Energy, and the Economy 691
28.5 “Let Us Continue” 666 29.6.2 Closed Factories and Failed Farms 693
28.5.1 Dallas, 1963 666 29.6.3 Building a Cooperative World 693
28.5.2 War on Poverty 667 29.6.4 New Crises Abroad 693
28.5.3 Civil Rights, 1964–1965 667 The Failure Of Salt II  693 • The Iranian
Hostage Crisis  694
28.5.4 War, Peace, and the Landslide of 1964 668
Conclusion 695
Conclusion 669
Key Terms 695
Key Terms 670
Timeline 696
Timeline 670

29 Shaken to the Roots 1965–1980 671 30 The Reagan Revolution and

One American Journey 672 a Changing World 1981–1992 697
29.1 Deeper into Vietnam 672 One American Journey 698
29.1.1 Escalation 672 30.1 Reagan’s Domestic Revolution 699
29.1.2 Fighting in ‘Nam 674 30.1.1 Reagan’s Majority 699
29.1.3 From Dissent to Confrontation 675 30.1.2 Conservative Worldviews 700
Downsizing The Great Society 701 •
29.2 New Voices 676 Free-Market Utopians  701 • Conservative
29.2.1 New Left and Community Activism 676 Political Savvy 701

29.2.2 Youth Culture and Counterculture 676 30.1.3 Reaganomics: Deficits and Deregulation 701
29.2.3 Grassroots Conservatism 677 Environmental Regulation And Federal
Lands  702 • Deregulation Of Banking  702
29.2.4 The Feminist Critique 677
30.1.4 Crisis for Organized Labor 702
29.2.5 Coming Out 678
Decline Of Union Membership And
29.3 Cities under Stress 678 Blue-Collar Jobs  702 • Impact Of Economic
Restructuring  702
29.3.1 Diagnosing an Urban Crisis 678
29.3.2 Conflict in the Streets 679 30.1.5 An Acquisitive Society 703
29.3.3 Minority Self-Determination 679 30.1.6 Poverty amid Prosperity 704
Corporate Downsizing And White-Collar
Expressions Of Black Power  679 • Hispanic
Jobs  705 • Increase In The Poverty Rate 705 •
Activism In The Southwest 681 • Native
The Wage Gap And The Feminization
Americans Assert Their Identity 681
Of Poverty 705 • Homelessness In America 705
29.3.4 Suburban Independence: The Outer City 681
30.1.7 Consolidating the Revolution:
Suburban Economic Growth And
George H. W. Bush 706
Political Influence 681 • School Busing
Controversies  682 30.2 The Climax of the Cold War 707
29.4 The Year of the Gun, 1968 682 30.2.1 Confronting the Soviet Union 707
29.4.1 The Tet Offensive 682 30.2.2 Risky Business: Foreign Policy Adventures 707
29.4.2 LBJ’s Exit 683 Intervention And Covert Activities
In Central America 708 • The War Against
29.4.3 Red Spring 683 Drugs 708 • Intervention In The Middle
29.4.4 Violence and Politics: King, Kennedy, East 708 • The Iran-Contra Affair  708 •
and Chicago 684 U.S. Policy In Asia 709

A01_GOLD3310_08_SE_FM.indd 9 1/6/16 9:32 PM

 x Contents

30.2.3 Embracing Perestroika 709 31.2 A New Economy? 731

30.2.4 Crisis and Democracy in Eastern 31.2.1 The Prosperous 1990s 731
Europe 710 31.2.2 The Service Economy 731
The End Of Communist Regimes In Eastern
31.2.3 The High-Tech Sector 732
Europe 711 • German Reunification And
The Dissolution Of The Soviet Union 711 31.2.4 An Instant Society 732
31.2.5 In the World Market 733
From Then to Now: The Berlin Wall 712
The Politics Of Trade 735
30.2.5 The Persian Gulf War 713
31.3 Broadening Democracy 734
30.3 Growth in the Sunbelt 713
31.3.1 Women from the Grass Roots to Congress 734
30.3.1 The Defense Economy 714
31.3.2 Minorities at the Ballot Box 735
30.3.2 Americans from around the World 715
31.3.3 Rights and Opportunities 737
30.3.3 Old Gateways and New 716
Illegal Immigration And Bilingual
30.4 Values in Collision 717 Education 737 • Affirmative Action 738

30.4.1 Women’s Rights and Public Policy 717 31.4 Edging into a New Century 740
Abortion Rights And Conservative
31.4.1 The 2000 Election 740
Reaction 718 • Women In The Workforce 718
31.4.2 Reaganomics Revisited 740
30.4.2 AIDS and Gay Activism 718
31.4.3 Downsized Diplomacy 741
30.4.3 Churches in Change 718
30.4.4 Culture Wars 720 31.5 Paradoxes of Power 742
Conclusion 721 31.5.1 September 11, 2001 742
Key Terms 722 31.5.2 Security and Conflict 742
Timeline 722 31.5.3 Iraq and Conflicts in the Middle East 744
From Then to Now: America’s Mission
31 Complacency, Crisis, and Global to the World 746
Reengagement 1993–2015 723
31.6 Turmoil at Home 746
One American Journey 724
31.6.1 Hurricane and Financial Storm 747
31.1 Politics of the Center 725 31.6.2 The Obama Phenomenon 747
31.1.1 The Election of 1992: A New Generation 725 31.6.3 Partisan Politics 748
31.1.2 Policing the World 726 31.6.4 Election 2012 749
Bosnia And Kosovo 727 • The Reinvention A Divided Society? 749
Of Nato 727
31.6.5 Recovery and Gridlock 750
31.1.3 Clinton’s Neoliberalism 727
Conclusion 751
31.1.4 Contract with America and the Election
Key Terms 751
of 1996 727
Timeline 752
31.1.5 The Dangers of Everyday Life 728
Random Violence And Domestic Appendix 753
Terrorism  728 • War On Drugs
Glossary 773
And Mass Imprisonment 728
31.1.6 Morality and Partisanship 730 Index 781

A01_GOLD3310_08_SE_FM.indd 10 1/6/16 9:32 PM

 Special Features
From Then to Now

16 African American Voting Rights 24 The Culture Wars 558

in the South 367
25 Social Security 583
17 The Confederate Battle Flag 399
26 Military Draft or Volunteer Military 609
18 Green Cities 425
27 Homeownership and Suburbs 626
19 The Legacy of Indian
Americanization 435 28 Medical Research on Polio and AIDS 652

20 Regulatory Government 462 29 Energy Worries 689

21 The Environmental Movement 493 30 The Berlin Wall 712

22 The Panama Canal 517 31 America’s Mission to the World 747

23 Women and War 535

xi

A01_GOLD3310_08_SE_FM.indd 11 1/6/16 9:32 PM

 Preface
T
he path that led us to The American Journey began in
the classroom with our students. Our primary goal
is to make American history accessible to them. The
key to that goal—the core of the book—is a strong, clear
narrative. We chose our book’s title because we believe the
theme of journey offers an ideal way to give coherence to
our narrative and yet fairly represent the complexities of
our nation’s past.
We employ this theme throughout the book, in its
chapters, its pedagogical features, and its selection of pri-
mary source documents. The journeys we describe can
be geographical, ideological, political, or social—some
eventually codified in our founding documents and insti-
tutions, others culminating in patterns of personal behav-
ior and social relationships, still others reaching a dead
end because of popular opposition, political or economic
changes, or even war.
Most of all, the journeys have been those of individu-
als. We have tried to blend their stories into the larger
national narrative of which they were and are a part. The
voices of contemporaries open each chapter, describing
their personal journeys—and detours—toward fulfilling
their dreams, hopes, and ambitions as part of the broader
American journey. Embedding these individual stories
within a broader narrative allows us to address questions
of culture, identity, politics, and ideas as they shaped the
lives of elites and common people alike.
We invite students and teachers to think about how
their own stories and those of their families relate to the
theme of our book. Most of all, we hope that The Ameri-
can Journey can guide students along their own intellectual
paths toward a better understanding of American history
and their place in it.
New to This Edition
Every chapter in the eighth edition of The American Journey
has been carefully revised for publication in REVEL, a fully
digital experience designed to integrate text contents with
interactive elements. The American Journey continues to
emphasize its unique features—chronological organization,
geographical literacy, regional balance, and religion.
Revel™
Educational technology designed for the way t­ oday’s
students read, think, and learn.
When students are engaged deeply, they learn more
effectively and perform better in their courses. This simple
xii
A01_GOLD3310_08_SE_FM.indd 12
fact inspired the creation of REVEL: an immersive learn-
ing experience designed for the way today’s students read,
think, and learn. Built in collaboration with educators and
students nationwide, REVEL is the newest, fully digital
way to deliver respected Pearson content.
REVEL enlivens course content with media interac-
tives and assessments—integrated directly within the
authors’ narrative—that provide opportunities for students
to read about and practice course material in tandem. This
immersive educational technology boosts student engage-
ment, which leads to better understanding of concepts and
improved performance throughout the course.
Learn More about Revel
http://www.pearsonhighered.com/revel/
Rather than simply offering opportunities to read about and
study U.S. history, REVEL facilitates deep, engaging inter-
actions with the concepts that matter most. By providing
opportunities to improve skills in analyzing and interpreting
primary and secondary sources of historical evidence, for
example, REVEL engages students directly and i­ mmediately,
which leads to a better understanding of course material. A
wealth of student and instructor resources and interactive
materials can be found within REVEL. Some of our favorites
are mentioned in the paragraphs that follow.
Integrated Writing Opportunities
To help students reason more logically and write more
clearly, each chapter offers three varieties of w ­ riting
prompts. The Journal prompt elicits free-form topic-­specific
responses addressing topics at the module level, and the
Shared Writing prompt encourages students to address
multiple sides of an issue by sharing and responding to each
other’s viewpoints, encouraging all to interpret a histori-
cal event or text as would people of the time. Finally, each
chapter includes an Essay prompt from Pearson’s Writing
Space, where instructors can assign both automatic-graded
and instructor-graded prompts. For more information about
all of the tools and resources in REVEL and access to your
own REVEL account for The American Journey: A History of
the United States, go to www.pearsonhighered.com/REVEL.
Revel Elements
• Text-specific Learning Outcomes inform each chapter,
with outcomes correlated to unique chapter features and
activities.
1/6/16 9:32 PM

