Historian Richardson ties the North and West into the post-Civil War story that usually focuses narrowly on the South, encompassing the significant people and events of this profoundly important era and weaving together the experiences of real individuals.
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Historian Richardson ties the North and West into the post-Civil War story that usually focuses narrowly on the South, encompassing the significant people and events of this profoundly important era and weaving together the experiences of real individuals.
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In "West from Appomatox", Professor Heather Cox Richardson focuses on the role of the American West in defining the American experience and the American character in the decades following the Civil War to the present. Richardson is Associate Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
The story of Reconstruction is usually viewed as involving the victorious North and the defeated South. In the opening chapters of her book, Richardson gives a good brief summary of the Reconstruction era. But she does not stop there. She goes on to show how the West became emblematic during Reconstruction, for both Northerners and Southerners, of the promise of America. The idealized image of the American West came to symbolize "individualism. economic opportunity, and political freedom." (p. 221) In many ways, Richardson's view of the importance of the West is similar to that of the great early historian of this period, Frederick Jackson Turner. Richardson indeed brefly discusses (pp 281-283) Turner's famous thesis of the end of the American frontier and its significance.
The West became attractive to Northerners as a place for independence and opportunity, where the corruptions of large businesses and the agitation of the labor unions could be put aside. For Southerners, the West became a place to escape from the poverty that followed the Civil War and from the difficulties of Reconstruction. With the idealizing of the West, for Richardson, came a view that all Americans shared the same interests and the same ways of achieving success -- that they were "working their way up together." (p.1) This view led to the formation of a broad middle class, opposed on one side to the large concentrations of economic power in corporations and financial institutions and on the other side to "special interest groups" such as labor unions, African Americans, the poor, and strident advocates of women's rights. The emerging middle class viewed these groups as seeking special favors and entitlements while the middle class saw the role of the government as preserving impartiality and equality in its treatment of all people. The groups on the outside of this consensus, in their turn, pointed to structural factors in the United States which promoted inequality and unfairness and which required government intervention to correct. The middle class also tended to overlook the many affirmative government actions necessary to sustain its own view of America.
Richardson develops her narrative from the Reconstuction Era through the first appearance of "Liberal Republicanism" in 1872, to the terms of the reforms of Grover Cleveland, and through President McKinley and the Spanish American War. The political figure that most exemplifies, for Richardson, the spirit of this era is Theodore Roosevelt, who gets a great deal of attention in his early reforming years in New York City, in his venture to the West, as the leader of the Rough Riders on San Juan Hill and as the President. Richardson also devotes a great deal of attention to Owen Wister's novel, "The Virginian" as emblematic of American values at the beginning of the 20th Century.
Richardon's narrative tells of both broad events and of individuals that she sees as representative of some aspect of the development of the United States during the post-Civil War period. These individuals include, among others, former Confederate General Wade Hampton, Julia Ward Howe, the African American cowboy Nat Love, Buffalo Bill, Samuel Gompers, Indian leaders such as Sitting Bull, Geronimo and the Commanche leader Quanah. Their stories are told together with the broader historical narrative of Richardson's account, and sometimes interfere with its flow.
Richardson sees in the rise of the American middle class that followed the Civil War the sources of the divisions that continue to characterize American society between those who favor government intervention to assist disadvantaged groups and those who oppose it, even while benefiting from government activism themselves. Richardson finds much to be said for both sides, and for the opportunity for advancement and independence created by the emerging middle class, even though her sympathies clearly lie on the side of an activist government role. She writes, (p. 7): "America is neither excellent nor oppressive; rather it is both at the same time. In 1865, Americans had to reconstruct their shattered nation. Their solution "reconstructed" America into what it is today."
This is a thoughtful study of American history with provocative observations on the American character.
