HIST 3401 Final Exam - Essay Example

? HIST 3401 Final Exam From the American Revolution to the Reconstruction era, how did the lives of women and African Americans change in the United States? In other words, if you look across the long span from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century, what transformations do you observe? If you do not think the lives of either of these groups changed dramatically, explain using relevant sources. The time period between the American Revolution and the Reconstruction were one of uncertainly and instability in American socio-politics. Having valiantly won its freedom from the British Crown, the fledgling nation was taking cautious first steps toward self-assertion. But even as America’s presence as a global power was taking root, its society was beset by longstanding issues. The social issues could be broadly divided across the twin axes of race and gender. Racial discrimination of colored people and gender oppression of women were two chronic malaises. At the time of the Declaration of Independence and the framing of the Constitution, blacks were considered as unequal to whites. This is reflected in the early laws of the country where segregation and slavery were legally sanctioned. The basis of these draconian laws was the prejudiced conception of blacks as only three-fifth human (whereby whites are the benchmark of full humanity). Such unscientific beliefs garbed in the language of logic and reason had stalled black emancipation during the century in question. It wasn’t until the Civil War, with the escalating conflict between the Confederates and the Unionists that blacks saw a glimpse of hope. In light of this fact it is fair to say that the century preceding the Reconstruction were one of bleak misery for blacks. Women fared none too better during this period. In 1865, “North Carolina law granted former masters preference in the apprenticeship of former slaves’ children. Although mothers and fathers both endured the hardships of these losses, women’s experiences diverged significantly from men’s.” (Zipf, p.9) Christian Evangelicalism offered hope of equality for blacks and women. Though it provided opportunities for liberation, it was ultimately limited by race and gender just as the democratic reform movement had hit a stumbling block. Sometimes holy scriptures were themselves invoked in justifying racial and gender oppression in Christian institutions. The biblical sanctioning of human bondage proved very convenient for perpetrators of slavery. But where Evangelicalism helped is in the Baptists’ and Methodists’ earnest resolution to convert slaves. They “welcomed slaves at their revivals, encouraged black preachers, and above all else, advocated secular and spiritual equality. Many of the early Baptist and Methodist preachers directly challenged slavery.” (Goldfield, Chapter 10, p.10-7) Looking at it as a promise of liberty and deliverance, the slaves received the evangelical gospel in loud, joyous, and highly emotional revivals. They made it integral to their own culture, “fusing Christianity with folk beliefs from their African heritage.” (Goldfield, Chapter 10, p.10-7) In this milieu, such religious communities offered the erstwhile oppressed opportunities for voice, authority, and labor within a system that also had its share of flaws. The new freedoms that could be availed of therein outweighed the disadvantages. 4. Did women have an impact on American political culture throughout the span of the nineteenth century? Why or why not? In many ways, women are history’s largest minority. Their voice was for most part suppressed under male domination. It is only in recent decades that they have attained legal and nominal equality with men. America has been a theatre for women’s rights going back to the late 18th and 19th centuries. The Catholic Church provided a semblance of political emancipation for women. This it achieved through allowing Sisters to assume high offices within the rigid hierarchy of the institution. Though there was a degree of democracy and representation within the Church, in practice, “internal governments combined authoritarian and hierarchical structures with participatory and egalitarian elements.” This meant that Sisters were subject to the authority of officers, but in turn influenced the officers through elections and consultations. In this somewhat compromised democratic system some members were disenfranchised to vote. Even in the absence of a sharply divided class system, Sisters were either classified as belonging to ‘lay’ or ‘choir’ groups. The tensions surrounding the two-tier system “that assigned lay sisters an inferior status boiled over in the climate of late-nineteenth-century America and, in response to lay sisters’ protests, communities modified their rules, creating a new equilibrium.” (Adelman, 2011, p.138) Further, “Women’s historians have become attentive to Catholic women religious, demonstrating that as teachers, nurses, and protosocial workers, sisters exercised an active and visible public role and were empowered by their membership in an order...there were internal political cultures of these orders and the potential within these political systems for expression and authority”. (Adelman, 2011, p.139) Even as white men began to enjoy their freedoms and privileges, women (of all races) and African Americans (of both sexes) continued to be deprived of some fundamental rights. During the Revolutionary Era, free black males could become eligible for voting if they owned a minimum property. The New Jersey’s constitution of 1776 was especially remarkable in that it even entitled single women and widows to vote if they owned property. But even this degree of equality was to fade in the coming decades. Even the law allowing apprenticeship of children of freed slaves impacted the two genders differently. In the years of Reconstruction of the U.S. South, the station of black women contrasted sharply with that of white women, white men and black men. Black women found themselves in a position of seclusion – “a void where freedwomen’s status – unlike that occupied by elite and poor white women – was not yet rigidly defined by law or custom.” (Zipf, p.9) By the turn of the 19th century, race and gender became the arbiters of political participation, having replacd wealth and status as the criteria. Even the 1807 New Jersey constitution that allowed voting on a taxation criteria excluded women and free black men. In many states, “the same constitutional conventions that embraced universal suffrage for white men deprived black men of the vote or burdened them with special property qualifications. Moreover, none of the ten states that entered the Union from 1821 to 1861 allowed black suffrage. African Americans protested in vain.” (Goldfield, Chapter 10, p. 10-5) Works Cited: Goldfield, David. The American Journey: A History of the United States, Concise Edition, 2nd Edition, Pearson, 2011 Sarah Mulhall Adelman, Empowerment and Submission: The Political Culture of Catholic Women's Religious Communities in Nineteenth-Century America, Journal of Women's History, Volume 23, Number 3, Fall 2011, pp. 138-161 Zipf, Karin, Reconstructing ‘Free Woman’: African-American Women, Apprenticeship, and Custody Rights during Reconstruction, Journal of Women’s History, 2000, Vol.12, No.1 (Spring) Read More