• Chapter introduction videos, based on each One Amer-
ican Journey primary source document excerpt and
filmed by authors, introduce students to the material,
helping to engage them even before they begin reading
the chapter. Each chapter has a new three to four minute
overview that links the One American Journey “voice”
to larger historical themes contained within the chapter.
The videos are featured on the chapter opening page,
and replace the introduction.
• Chapter-specific videos, three to five per chapter, can be
found in-line in all REVEL chapters. New videos filmed
by authors, as well as existing videos by other scholars,
address key topics found in each chapter.
• The Source Collection features five primary source doc-
uments associated with each chapter where students can
read, listen to, and annotate some of the most commonly
assigned primary source documents.
• Interactive maps, figures, and tables feature toggles to
illustrate movement over time, as well as clickable map
keys, hot spots that allow pop-ups of images and videos,
and pan/zoom capability.
• The thematic interactive timeline and flashcards that
summarize each chapter reinforce the essential points
of the narrative, as events are tied to key terms from
the text and flashcards feature all key terms, as well
as additional terms to help define chapter contents.
A01_GOLD3310_08_SE_FM.indd 13
Preface xiii
Author-curated selections for Suggested Reading allow
additional exploration of chapter themes.
• Assessment tied to primary chapter sections, as well as
full chapter exams, enables instructors and students to
track progress and get immediate feedback. Instructors
will be able to find the best resources for teaching their
students.
Engage Students and Improve
Critical Thinking
• Chapter introductory vignettes provide brief firsthand
accounts from individuals who powerfully recount
the personal journeys they took in their lives. Each of
these “voices” relates to the themes that follow in the
chapter.
• Chapter images are bigger, visually interesting, and
informative. Photographs and pieces of fine art encapsu-
late emotional and historical meaning. Captions provide
valuable information that allows for a fuller understand-
ing of the people who lived the American journey.
• From Then to Now relates important issues and events
in each chapter to the issues and events of today, letting
students see the relevance of history to their lives. This
feature also provides thought-provoking visuals to sup-
port and enhance the narrative.
1/6/16 9:32 PM
 About the Authors
David Goldfield is the Robert Lee Bailey Professor of
­ istory at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. A
H Anglia in Norwich, England. Returning to the United
­native of Memphis, he grew up in Brooklyn, New York,
and attended the University of Maryland. He is the au-
thor or editor of sixteen books dealing with the history of
the ­American South, including two works, Cotton Fields
and Skyscrapers: Southern City and Region (1982) and Black,
White, and Southern: Race Relations and Southern Culture
(1991), nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in history, and
both ­received the Mayflower Award for Non-Fiction. Still
Fighting the Civil War: The American South and Southern His-
tory appeared in 2002 and received the Jules and Frances
Landry Prize and was named by Choice as an Outstanding
Non-­fiction Book. His most recent book is America Aflame:
How the Civil War Created a Nation (2011). Goldfield is the
­President of the Southern Historical Association (2012–13)
and is also the editor of the Journal of Urban History. He
serves as an expert witness in voting rights and death
­penalty cases, as a consultant on the urban South to muse-
ums and public television and radio, and as an Academic
Specialist for the U.S. State Department, leading workshops
on American history and culture in foreign countries. He
also serves on the Advisory Board of the Lincoln Prize.
Carl Abbott is Professor Emeritus of Urban Studies and
Planning at Portland State University. He taught previously
in the history departments at the University of Denver
and Old Dominion University, and held visiting appoint-
ments at Mesa College in Colorado, George Washington
University, and the University of Oregon. He holds degrees
in history from Swarthmore College and the University
of Chicago. He specializes in the history of cities and the
American West and served as co-editor of the Pacific His-
torical Review from 1997 to 2014. His books include The
New Urban America: Growth and Politics in Sunbelt Cities
(1981, 1987), The Metropolitan Frontier: Cities in the ­Modern
­American West (1993), Political Terrain: Washington, D. C.
from ­Tidewater Town to Global Metropolis (1999), Frontiers
Past and Future: Science Fiction and the American West (2006),
How ­Cities Won the West: Four Centuries of Urban Change
in ­Western North America (2008), and Imagined Frontiers:
­Contemporary America and Beyond (2015). He has served as
president of the Urban History Association and the Pacific
Coast Branch-American Historical Association.
Virginia DeJohn Anderson is Professor of History at the
University of Colorado at Boulder. She received her B.A.
from the University of Connecticut and as a Marshall
xiv
A01_GOLD3310_08_SE_FM.indd 14
Scholar earned an M.A. degree at the University of East
States, she received her A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from
Harvard University. A recipient of fellowships from the
American Council of Learned Societies and the National
Endowment for the Humanities, she is the author of New
England’s Generation (1991) and Creatures of Empire: People
and Animals in Early America (2004). She has also published
several articles on colonial history, which have appeared
in such journals as the William and Mary Quarterly and the
New England Quarterly. Her current book project is tenta-
tively entitled The Martyr and the Traitor: The Perilous Lives
of Moses Dunbar and Nathan Hale in the American Revolution.
Jo Ann E. Argersinger received her Ph.D. from George
Washington University and is Professor of History at
Southern Illinois University, where she won the George S.
and Gladys W. Queen Award for Outstanding Teacher in
History. A recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller
Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humani-
ties, she is a historian of U.S. women, labor, and transna-
tional history. Her publications include Toward a New Deal
in Baltimore: People and Government in the Great Depression
(1988), Making the Amalgamated: Gender, Ethnicity, and Class
in the Baltimore Clothing Industry (1999), and The Triangle
Fire: A Brief History with Documents (2009). She is currently
writing a book entitled Contested Visions of American Democ-
racy: Public Housing and Citizenship in the International Arena
and working on a video project entitled Women in America.
Peter H. Argersinger is Professor of History at South-
ern Illinois University, where he was named Outstand-
ing Scholar by the College of Liberal Arts. He received
his B.A. from the University of Kansas and his M.A. and
Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. He has been a Fel-
low of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Schol-
ars in Washington, D.C., and he has received fellowships,
grants, and awards from the National Endowment for the
Humanities, the American Historical Association, the Orga-
nization of American Historians, the Massachusetts His-
torical Society, and other organizations. Among his books
on American political and rural history are Populism and
Politics (1974), Structure, Process, and Party (1992), and The
Limits of Agrarian Radicalism (1995). His most recent book,
integrating legal and political history, is Representation and
Inequality in Late Nineteenth-Century America: The Politics of
Apportionment (2012). His current research focuses on the
political crisis of the 1890s.
1/6/16 9:32 PM

William L. Barney is Professor of History at the Univer-
sity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A native of Pennsyl-
vania, he received his B.A. from Cornell University and
his M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has
published extensively on nineteenth-century U.S. history
and has a particular interest in the Old South and the com-
ing of the Civil War. Among his publications are The Road
to Secession (1972), The Secessionist Impulse (1974), Flawed
A01_GOLD3310_08_SE_FM.indd 15
About the Authors xv
Victory (1975), The Passage of the Republic (1987), Battle-
ground for the Union (1989) and The Making of a Confederate:
Walter Lenoir’s Civil War (1997). He is currently ­finishing
an edited collection of essays on nineteenth-­c entury
America and a book on the Civil War. Most recently, he
has edited A Companion to 19th-Century America (2001)
and finished The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Student
Companion (2001).
1/6/16 9:32 PM
 Acknowledgments
All of us are grateful to our families, friends, and colleagues
for their support and encouragement. Jo Ann Argersinger
and Peter Argersinger would like in particular to thank
­Margaret L. Aust, Rody Conant, Lizzie Gilman, and Ann
Zinn; William Barney thanks Pamela Fesmire and Rosalie
Radcliffe; Virginia Anderson thanks Fred Anderson, Kim
Gruenwald, Ruth Helm, Eric Hinderaker, and Chidiebere
Nwaubani; and David Goldfield thanks Frances Glenn and
Jason Moscato.
Key Supplements
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 Chapter 16
Reconstruction 1865–1877

A Hunger to Learn This 1863 watercolor by Henry L. Stephens depicts an elderly African American, probably
a former slave, learning to read. The newspaper’s headline states, “Presidential Proclamation, Slavery.” Learning
transcended age among freed blacks in the South.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division[CaLC-USZC4-2442]

353

M16_GOLD2719_08_SE_C16.indd 353 18/12/15 6:08 pm

 354 Chapter 16

Contents and Focus Questions

16.1 White Southerners and the Ghosts of the
Confederacy, 1865
How did white southerners respond to defeat?
16.2 More than Freedom: African American
Aspirations in 1865
Why did black aspirations generate southern white
violence?
16.4 Counter-Reconstruction, 1870–1874
How were white northerners and the federal
government complicit in denying freed slaves the
basic rights of American citizenship?
16.5 Redemption, 1874–1877
How and why did Reconstruction end?

16.3 Federal Reconstruction, 1865–1870

How did Congressional Reconstruction change the
status of the former slaves in the South?

One American Journey

A Memoir Thomas Fortune felt that this incident encapsulated the
Marianna, Florida 1866 dilemma of Reconstruction. In the journey from slavery to
freedom, education emerged as an important element of full
The white academy opened about the same time the church
citizenship for African Americans. It was their “ticket” to
opened the school for the Negro children. As the colored
economic independence, as it was for all Americans. When
children had to pass the academy to reach the church it
Thomas realized he could not obtain that ticket in the South,
was easy for the white children to annoy them with taunts
he journeyed north to New York City, where he obtained a
and jeers. The war passed from words to stones which the
job as a printer for the New York Sun. New York’s gain was
white children began to hurl at the ­colored. Several col-
the South’s loss, a process repeated many times over as tal-
ored children were hurt and, as they had not resented the
ented young black men and women migrated north. It was
rock-throwing in kind because they were timid about going
a double tragedy for the South: losing people who could
that far, the white children became more aggressive and
have rebuilt a shattered region and missing the opportunity
abusive.
to create a society based on racial equality.
One morning the colored children armed themselves
Southern whites found the notion of black indepen-
with stones and determined to fight their way past the
dence both ludicrous and frightening. Slavery may have
academy to their school. [They] approached the academy in
ended, but subservience should not, whites believed. The
formation whereas in the past they had been going in pairs
eagerness with which black children (and adults) embraced
or small groups. When they reached hailing distance, a half
education implied a pretense of equality, which whites
dozen white boys rushed out and hurled their m ­ issiles.
could not accept. They resisted full black citizenship, often
Instead of scampering away, the colored children not only
violently.
stood their ground and hurled their missiles but maintained
Reconstruction, though, was more than a story of white
a solemn silence. The white children, seeing there was no
resistance against black aspirations. What is remarkable
backing down as they expected, came rushing out of the
about the period is that African Americans continued to
academy and charged the colored children.
press for political, economic, and social rights in the face of
During some fifteen minutes it was a real tug of war. In
withering and often violent white opposition. Most black
the close fighting the colored children got the advantage
resistance was futile, as Thomas would eventually discover.
gradually and began to shove the white children back. As
But if the failure of African Americans to attain the basic
they pressed the advantage the white children broke away
rights of the freedom they won during the Civil War can-
and ran for the academy. The colored fighters did not fol-
not be attributed to their lack of effort and desire, it is also
low them but made it hot for the laggards until they also
true that southern whites were not the only obstacles along
took to their heels. There were many bruises on both sides,
the path of the African American journey from slavery to
but it taught the white youngsters to leave the colored ones
freedom. Not only did white northerners and the federal
alone thereafter.
government ignore the violence, but they also often con-
T. Thomas Fortune, “Norfolk Journal and Guide,” August 20, 1927, reprinted
in Dorothy Sterling, ed., The Trouble They Seen: Black People Tell the Story of doned or at least rationalized it. Reconstruction was not a
Reconstruction, Doubleday, 1976, pp. 22–24. southern failure; it was a national disgrace.

M16_GOLD2719_08_SE_C16.indd 354 18/12/15 6:08 pm


The position of African Americans in American society
was one of the two great issues of the Reconstruction era.
The other great issue was how and under what terms to
readmit the former Confederate states. Between 1865 and
1867, under President Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction
plan, white southerners pretty much had their way with
the former slaves and with their own state governments.
­Congressional action between 1867 and 1870 attempted
to balance black rights and home rule, with mixed results.
After 1870, white southerners gradually regained control
16.1 White Southerners
and the Ghosts of the
Confederacy, 1865
How did white southerners respond to defeat?
To understand how white southerners reacted to black aspi-
rations after the Civil War, it is necessary to understand what
whites saw, thought, and felt as they coped with the conse-
quences of their defeat. Confederate soldiers, generals and
troops alike, returned to devastated homes. General Braxton
Bragg returned to his “once prosperous” Alabama home to
find “all, all was lost, except my debts.” Bragg and his wife
found temporary shelter in a slave cabin. Yeomen farmers,
the backbone of the Confederacy, found uprooted fences,
farm animals dead or gone, and buildings destroyed. They
and their families wandered about in a living nightmare,
seeking shelter where they could. They lived in morbid
fear of vengeful former slaves or the hated Yankee soldiers
wreaking more damage.
Nathaniel Bell, a former Confederate soldier, was
lucky enough to get a job on the North Carolina Railroad
in 1865. Every two weeks, Bell enjoyed a two-day layover
in the coastal city of Wilmington. “On one of these occa-
sions,” he wrote, “a small boy and little girl, both pretty
children, came to me and asked me for something to eat.
I gave them all the meat, bread, potatoes, and syrup that
they could carry away. They were very proud of this. They
said their father was killed in the war, and that their mother
and grandmother were both sick. Some months afterwards
I was passing by the same place where I saw the children,
and a man got on my train. . . . I asked him about the two
children. . . . He said the little boy and girl starved to death.”
The casualties of war in the South continued long after
the hostilities ceased. These were hardly the only cases of
starvation that stalked the defeated region in the months
after the surrender. Although soldiers of both sides would
experience difficulty in reentering civilian life, the south-
erner’s case was the more difficult because of the economic
devastation, the psychological burdens of defeat, and the
M16_GOLD2719_08_SE_C16.indd 355
Reconstruction 1865–1877 355
of their states and localities, often through violence and
intimidation, denying black southerners their political gains
while Republicans in Washington and white northerners
lost interest in policing their former enemies.
By the time the last federal troops left the South in 1877,
the white southerners had prevailed. The Confederate states
had returned to the Union with all of their rights and many
of their leaders restored. And the freed slaves remained in
mostly subservient positions with few of the rights and
privileges enjoyed by other Americans.
break-up of families through death, migration, or p
Cities such as Richmond, Atlanta, and Columbia lay in
­ overty.
ruins; farmsteads were stripped of everything but the
soil; infrastructure, especially railroads, was damaged or
destroyed; factories and machinery were demolished; and
at least 5 million bales of cotton, the major cash crop, had
gone up in smoke. Add a worthless currency, and the loss
was staggering, climbing into hundreds of billions of dollars
in today’s currency.
Their cause lost and their society destroyed, white
southerners lived through the summer and fall of 1865
surrounded by ghosts, the ghosts of lost loved ones, j­oyful
times, bountiful harvests, self-assurance, and slavery. Defeat
shook the basic tenets of their religious beliefs. A North
­Carolinian cried, “Oh, our God! What sins we must have
been guilty of that we should be so humiliated by Thee
now!” Some praised God for delivering the South from the
sin of slavery. A Virginia woman expressed thanks that “we
white people are no longer permitted to go on in such wick-
edness, heaping up more and more wrath of God upon our
devoted heads.” But many other white southerners refused
to accept their defeat as a divine judgment. How could
they, as a devout people, believe that God had abandoned
them? Instead, they insisted, God had spared the South for
a greater purpose. They came to view the war as the Lost
Cause and interpreted it, not as a lesson in humility, but
as an episode in the South’s journey to salvation. Robert
E. Lee became the patron saint of this cause, his poignant
nobility a contrast to the crassness of the Yankee warlords.
White southerners transformed the bloody struggle into a
symbol of courage against great odds and piety against sin.
­Eventually, they believed, redemption would come.
The southern white view of the Civil War (and of
Reconstruction) was not a deliberate attempt to falsify his-
tory, but rather a need to justify and rationalize the dev-
astation that accompanied defeat. This view, in which the
war became the Lost Cause, and Reconstruction became
the Redemption, also served to forge a community among
white southerners at a time of great unrest. A common reli-
gion solidified the bond and sanctified it. The Lost Cause
also enabled white southerners to move on with their lives
18/12/15 6:08 pm
 356 Chapter 16
and concentrate on rebuilding their shattered region. The
Lost Cause was a historical rationalization that enabled
believers to hope for a better future. The regrettable feature
of elevating the Civil War to a noble, holy enterprise was
that it implied a stainless Old South, a civilization worth
fighting and dying for. This new history required the return
of the freedmen, if not to the status of slaves, then at least to
a lowly place in society. This new history also ignored the
savagery of the war by romanticizing the conflict.
The Lost Cause would exist not merely as a memory, but
also as a three-dimensional depiction of southern history,
in rituals and celebrations, and as the educational founda-
tion for future generations. The statues of the Confederate
common soldier erected typically on the most important
site in a town, the courthouse square; the commemorations
of C­ onfederate Memorial Day, the birthdays of promi-
nent Confederate leaders, and the reunions of veterans, all
marked with flourishing oratory, brass bands, parades, and
related spectacles; and the textbooks implanting the white
history of the South in young minds and carrying the legacy
down through the generations—all of these ensured that the
Lost Cause would be not only an interpretation of the past,
but also the basic reality of the present and the foundation
for the future.
Most white southerners approached the great issues
of freedom and reunification with unyielding views. They
saw African Americans as adversaries whose attempts at
self-improvement were a direct challenge to white people’s
belief in their own racial superiority, a belief endorsed by
white southerners’ view of the war and the Old South. A
black boy like Thomas Fortune could not dream of success,
for the very thought confounded the beliefs of southern
whites. White southerners saw outside assistance to black
southerners as another invasion. The Yankees might have
destroyed their families, their farms, and their fortunes, but
they would not destroy the racial order. The war may have
ended slavery, but white southerners were determined to
preserve strict racial boundaries.
16.2 More than Freedom:
African American
Aspirations in 1865
Why did black aspirations generate southern white
violence?
Black southerners had a quite different perspective on the
Civil War and Reconstruction, seeing the former as a great
victory for freedom and the latter as a time of great possibil-
ity. But their view did not matter; it was invisible or, worse,
distorted, in books, monuments, and official accounts. If,
as the British writer George Orwell later argued, “who
M16_GOLD2719_08_SE_C16.indd 356
controls the present controls the past, and who controls the
past controls the future,” then the vanishing black perspec-
tive is not surprising. The ferocity with which white south-
erners attempted to take back their governments and their
social structure was not only about nostalgia; it was also
about power and the legitimacy that power conferred.
And, of course, the black perspective was decid-
edly different from that of whites. To black southerners
the Civil War was a war of liberation, not a Lost Cause.
The response of southern whites to black aspirations still
stunned ­African Americans, who believed, naïvely perhaps,
that what they sought—education, land, access to employ-
ment, and equality in law and politics—were basic rights
and modest objectives. The former slaves did not initially
even dream of social equality; far less did they plot murder
and mayhem, as white people feared. They did harbor two
potentially contradictory aspirations. The first was to be
left alone, free of white supervision. But the former slaves
also wanted land, voting and civil rights, and education. To
secure these, they needed the intervention and support of
the white power structure.
In 1865, African Americans had reason to hope that
their dreams of full citizenship might be realized. They
enjoyed a reservoir of support for their aspirations among
some Republican leaders. The views of James A. Garfield,
Union veteran, U.S. congressman, and future president,
were typical of these Republicans. Commenting on the
ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished
slavery, Garfield asked, “What is freedom? Is it the bare
privilege of not being chained? . . . If this is all, then freedom
is a bitter mockery, a cruel delusion.”
The first step Congress took beyond emancipation
was to establish the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and
Abandoned Lands in March 1865. Congress envisioned the
Freedmen’s Bureau, as it came to be called, as a multipur-
pose agency to provide social, educational, and economic
services, advice, and protection to former slaves and des-
titute white southerners. The bureau marked the federal
government’s first foray into social welfare legislation.
Congress also authorized the bureau to rent confiscated and
abandoned farmland to freedmen in 40-acre plots, with an
option to buy. This auspicious beginning belied the great
disappointments that lay ahead.
16.2.1 Education
The greatest success of the Freedmen’s Bureau was in educa-
tion. The bureau coordinated more than fifty northern phil-
anthropic and religious groups, which, in turn, established
3,000 freedmen’s schools in the South, serving 150,000 men,
women, and children.
Initially, single young women from the Northeast com-
prised much of the teaching force. One of them, 26-year-old
Martha Schofield, came to Aiken, South Carolina, from rural
18/12/15 6:08 pm
 Reconstruction 1865–1877 357

Pennsylvania in 1865. Like many of her colleagues, she had
joined the abolitionist movement as a teenager and decided
to make teaching her life’s work. Her strong Quaker beliefs
reflected the importance of Protestant Christianity in
motivating the young missionaries. When her sponsoring
agency, the Pennsylvania Freedmen’s Relief Association,
folded in 1871, her school closed. Undaunted, she opened
another school on her own, and, despite chronic financial
problems and the hostility of Aiken’s white citizens, she and
the school endured. (Since 1953, her school has been part of
the Aiken public school system.)
By the time Schofield opened her school in 1871, black
teachers outnumbered white teachers in the “colored”
schools. The financial troubles of northern missionary soci-
eties and white northerners’ declining interest in the freed-
men’s condition opened opportunities for black teachers.
Support for them came from black churches, especially the
African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church.
The former slaves crowded into basements, shacks,
and churches to attend school. “The children . . . hurry to
school as soon as their work is over,” wrote a teacher in
Norfolk, Virginia, in 1867. “The plowmen hurry from the
field at night to get their hour of study. Old men and women
strain their dim sight with the book two and a half feet dis-
tant from the eye, to catch the shape of the letter. I call this
heaven-inspired interest.”
At the end of the Civil War, only about 10 percent of
black southerners were literate, compared with more than
70 percent of white southerners. Within a decade, black lit-
eracy had risen above 30 percent. Joseph Wilson, a former
slave, attributed the rise to “this longing of ours for freedom
of the mind as well as the body.”

Freedman’s Bureau The Freedmen’s Bureau, northern churches, and missionary societies established more than 3,000 schools, attended by
some 150,000 men, women, and children in the years after the Civil War. At first, mostly young white women from the Northeast staffed these
schools, as at this one in Georgia. Note the wide age range, which indicates that the thirst for learning spanned generations.
North Wind Picture Archives

M16_GOLD2719_08_SE_C16.indd 357 18/12/15 6:09 pm

 358 Chapter 16
Some black southerners went on to one of the thirteen
colleges established by the American Missionary Associa-
tion and black and white churches. Between 1860 and 1880,
more than 1,000 black southerners earned college degrees
at institutions still serving students today, such as Howard
University in Washington, DC, Fisk University in Nashville,
Hampton Institute (now University), Tuskegee Institute,
and Biddle Institute (now Johnson C. Smith University) in
Charlotte.
Pursuing freedom of the mind involved challenges
beyond those of learning to read and write. Many white
southerners condemned efforts at “Negro improvement.”
They viewed the time spent on education as wasted, forcing
the former slaves to catch their lessons in bits and pieces
between work, often by candlelight or on Sundays. White
southerners also harassed white female teachers, question-
ing their morals and threatening people who rented rooms
to them. After the Freedmen’s Bureau folded in 1872 and
many of the northern societies that supported freedmen’s
education collapsed or cut back their involvement, educa-
tion for black southerners became more haphazard.
16.2.2 “Forty Acres and a Mule”
Although education was important to the freed slaves in
their quest for civic equality, land ownership offered them
the promise of economic independence. For generations,
black people had worked southern farms and had received
nothing for their labor.
An overwhelmingly agricultural people, freedmen
looked to farm ownership as a key element in their transi-
tion from slavery to freedom. “Gib us our own land and we
take care of ourselves,” a Charleston freedman asserted to a
northern visitor in 1865. Even before the war’s end, rumors
circulated through black communities in the South that the
government would provide each black family with 40 acres
and a mule. These rumors were fueled by General William
T. Sherman’s Field Order No. 15 in January 1865, which
set aside a vast swath of abandoned land along the South
Atlantic coast from the Charleston area to northern Florida
for grants of up to 40 acres. The Freedmen’s Bureau like-
wise raised expectations when it was initially authorized
to rent 40-acre plots of confiscated or abandoned land to
freedmen.
By June 1865, about 40,000 former slaves had settled on
Sherman land along the southeastern coast. In 1866, Con-
gress passed the Southern Homestead Act, giving black
people preferential access to public lands in five southern
states. Two years later, the Republican government of South
Carolina initiated a land-redistribution program financed
by the sale of state bonds. The state used proceeds from
the bond sales to purchase farmland, which it then resold
to freedmen, who paid for it with state-funded, long-term,
M16_GOLD2719_08_SE_C16.indd 358
low-interest loans. By the late 1870s, more than 14,000
African American families had taken advantage of this
program.
Land ownership did not ensure financial success. Most
black-owned farms were small and on marginal land. The
value of these farms in 1880 was roughly half that of white-
owned farms. Black farmers also had trouble obtaining
credit to purchase or expand their holdings. A lifetime of
fieldwork left some freedmen without the managerial skills
to operate a farm. The hostility of white neighbors also
played a role in thwarting black aspirations. Black farmers
often had the most success when groups of families settled
together, as in the farm community of Promise Land in up-
country South Carolina.
The vast majority of former slaves, however, espe-
cially those in the Lower South, never fulfilled their
dreams of land ownership. Rumors to the contrary, the
federal government never intended to implement a land-
redistribution program in the South. General Sherman
viewed his field order as a temporary measure to support
freedmen for the remainder of the war. President Andrew
Johnson nullified the order in September 1865, returning
confiscated land to its former owners. Even Republican
supporters of black land ownership questioned the con-
stitutionality of seizing privately owned real estate. Most
of the land-redistribution programs that emerged after the
war, including government-sponsored programs, required
black farmers to have capital. But in the impoverished
postwar economy of the South, it was difficult for them
to acquire it.
Republican Party rhetoric of the 1850s extolled the vir-
tues and dignity of free labor over the degradation of slave
labor. Free labor usually meant working for a wage or under
some other contractual arrangement. But unlike slaves,
according to the then prevailing view, free laborers could
enjoy the fruits of their work and might someday become
owners or entrepreneurs themselves. It was self-help, not
government assistance, that guaranteed individual success.
After the war, many white northerners envisioned former
slaves assuming the status of free laborers, not necessarily
of independent landowners.
Most of the officials of the Freedmen’s Bureau shared
these views and therefore saw reviving the southern
economy as a higher priority than helping former slaves
acquire farms. They wanted to both get the crop in the
field and start the South on the road to a free labor system.
Thus, they encouraged freedmen to work for their former
masters under contract and to postpone their quest for
land.
At first, agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau supervised
labor contracts between former slaves and masters. But
after 1867, bureau surveillance declined. Agents assumed
that both black laborers and white landowners had become
18/12/15 6:09 pm

accustomed to the mutual obligations of contracts. The
bureau, however, underestimated the power of white land-
owners to coerce favorable terms or to ignore those they did
not like. Contracts implied a mutuality that most planters
could not accept in their relations with former slaves. As
the northern journalist Whitelaw Reid noted in 1865, plant-
ers “have no sort of conception of free labor. They do not
comprehend any law for controlling laborers, save the law
of force.”
By the late 1870s, most former slaves in the rural South
had been drawn into a subservient position in a new labor
system called sharecropping. The premise of this system
was relatively simple: The landlord furnished the share-
croppers with a house, a plot of land to work, seed, some
farm animals, and farm implements and advanced them
credit at a store the landlord typically owned. In exchange,
the sharecroppers promised the landlord a share of their
crop, usually one-half. The croppers kept the proceeds from
the sale of the other half to pay off their debts at the store
and save or spend as they and their families saw fit. In the-
ory, a sharecropper could save enough to secure economic
independence.
But white landlords perceived black independence as
both contradictory and subversive. With landlords keep-
ing the accounts at the store, black sharecroppers found
that the proceeds from their share of the crop never left
them very far ahead. Not all white landlords cheated their
tenants, but given the sharecroppers’ innocence regarding
accounting methods and crop pricing, the temptation to
do so was great.
16.2.3 Migration to Cities
Even before the hope of land ownership faded, African
Americans looked for alternatives to secure their personal
and economic independence. Before the war, the city had
offered slaves and free black people a measure of free-
dom unknown in the rural South. After the war, African
­Americans moved to cities to find families, seek work,
escape the tedium and supervision of farm life, or simply
to test their right to move about.
For the same reasons, white people disapproved of
black migration to the city. It reduced the labor pool for
farms. It also gave black people more opportunities to asso-
ciate with white people of similar social status, to compete
for jobs, and to establish schools, churches, and social orga-
nizations, fueling their hopes for racial equality. Between
1860 and 1870, the African American population in every
major southern city rose significantly. In Atlanta, for
example, black people accounted for one in five residents
in 1860 and nearly one in two by 1870. Some freedmen
came to cities initially to reunite with their families. Every
city newspaper after the war carried advertisements from
M16_GOLD2719_08_SE_C16.indd 359
Reconstruction 1865–1877 359
former slaves seeking their mates and children. In 1865,
the Nashville Colored Tennessean carried this poignant plea:
“During the year 1849, Thomas Sample carried away from
this city, as his slaves, our daughter, Polly, and son. . . . We
will give $100 each for them to any person who will assist
them . . . to get to Nashville, or get word to us of their
whereabouts.”
Once in the city, freedmen had to find a home and a
job. They usually settled on the outskirts of town, where
building codes did not apply. Rather than developing one
large ghetto, as happened in many northern cities, black
southerners lived in small concentrations in and around cit-
ies. Sometimes armed with a letter of reference from their
former masters, black people went door to door to seek
employment. Many found work serving white families, as
guards, laundresses, or maids, for very low wages. Both
skilled and unskilled laborers found work rebuilding war-
torn cities like Atlanta. Frederick Ayer, a Freedmen’s Bureau
agent in Atlanta, reported to a colleague in 1866 that “many
of the whites are making most vigorous efforts to retrieve
their broken fortunes and . . . rebuild their dwellings and
shops. . . . This furnished employment to a large number
of colored people as Masons, Carpenters, Teamsters, and
Common Workmen.”
Most rural black southerners, however, worked as
unskilled laborers. The paltry wages men earned, when
they could find work, pushed black women into the work-
force. They often had an easier time securing a job in cit-
ies as domestics and laundresses. Black men had hoped
to assert their patriarchal prerogatives, like white men,
by keeping wives and daughters out of the labor mar-
ket, but necessity dictated otherwise. In both Atlanta and
­Nashville, black people comprised more than 75 percent
of the unskilled workforce in 1870. Their wages were at
or below subsistence level. A black laborer in ­Richmond
admitted to a journalist in 1870 that he had difficulty mak-
ing ends meet on $1.50 a day. “It’s right hard,” he reported.
“I have to pay $15 a month rent, and only two little
rooms.” His family survived because his wife took in laun-
dry, while her mother watched the c­ hildren. C ­ onsidering
the laborer’s struggle, the journalist wondered, “Were not
your people better off in slavery?” The man replied, “Oh,
no sir! We’re a heap better off now. . . . We’re men now,
but when our masters had us we was only change in their
pockets.”
16.2.4 Faith and Freedom
Religious faith framed and inspired the efforts of African
Americans to test their freedom on the farm and in the
city. White southerners used religion to transform the Lost
Cause from a shattering defeat to a premonition of a greater
destiny. Black southerners, in contrast, saw emancipation in
18/12/15 6:09 pm
 360 Chapter 16
Black Church The black church was the center of African American life in the postwar urban South. Most black churches were founded
after the Civil War, but some, such as the First African Baptist Church in Richmond, shown here in an 1874 engraving, traced their origins to
before 1861.
The Granger Collection, NYC
biblical terms as the beginning of an exodus from bondage
to the Promised Land.
Some black churches in the postwar South had origi-
nated during the slavery era, but most split from white-
dominated congregations after the war. White churchgoers
deplored the expressive style of black worship, and black
churchgoers were uncomfortable in congregations that
treated them as inferiors. A separate church also reduced
white surveillance.
The church became a primary focus of African ­American
life. It gave black people the opportunity to hone skills in
self-government and administration that white-­dominated
society denied them. Within the supportive confines of the
congregation, they could assume leadership positions, ren-
der important decisions, deal with financial matters, and
engage in politics. The church also operated as an educa-
tional institution. Local governments, especially in rural
areas, rarely constructed public schools for black people;
churches often served that function.
The desire to read the Bible inspired thousands of for-
mer slaves to attend the church school. The church also
M16_GOLD2719_08_SE_C16.indd 360
spawned other organizations that served the black commu-
nity, such as burial societies, Masonic lodges, temperance
groups, trade unions, and drama clubs. African Americans
took great pride in their churches, which became visible
measures of their progress. The church enforced family and
religious values, punishing violators guilty of such infrac-
tions as adultery. Black churchwomen, both working class
and middle class, were especially prominent in the family-
oriented organizations.
The efforts of former slaves in the classroom, on the
farm, in cities, and in the churches reflect the enthusiasm
and expectations with which black southerners greeted
freedom and raised the hopes of those who came to help
them. But the majority of white southerners were unwill-
ing to see those expectations fulfilled. For this reason,
African ­Americans could not secure the fruits of their
­emancipation without the support and protection of the
federal g­ overnment. The issue of freedom was therefore
inextricably linked to the other great issue of the era, the
rejoining of the Confederacy to the Union, as expressed in
federal Reconstruction policy.
18/12/15 6:09 pm
Another random document with
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knowledge greater than any of the sciences. The unfolding soul of a
child is God’s greatest mystery; the science that deals with
developing life is the science that the primary teacher must know.
The little minds of her pupils are like strangers in a strange land. The
teacher is the guide. Her responsibility is of the greatest.
(1) The first day. Important as is the first year, the first day of
school is equally so. Not merely the first day of the first year, but the
first day of every school year. That “first day” impression that the
teacher makes, often has a far-reaching influence. Very frequently it
is a day of confusion for both pupil and teacher, neither knowing just
exactly what is to be done. There is no surer way to complexities than
to open school without detailed plans.
(2) Detailed plans. The simpler the plans the better, but every
detail of the daily program, lesson, assignments, seating, etc., should
be worked out carefully beforehand.
The teacher should meet the pupils with a friendly greeting and
without any hesitancy assign them to their seats, adding such other
instructions as are necessary. However, not too many instructions
should be given; better none than too many.
If parents accompany the pupils, they should be treated with
consistent courtesy and their questions answered firmly. It is always
best to say as little as possible to parents, never forgetting, however,
to be polite. As soon as school is begun, the teacher may tell a story
that will attract the children to her and leave a good impression.
Following the story, lesson assignments should be made. All
assignments and instructions should be simple and plain. If it is
necessary to do some school work, the tasks should be short and so
simple as to be entirely within the ability of the children. Take great
care to leave with them at the close of their first day the feeling of
power to do what will be required of them. In closing the session
mention some delightful bit of work, that “we will do tomorrow.”
In rural schools the first day is even more perplexing than in
village or city schools, because, in the rural school, one teacher has
all the grades. Plans for study, recitations and recesses should all be
made so that any question asked about any phase of the school work
can readily be answered. As in the city school, older pupils should be
promptly assigned to their seats; to allow them to select their own is
poor policy and almost always results in trouble later in the year. If
the teacher knows the names of the pupils, it is a good plan to have
the names on cards placed on the seats in which the teacher wishes
to have the pupils seated. The smaller pupils should also be shown to
their seats and assistance given them in getting their books into the
desk in an orderly manner. After school is called to order the work
for the day should begin at once. The teacher may give an opening
talk if he thinks that is best. However, it is advisable not to do that.
At this stage of the work it is very prudent for the teacher to avoid
making set rules or even feigning authority. Be unassuming. As in
the city school, work on the first day should be simple. The pupils
have had no preparation and cannot respond in recitations.
Sometimes teachers ask the pupils to prepare the lessons first, but
they are in new surroundings and not used to study; it is better to
make assignments and explanations, then fill the remainder of the
day with “busy work,” songs and stories. But whatever the teacher
does must be so done that the pupils will feel that he is in earnest.
Try to send the children home that night with the impression that
this term’s work is going to be a very interesting and happy one.
In the first grade, children tire easily and consequently lose
interest. Therefore, they should have frequent changes from one
activity to another. The lessons should be short, followed by “busy
work,” then a play period, or simply gymnastics. If gymnastics are
used the exercises should be varied. There is such a wide range of
possible exercises that it is easy for any teacher to have plenty of
gymnastic drills or simple games, allowing much activity, which will
interest pupils for many months. None of the exercises of the first
grade should be carried so far as to tire the pupils.
From the foregoing, it is apparent that a well devised daily
schedule is important. It must be workable. There must be no gaps in
it wherein the teacher gives the children idle moments. Material for
use during the day should always be arranged before school opens in
the morning.
3. Regulating the Movements of the Pupils
One of the most necessary duties of the teacher at the beginning of
the year is to train the children to habits of regulated and quiet
movements when passing in and out of the school-room, going to the
blackboard, coming forward to the recitation seats, passing material
for busy work, or during any other concerted action. The first day is a
particularly opportune time for drill in quiet movement, not only
because no lessons have been made ready and, therefore, the teacher
is entirely free to take as much time as is desirable without feeling
that he is encroaching upon other lessons, but also because such
exercises impress upon the children the necessity for quiet
movement at a time when their minds are not prepossessed with
other subjects. The suggestion is likely to lodge firmly in mind at this
time, partly because of the prominence given to the thought and
partly because of the absence of conflicting interests on this first day.
Furthermore, in drilling the children from the start to recognize the
signals and to obey them, the teacher is taking a long step toward
securing control of his room. Of course, he must not expect the
children to learn the whole lesson in one day. Even adults require
“drill” before they can respond perfectly to regulated movements. To
first grade children the signals and directions are absolutely
meaningless until the meaning is taught. Nevertheless, even first
grade children can be taught easily to be quiet and orderly, and if the
drills are given as little games, competitive or otherwise, they will
look upon the whole thing as play and hence will respond heartily.
Suppose, for example, that the inexperienced teacher who enters
the school-room saying to herself, “What in the world can I do to
keep all these wriggling children in order for a whole day!” should
have some of the following drills (abridged from Hillyer’s “Child
Training”[3]) at command to use whenever the children begin to be
disorderly or seem not to comprehend directions.
3. Hillyer, V. M.—Child Training, pp. 14–28.—New York. The Century Co.
(1) Simple directions. Say to the children, “I want to see if you can
do what I tell you, just when I tell you, and just the way I tell you.”
Then give the order: “Stand up.”
Some may obey promptly, some may obey more slowly, some may
hesitate, look around to see what the others are going to do, and
finally, but tardily, rise. Some may pay no attention to the order at
all, but look blankly around or at something else, exactly as if they
had been excepted from the command.
If there is much irregularity in obeying correctly and at once, it
may be necessary to say, “All children stand up,” or, “All of you stand
up,” and this may have to be supplemented by the explanation,
“When I say, ‘Stand up,’ I mean you, John and Mary, as well as the
others.” Then give the order: “Sit down.”
Repeat these orders, “Stand up,” “Sit down,” half a dozen or more
times, until all the children understand what is wanted and obey
promptly, quietly, and without hesitating or lagging.
Have them first imitate you, while you execute the order, as
directed. This is training by imitation. Then have them carry out the
order from the command alone. Give the order, but do not execute it
yourself, or better still, tell the children to close their eyes and keep
them closed while you give the order and they obey. This is to
prevent imitation of others in the class. They are not trained until
they can obey promptly without seeing either the teacher or another
child whom they can imitate.
Further directions may be: “Look up, down.” “Face right side, left
side.” “Place your hands on top of your head, under your chair,
behind your back.”
Afterwards, practice them individually, giving more attention to
those who are unfamiliar with the terms used or are slow to carry
them out.
(2) Simple orders. Give the first direction to a child and wait his
precise fulfilment, asking the class if the child has followed the
direction in every particular, or if he has failed and in what respect
he has failed.
Each time an order is executed the children should be called upon
to suggest where an improvement is needed, as, for example: “John
banged the door.” “He didn’t shut it quietly.” “He made too much
noise in going to the door.” “He asked which door,” or “He
hesitated,” “Took too long,” and so on.
(3) Simple deferred orders. Prepare a list of orders as in the
preceding drill and tell the children you will give each one an order,
but is it not to be executed until you give the word. Then read the list
of orders, putting the name of a child before each order, and when
you have finished, say, “Now, do what I have told you.”
(4) Negative orders. The burden of much of the instructions to
teachers and parents is “Don’t say don’t.” Nevertheless, for purposes
of discipline, practice in obeying negative commands is highly
important, as most laws and rules from the Decalogue down, are
prohibitions: “Thou shalt not.”
Face the children away from you and tell them you are going to
practice them in obeying the order, “Don’t look.” Tell them that when
you have given the order, they are not to look around, under any
circumstances, no matter even if a contradictory order is given, until
you call “Time.” Then give the order and behind their backs try
different devices to entice them into looking. Tell a story and pretend
to illustrate it, saying, for instance, “Jack and Jill went up a hill, like
this” (stamp about or make noisy gestures), “to fetch a pail of water,
like this” (make chalk marks on the blackboard, as if drawing) “and
broke his crown, like this” (drop a book or something heavy), and so
on. Suddenly speak into the ear of one, saying, “Look here,” tap
another on the shoulder excitedly, and so on.
(5) Double orders. Make a list as in drill 3, but with two orders for
each child, thus: “John, hand me that book, and put this on the
table.” Use in the same way as in drill 2.
(6) Prohibitions. Tell the children you are going to practice them
still further in obeying “Don’ts.” Then, give the order: “Don’t make
any sound until I call ‘Time.’”
Allow them to move their heads, arms, feet; even to move about,
though this privilege should be forfeited by any one failing in the
slightest degree to observe the command. Watch and listen for the
faintest sound and have them do the same, but only the teacher must
call attention to any voluntary or involuntary breaking of silence. At
the end of five minutes call “Time.” Discuss with the children what
they could do to observe the command better or more easily and
repeat the exercise.
Then tell them to get into a comfortable position, one that they can
maintain indefinitely, as they are to remain not only silent but
motionless. Ask them to pretend that they are to have their pictures
taken, that the slightest motion, shifting of position or twitching—
breathing and blinking of the eyes excepted—will spoil the picture,
and say, “Now, don’t move till I call ‘Time.’”
Call “Time” at the end of two minutes, as this is a very severe
ordeal. Further practice, however, should make them able to hold
this position for five minutes longer.
 Tell the children you are going to command, “Don’t talk,” and then
are going to try to surprise them into talking or asking a question,
but they must say nothing under any circumstances. Tell them they
are supposed to be mutes, without the power of speech—as dumb as
the animals.
Then give the command, “Don’t talk,” but continue to talk yourself,
telling either a story or something about which children would
ordinarily ask questions, and if this does not succeed, abruptly ask
one of the children a question, trying to take him off his guard or to
startle him into a reply.
Any wide-awake teacher will readily perceive how these drills can
be gradually extended to include the concerted movements of the
whole school, furnishing both relief from more fatiguing school work
and pleasure in the performing, while, at the same time reducing the
chaotic movements of untrained children to quiet, restful, intelligent,
coöperative school-room procedure.
The following case illustrates the difficulties of attempting to
secure the more complex forms of regulated conduct without having
first given sufficient drill on obedience to directions.

CASE 138 (FOURTH GRADE)

It was the custom in the Rockford school Dismissing

for the children in the first four grades to Classes
put on their wraps when the first bell rang for dismissal and then to
return. A second bell was rung as a signal for passing.
At this time, Miss Walker, the fourth grade teacher, had the habit
of going out into the hall. Her pupils then fairly flew out of the room
and down the stairs leading outside.
“Don’t crowd so, children. Why don’t you march in an orderly
fashion? There, Jimmie Blaine, you almost knocked Hilda down.
Now do be more careful the next time.”
But Jimmie was too far down the steps to hear these last words.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT
 Two bells should be rung for dismissal. Let the first be a signal for
the children to pass to the dressing-room for their wraps. Let them
pass in single file, second row following the first, and so on. Let the
second bell be a signal for leaving the room. Here again, the seating
should determine the places in line. Stand at the door leading out
into the hall. Then give the signal for passing. “First row, second,
third,” and so on. See that no child violates this rule.
When the children are once thoroughly familiar with the order and
with the meaning of the signals, the first pupil in each row may be
entrusted with the leadership of that row and the signals may thus be
dispensed with.
Fire drills should be held at least once a month. Make the
occurrence as unexpected as possible. The regular method of
formation of the lines should be rigidly followed.
When the gong rings, each teacher should immediately drop the
work at hand and say,
“Attention! One, two, three!”
The word “Attention!” signifies a definite attitude of body and
mind. The work at hand should be immediately dropped, the head
raised and the hands at rest, while waiting for the next command. Do
not give the second command until you have the undivided attention
of every child in the room.
“One” signifies to turn in the seat; “two” to rise; and “three” to
pass.
In case it is your week for corridor duty, take your stand
immediately at the head of the stairs.
The lines of the four upper grades should be already formed on the
second floor and stairs leading to the floor below, ready to follow the
lines of the first floor, or signal from the teacher on duty there.
It should take no longer than five minutes to vacate a building
holding fourteen hundred pupils.

COMMENTS

Miss Walker could not expect order in the line when she had
taught no definite procedure. The only thought in the minds of the
children in her room was to get out of the room as quickly as
possible; the manner of doing it was a matter of no consideration to
them.
Children are naturally un-orderly; it is the teacher’s duty to train
them. In this case, she should draw up an order of marching that the
children could follow habitually and without confusion.

ILLUSTRATION (SEVENTH GRADE)

The bell rang for dismissal in the Bronx Dismissing

Park Grammar School. Miss Forbes, the School
seventh grade teacher, took her place at the door of her room leading
out into the hall.
“Rise!”
“Pass! First row, second, third!” etc.
One row after another filed out of the room in perfect order. She
stood where she could see the line march down the stairs out-of-
doors. At the same time she watched the line formation in the room.
Before the last row had passed out of the room, she had taken a
second stand at the head of the stairs leading out of the building.
Looking back she saw the last child in the last row close the door of
her room.
After her children, came those of the eighth grade, while on the
other side of the staircase the third grade followed the second and
the second followed the first.
Then the four upper grades came down the stairs, from the second
floor, the boys on one side, the girls on the other.
Just two minutes had passed from the time the bell rang for
dismissal until the last child left the building.
The foregoing method of line formation may be used on every
occasion. By keeping a rigid form of discipline in moving lines up or
downstairs, the children may be depended upon to march quickly
and in good order in case of fire. This matter of perfect handling of
the orders of march cannot be too strongly emphasized. Any lack of
firmness in such regime will be sure to bring disastrous results in a
fire.
CASE 139 (SIXTH GRADE)

It was just eleven o’clock—time for Miss Passing to

Finch’s sixth grade class to pass from her Classroom
room to one further down the hall where they were to have their
music lesson.
“You may pass, children.”
“Albert, I’ll help you with your problem now if you will come up to
my desk.”
The children literally fell over one another to get out of the room.
Miss Finch was interrupted in her work with Albert by a great
confusion of laughing and talking in the hall.
She hurried to the door and saw the boys pushing each other out of
line, bumping into the girls, and, in a word, doing everything but
what they should have done, namely, march quietly and in an orderly
way down the hall to the room in which they were to have their music
lesson.

CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT

Every time your class has occasion to pass from the room, take the
same stand by the door, leading into the hall. Then say, “First row,
please pass! Second, third!” etc. When the last line has left the room,
take another permanent stand in the hall, where you watch the
children to see that they keep in a straight line and march in an
orderly fashion from room to room.
If one or two should “forget” to be quiet, speak to them while in
line. “John, remember the rule for marching in absolute order.”

COMMENTS

Every teacher must remember that her presence should mean

order. If the children are accustomed to see Miss Finch in the same
place every time they pass from the room, they will consciously or
unconsciously realize what she expects from them—perfect order.
 Miss Finch could not expect a room full of healthy, wide-awake
children to pass from one room to another without noise, when her
own attitude conveyed anything but a suggestion of quietness. She
put the others entirely out of her mind when she told Albert she
would help him with his problem.
It is not necessary to take the stand of a policeman, but your
attitude should be one of expectancy that all will pass quietly and in
order. It should not, however, be necessary to speak of the matter
before the whole class, unless in commendation of the fine
reputation which “our school bears for its quiet good order.”

ILLUSTRATION (HIGH SCHOOL)

The bell rang in the East Aurora High Passing to

School for the beginning of the first period. Classroom
Miss Wilcox took her accustomed stand by the door of her section
room. Thirty-five young men and women filed out on their way to the
first class of the day.
They passed the next classroom door, where Miss Michael, the
mathematics teacher, stood. Her attitude was pleasant but firm. She
was expecting order.
After turning the corner of the building, they were met by Miss
Aldrich, the science teacher, into whose room they marched, still in
single file.
To one boy, who had been especially troublesome in line at the
beginning of the year, she said, “Splendid, Joseph, you are getting so
that you can turn as square a corner as a cadet.”
The next case is a good illustration of what a teacher should not do
in attempting to secure regulated conduct. The story is its own
sufficient comment.

CASE 140 (EIGHTH GRADE)

“Here, come back here, you fellows,” Keeping in Line

called Mr. Girdlestone, the teacher, to two
lads going up the steps ahead of the lines. “What’s the matter with
you?”
The boys came back down the stairs, but as Mr. Girdlestone turned
around the older boy again started up the steps.
“Didn’t I tell you to come back here till your line formed, John?”
cried the teacher, angrily, as he grabbed the pupil by the collar.
“I guess you won’t shake me,” responded the boy angrily as he
caught the teacher’s arm.
A scene of confusion followed, but the youth got his shaking and
went sullenly about his work.
At the close of the day the pupil was called to the office.
“I fear I must punish you more severely for your conduct in
resisting my correction, John,” began the teacher, firmly. “Come
down stairs with me and we will try to settle this affair.”
“I guess you will have to ketch me first,” returned John, with
triumph in his voice, as he ran down the other stairs.
Mr. Girdlestone was able to block his way of going home, but
unable to lay hands on the pupil.
“You may take your punishment or not get a chance to go home
tonight,” insisted the teacher.
“Well, you fire me, then,” suggested John quickly.
“I don’t intend to suspend you,” replied the teacher. “I don’t want
to.”
“Go ahead and fire me. I’m just lookin’ for a chance to quit school,
anyway,” returned the boy, sullenly.
“John,” said the head of the school, firmly but kindly, “come on
with me and let’s talk this affair over. Maybe we can settle it in that
way.”
After considering for a few moments, during which he eyed his
teacher narrowly, John finally came along.
“Now,” said Mr. Girdlestone, as they reached the office again, “I
guess we were both just a little to blame in this matter. I guess we
both lost our heads and were too hasty in our conduct. I am willing to
assume my share of the blame and apologize to you for my
hastiness.”
 “All right,” replied the pupil, in a subdued tone, “I know I didn’t do
what I ought to in this scrape. I got mad when you took hold of me,
but I’m ready to straighten the thing up now.”
“Very well,” responded the teacher, kindly. “Let’s shake hands on
this affair and try to do better in the future.”
“All right,” said John, smiling, “I guess it will be a lesson to me.”
John continued his school work with more interest in the future
and a few years later graduated from the high school.
4. Some Things That Complicate Regulation of the School
(1) Tardiness. Tardiness in the first grade cannot be intentional on
the child’s part, nor should it give the teacher any annoyance. It
cannot be the pupil’s fault. Whenever a first grade pupil comes tardy
the teacher should ask in a kindly manner for the reason. As a rule it
will be some excusable cause, one which the parents have imposed.
The teacher should then consult the parents. If they will start the
children to school soon enough, they will not often be tardy. Not
every case of tardiness can be prevented, however; even teachers
sometimes find themselves late on account of some unavoidable
incident.
(2) Absences. Sometimes first grade pupils choose to be absent
from school for a day and often for several days. When the teacher
goes to find out the cause, she learns that the pupil is afraid of the
teacher, does not like to study, or there is some similar reason, and
he has begged to remain at home. The parents have consented to the
request. It is then the teacher’s duty to assure the parents that she
will do all she can to win the child to the school. Her visit often stops
the truancy if the teacher shows that kindly and courteous
disposition that all teachers should possess. Often when the parents
tell a child that the teacher is kind and good it has a tendency to
overcome his reluctance.
There are very few first year pupils who will absent themselves
from school without their parents’ consent.
With respect to older pupils, however, as long as there are schools,
so long there will be truancy. When the teacher has made his school
and school work interesting and tried to be kind and courteous, he
has done very much toward abolishment of the truant. There are
many cases of truancy that teachers have succeeded in stopping, but
an investigation of the school revealed the fact that the teacher was
alive to his work; every pupil knew that absentees would be missed;
further, that the teacher would ask for a reason for absence. They
knew that every detail of the school was interesting and that they
missed something when away from it. In other words, it was far more
fun to be in school than out of it.
If ever our readers feel that coercion is necessary to get regular
attendance, don’t punish, but try this plan instead: talk to the class
about some trip you want to take with your pupils, perhaps to a
woods. Play upon their imagination as to what they would like to do
on that trip, what you will take along, etc., and ask everybody to
stand who is in favor of taking the trip. Then say, “All right, be
seated. There is another thing to be said about this trip. Only those
who work well will be permitted to go with us. We are going to have a
great time and I hope everyone will get the chance to go, but only
those who have been regular in attendance will receive an
invitation.”
(3) Careless work. The first few weeks in the first grade are trying
times for the teacher. All habits that she wishes the little ones to
acquire, she must carefully teach. Much patient explanation is
necessary. Often the work of the pupils will seem careless, simply
because the children do not know how to do better. Then, too, what
seems careless to the teacher may seem very good to the child. The
teacher must not judge too hastily. If some children do get through
their tasks before the others do, because of careless work, do not find
fault but in subsequent lessons see that the most interesting work is
given to those children, then act upon the principle of suggestion, by
saying how fine it would be to do the work in a certain way. The child
will at least make an attempt. Whatever is done should be approved
by the teacher. The teacher who sympathizes with the pupils, helps
them, and directs their crude efforts, following each attempt on their
part with approval and a spirit of expectancy, always encouraging,
never discouraging, will soon have no careless work among her
pupils.
(4) Mischief. Another point that the first year teacher must learn is
that all mischief committed in primary grades is not premeditated.
Healthy children are full of energy. This energy seeks an outlet, and
in consequence, mischief may result. To leave childhood’s energies
undirected and undeveloped is a sure source of trouble. In correcting
mischief in primary grades, harsh language should not be used. The
kindest explanation of the mischief and its results is the correct way
of dealing with childish misdeeds. The child has never pondered over
mischief and has not thought ahead what the results may be.
Therefore, it is not malicious until wrong methods of control make it
so. By making prominent in his mind the right activities you will just
so far keep in the background the wrong activities and his surplus
vigor will thus be stimulated in the proper direction.
(5) Dislike for study. Fondness for study and good habits in
studying on the part of pupils will greatly simplify the teacher’s
control of the school.
There often develops a tendency in pupils to dislike certain
branches. Especially is this true in the upper grades. Such a dislike
may often be traced back to the primary grades, where the study
habits and likes or dislikes for school work are first instilled into the
child. It is vitally essential that the teacher foster in her pupils that
attitude toward school work that will send the child to the second
grade liking his work and well trained in the habit of study. It would
seem impossible that a dislike for subjects that are not taught in the
primary grades could be traced back, even indirectly, to wrong
teaching in those grades. But the chances are that somewhere in the
child’s progress towards the upper grades or the high school were
sown the seeds that developed into dislike of certain branches. If so,
the first grade teacher should take her share of the blame. She must
guard against any methods of teaching that will cause any child to
dislike to study. It is quite certain that if first grade pupils finish their
year’s work liking the teacher and the school and if they have
acquired the habit of study and like it, that teacher has done her full
duty.
It is a first requisite of the teacher to exhibit a cheerful and
optimistic disposition in the school-room. She must teach the little
ones reading and numbers, language and story telling, writing and
drawing, with such an ardor and love for her work that the children
can only think that their teacher likes these subjects better than
anything else. She must expect every child to love his work. If the
second grade teacher and the others in the higher grades will teach in
the same manner there will be no pupils in the upper grades or the
high school who have a distaste for even one branch, much less have
a dislike for study in general. A true teacher will never make her
pupils feel that she has a dislike for school work or any part of it.
(6) Dull children. Many a teacher has had her difficulties and
perplexities with the dull child. In large cities special teachers are
employed to teach dull and abnormal children. Books have been
written dealing with them. Still the problem remains unsolved. Much
has been done for them, but by no means has all been said about
what can and should be done for such children under these
conditions. The rural and village teacher cannot expect to send the
perplexing pupils to a special teacher and as a rule such children are
found in every school.
One thing, however, she must make sure of—that is, whether the
dull child is such because he is subnormal, or because of some
physical defect, or because of poor health. Poor food may cause a
child to be dull. Bad ventilation is often the cause of dullness in the
school-room. The teacher is responsible for keeping his room well
ventilated. If the dullness is due to ill-health, the coöperation of the
parents must be sought. If the child is dull because he is subnormal,
the teacher must do the best he can, and that is very little indeed.
One thing he must not do—he must not worry. It is not his fault. The
situation will be made easier if the teacher will secure the
superintendent’s or a director’s permission to let the dull child drop
some of the school work. The teacher should give the child the same
attention he gives the others; then his full duty has been done. Never
should a teacher intimate to any one of the pupils or to the child
himself, that he thinks him dull.
Many times such a pupil can be very mischievous. Whenever that
is the case the teacher should apply the devices and methods used
upon other children for particular annoyances. But just here is where
the greatest difficulty presents itself, for the fundamental element in
all methods is interest, and the dull child can not be interested. Many
times he can be interested in manual work of some kind when he can
not be made to care for the more abstract work which other children
do with ease.
No attempt will be made to discuss further the abnormal child.
The author feels that it is only protecting the other children and the
teacher both to have abnormal children, as well as children dull
because of ill-health and mental defect, removed from the school and
placed in institutions established for such pupils. Such a course may
cause parents to become indignant, but better that than to worry the
teacher overmuch and make him less efficient for the other pupils,
when he can not help the child in any way. Nor has he been schooled
to teach such children. They should be handed over to specialists
who are free to adopt such methods as are best for the individual
child, but not necessarily so for the whole school.
(7) Retarded pupils. In many states where there are no
compulsory school attendance laws, pupils often come into the first
grade at eight to ten years of age. This also may happen where the
child has been ill. Sometimes thoughtless teachers make retarded
pupils feel odd and out of place, even unwelcome. The teacher must
remember that the school is a public institution and every child has a
full right to all of its benefits. Not much more can be said to the
teacher than to add: treat the retarded and overgrown pupils just like
the others. If they do well in their work, recognize their skill; if they
are mischievous or cause trouble, meet it as in the case of any other
pupil. The retarded or overgrown pupil must not be made to feel
either that he should be advanced, or on the other hand that he has
neglected his work, and for that reason is out of place in the first
grade when he should be in the third or fourth. He must not be
slighted or treated differently from other pupils because he is larger
or older, unless it be to place some little responsibility upon him like
caring for the window plants or assisting the teacher to pass
materials for school work—duties which may be regarded somewhat
in the light of special privileges.
(8) The “smart” pupil. What constitutes the “smart” pupil is hard
to define, but every teacher knows him when he appears. The pupil
that is of this type is not hard to control. To notice every little
exhibition of smartness tends to make it worse. As a rule, the pupil is
not so bad or so mean as to cause any particular disturbance—he is
only annoying. To ignore him is the best cure and one that will in a
very short time cure the worst case in the first grade. When such a
pupil has said something that does not become a good pupil, the
teacher should begin to converse about something entirely different
and more interesting.
 (9) Wrong influence of parents. In this age of poor parent control,
there are more children in the public schools whose misdemeanors
are the direct result of home influences than of all other factors
combined.
The prudent teacher of the first year needs often to solicit the aid
of parents in righting a spoiled child, and often she must convince
them that they are wrong in their methods of rearing their children.
If the teacher cannot enlist the aid of parents, then she must fight her
battle single-handed. But there is no need for discouragement. The
child will love one who loves him. A lovable and wise teacher often
succeeds where a parent fails. Parents are often alarmingly short-
sighted when it comes to training their children. It is not an
imaginary condition but one all too real, that in many homes the
children are, in actuality, the controlling forces. It is distressing to
see how helpless parents can be, and what American parents are
enduring from their children. From such poorly regulated homes
come the “spoiled” children to the first grade teacher, and in many
instances all the meanness such children can perpetrate is
considered “cute” by the over-indulgent parents.
In dealing with the badly trained child, the teacher must avoid any
use of force. That would only antagonize him. The teacher should be
firm, but kind, treating him just as he treats the others; if he does
good work, commending him for it. She need not even notice many
of his outbreaks—he will soon discontinue them. Often he is spoiled
because the parents have paid too much attention to his every whim
and fancy. When he learns that he can not worry the teacher, and
that she will not contend with him in his trivial desires, he will cease
to annoy her. Last of all, the teacher can fill in the gaps of idleness in
the child’s time by keeping him interested and busy.
If the child is saucy, the teacher must avoid telling the pupil that
he “must not be saucy”; such a method will make the pupil aware of
the fact that being saucy is distasteful to the teacher, and he will
resort to that method whenever his spirits are ruffled. The better
thing to do is to ignore him altogether, and proceed with the work at
hand, as though nothing had occurred. The teacher should not
display the least emotion by look or expression, for the child usually
watches the teacher to note the effect of his sarcasm or imprudent
statement. When he finds out that he is ignored, he will resort less to
his annoying habit. If the child tries to tease her, she can casually and
without any use of force, draw him away into some interesting game
or activity. Or the teacher may call the pupil by name and say, “Come
here a moment, I have something for you to do.” She may have a new
game ready and have this pupil be the leader. This will draw his
attention from teasing. In other words, substitute some other and
more interesting activity. A few weeks of such control will remedy the
annoyance.
It is a good plan with such a pupil to send him on an errand every
now and then, when he is in a good mood, making the request in a
confidential tone, and saying to him on his return, “You are so kind
for doing that. Thank you ever so much.” This will tend to get him in
the habit of doing favors for you and will increase his friendliness
toward you. Another way to establish more firmly his willingness to
be friendly is to make it a point to talk to him before school or at
recess about something in which you know he will be very much
interested—about his favorite pastime or sport.
There is no boy or girl who does not have some hobby, and after
you have made an earnest attempt to find out what that interest is
and have begun to make use of it in getting the pupil’s confidence,
you will have put into practice a great principle in discipline. Any
new idea which you can present regarding the hobby will greatly help
you to gain the confidence of the pupil. By a confidential tone and by
showing you are in sympathy with his interests, you can gradually
win his confidence. Whatever you do, do not appear to notice when a
pupil is disrespectful to you. If he has shown disrespect in the past,
simply set about at once to gain his confidence. If he ever mimics any
gesture you have made, do not take it seriously because, nine times
out of ten, you would get poor results. Either appear not to notice it
at all or, if you do notice it, assume that it did not bother you in the
least.
To punish a child for anything whatsoever, suggests to him
precisely the thing which we do not want to suggest. Whatever we
want a child to be, we must put the suggestion into his mind, that he
already is that very thing and approve him for whatever he does in
that direction.
The principle of initiative in coöperation should be used from the
first in case of a pupil that is extremely disobedient because of home
or outside influence. Many a teacher has invited such a pupil into his
home for a dinner or supper, and has entertained him with the best
the home afforded. In doing so he made the pupil understand that he
was interested in him. Often a walk or a drive which gives occasion
for a confidential talk will establish friendly relations between pupil
and teacher. A teacher must not cease to try to win the unfriendly
pupil. One such in a school can work great harm. The teacher must
strive to make friends of all his pupils.
Approve the child’s lessons and efforts. Whether it be numbers, or
reading, busy work, or drawing, the teacher must notice the effort
and progress, and by a pleased countenance and well chosen words
encourage the pupil. Whenever the teacher has a favor to bestow, she
should see that the unfriendly pupil gets his share of the favor. If she
is having a little play or song or game, she may appoint him as the
main character. She should frequently walk with him part or all of
the way home. Such treatment will win the child in a very short time,
and what is better, it will usually win the parents.
In case a disaffected child is unusually stubborn and absolutely
refuses to obey you, avoid the use of any commands to him until after
you have entirely gained his confidence. You may continue to
command and request other pupils around the stubborn child, but
simply refrain from asking that one to do anything. Make up your
mind that you are going to cater to this stubborn pupil for two or
three days in order to win his absolute confidence and thus lay a
foundation for more satisfactory conduct in the future.
By cater, we do not mean to allow the pupil to get ahead of you—
not at all. But it may be necessary to be a little forbearing. Present
absolutely nothing to him in a personal way except what you know
will be intensely interesting. As we said before, find out what the
pupil likes to do at home, on the playground, what he likes best to
talk about, and then make it a point to converse about those things
frequently when alone with him. Show great enthusiasm in talking
along the line of his interests. If he refuses to recite, get his
confidence and then ask questions, beginning with such as you are
sure he can answer in just a word or two.
(10) Neighborhood conditions. Sometimes a teacher’s work is
greatly hampered because of an unkindly spirit existing between the
parents of her pupils. Mothers often “get even” with their neighbors
by influencing their children against a neighbor’s son or daughter
who happens to be in school. Or a teacher may have used some
unwise methods on a child, or punished in a manner not satisfactory
to the parents. The parents retaliate by influencing their children
against the teacher.
Both situations will respond to the same treatment. By no means
must the teacher appear to resent this opposition. It is every
teacher’s duty to treat such pupils just as kindly as circumstances
permit. If the teacher is determined to win such parents he will
succeed, and in time they will become the best of friends. In all cases
where such a difficulty continues to exist and is annoying, it is the
teacher’s fault. To gain the mother’s love, is to gain the child’s love
also.
Sometimes gossip or misunderstanding causes parents to oppose
the teacher very bitterly. In such a case it is expedient that the
teacher go to see the parents and have matters understood, assuring
them she will use every means to do what is right and that the
parents’ assistance will be of great value.
5. Submission to the Ringleader
(1) Lower grades. Even in the kindergarten certain children in
every class stand out as leaders. In classes above the kindergarten
this characteristic of leadership appears more and more strongly. If
the leader throws his influence alongside that of the teacher, well and
good. The teacher has thus a strong ally. If the leader arrays himself
against the teacher, then the teacher’s own influence is weakened
and in many cases seriously crippled. In the lower grades such an
antagonistic attitude on the part of a single pupil may not be a very
serious matter, but in the higher grades, and especially in high
school, where the clan spirit dominates, a single pupil may turn an
otherwise successful term into a failure. It is highly important then
for the teacher to understand how best to overcome an unwholesome
leadership on the part of the pupil.
There is but one basis upon which the teacher can operate such
principles of control as will secure the hearty coöperation of the
pupils. That basis is the possession of their confidence. The teacher
must have the confidence of her pupils. It must be a confidence that
is deep and sympathetic. It cannot be superficial. The pupil is a keen
judge and will detect a superficial attitude of the teacher. But the