Jessica Ziparo
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469635972
- eISBN:
- 9781469635989
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469635972.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
In the volatility of the Civil War, the federal government opened its payrolls to women. Although the press and government officials considered the federal employment of women to be an innocuous ...
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In the volatility of the Civil War, the federal government opened its payrolls to women. Although the press and government officials considered the federal employment of women to be an innocuous wartime aberration, women immediately saw the new development for what it was: a rare chance to obtain well-paid, intellectually challenging work in a country and time that typically excluded females from such channels of labor. Thousands of female applicants from across the country flooded Washington with applications. Here, Jessica Ziparo traces the struggles and triumphs of early female federal employees, who were caught between traditional, cultural notions of female dependence and an evolving movement of female autonomy in a new economic reality. In doing so, Ziparo demonstrates how these women challenged societal gender norms, carved out a place for independent women in the streets of Washington, and sometimes clashed with the female suffrage movement. Examining the advent of female federal employment, Ziparo finds a lost opportunity for wage equality in the federal government and shows how despite discrimination, prejudice, and harassment, women persisted, succeeding in making their presence in the federal workforce permanent.Less
In the volatility of the Civil War, the federal government opened its payrolls to women. Although the press and government officials considered the federal employment of women to be an innocuous wartime aberration, women immediately saw the new development for what it was: a rare chance to obtain well-paid, intellectually challenging work in a country and time that typically excluded females from such channels of labor. Thousands of female applicants from across the country flooded Washington with applications. Here, Jessica Ziparo traces the struggles and triumphs of early female federal employees, who were caught between traditional, cultural notions of female dependence and an evolving movement of female autonomy in a new economic reality. In doing so, Ziparo demonstrates how these women challenged societal gender norms, carved out a place for independent women in the streets of Washington, and sometimes clashed with the female suffrage movement. Examining the advent of female federal employment, Ziparo finds a lost opportunity for wage equality in the federal government and shows how despite discrimination, prejudice, and harassment, women persisted, succeeding in making their presence in the federal workforce permanent.
Crystal N. Feimster
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469624181
- eISBN:
- 9781469624204
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469624181.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This chapter focuses on African American women's resistance to sexual violence during the transition from slavery to freedom and how their campaigns against rape influenced national debates about the ...
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This chapter focuses on African American women's resistance to sexual violence during the transition from slavery to freedom and how their campaigns against rape influenced national debates about the emerging meanings of freedom and black citizenship. During Reconstruction, the Republican governments lost political power in the South, paving the way for night riders and Klansmen to rape and sexually brutalize black women for political gain. In response, black women renewed their efforts to redefine citizenship to include all women and their right to determine when and with whom they had sexual relations. Citing the sexual vulnerability of slave women and their efforts to defend themselves, this chapter examines how black women and their allies shaped the Republican Party's vision of racial equality from the 1850s until the end of Reconstruction. It shows how black women's radical campaigns for sexual justice and Republican ideas about legal equality combined to make visible the emergence of a new sexual citizenship that culminated during the Civil War.Less
This chapter focuses on African American women's resistance to sexual violence during the transition from slavery to freedom and how their campaigns against rape influenced national debates about the emerging meanings of freedom and black citizenship. During Reconstruction, the Republican governments lost political power in the South, paving the way for night riders and Klansmen to rape and sexually brutalize black women for political gain. In response, black women renewed their efforts to redefine citizenship to include all women and their right to determine when and with whom they had sexual relations. Citing the sexual vulnerability of slave women and their efforts to defend themselves, this chapter examines how black women and their allies shaped the Republican Party's vision of racial equality from the 1850s until the end of Reconstruction. It shows how black women's radical campaigns for sexual justice and Republican ideas about legal equality combined to make visible the emergence of a new sexual citizenship that culminated during the Civil War.
David J. Bodenhamer
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199360444
- eISBN:
- 9780190254339
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199360444.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This introductory chapter sets out the book’s purpose, which is to explore the dynamic of power and liberty by examining seven major themes in American constitutional history—federalism, balance of ...
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This introductory chapter sets out the book’s purpose, which is to explore the dynamic of power and liberty by examining seven major themes in American constitutional history—federalism, balance of powers, property, representation, equality, rights, and security. The book does not contain everything that readers might want to know about constitutional history and interpretation. Instead, it examines core concepts historically, ending with their contemporary expression. The goal is to explain the Constitution as an organic, contested, and dynamic frame for government in which past concerns and experiences influence present understanding.Less
This introductory chapter sets out the book’s purpose, which is to explore the dynamic of power and liberty by examining seven major themes in American constitutional history—federalism, balance of powers, property, representation, equality, rights, and security. The book does not contain everything that readers might want to know about constitutional history and interpretation. Instead, it examines core concepts historically, ending with their contemporary expression. The goal is to explain the Constitution as an organic, contested, and dynamic frame for government in which past concerns and experiences influence present understanding.
Barbara A. Gannon
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807834527
- eISBN:
- 9781469603124
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807877708_gannon
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
In the years after the Civil War, black and white Union soldiers who survived the horrific struggle joined the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)—the Union army's largest veterans' organization. This ...
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In the years after the Civil War, black and white Union soldiers who survived the horrific struggle joined the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)—the Union army's largest veterans' organization. This study chronicles black and white veterans' efforts to create and sustain the nation's first interracial organization. According to the conventional view, the freedoms and interests of African American veterans were not defended by white Union veterans after the war, despite the shared tradition of sacrifice among both black and white soldiers. This book, however, challenges this scholarship, arguing that although black veterans still suffered under the contemporary racial mores, the GAR honored its black members in many instances and ascribed them a greater equality than previous studies have shown. Using evidence of integrated posts and veterans' thoughts on their comradeship and the cause, the book reveals that white veterans embraced black veterans because their membership in the GAR demonstrated that their wartime suffering created a transcendent bond—comradeship—which overcame even the most pernicious social barrier: race-based separation. By upholding a more inclusive memory of a war fought for liberty as well as union, the GAR's “Won Cause” challenged the Lost Cause version of Civil War memory.Less
In the years after the Civil War, black and white Union soldiers who survived the horrific struggle joined the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)—the Union army's largest veterans' organization. This study chronicles black and white veterans' efforts to create and sustain the nation's first interracial organization. According to the conventional view, the freedoms and interests of African American veterans were not defended by white Union veterans after the war, despite the shared tradition of sacrifice among both black and white soldiers. This book, however, challenges this scholarship, arguing that although black veterans still suffered under the contemporary racial mores, the GAR honored its black members in many instances and ascribed them a greater equality than previous studies have shown. Using evidence of integrated posts and veterans' thoughts on their comradeship and the cause, the book reveals that white veterans embraced black veterans because their membership in the GAR demonstrated that their wartime suffering created a transcendent bond—comradeship—which overcame even the most pernicious social barrier: race-based separation. By upholding a more inclusive memory of a war fought for liberty as well as union, the GAR's “Won Cause” challenged the Lost Cause version of Civil War memory.
Bridget Ford
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469626222
- eISBN:
- 9781469628028
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469626222.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This concluding chapter describes Louisville’s “Emancipation Day,” which took place on July 4, 1865. Orchestrated by the city’s leading black churches, this remarkable day saw slavery declared ...
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This concluding chapter describes Louisville’s “Emancipation Day,” which took place on July 4, 1865. Orchestrated by the city’s leading black churches, this remarkable day saw slavery declared finally dead by the Union commander in the state before tens of thousands of bondsmen and women who had fled masters in Kentucky’s interior. The chapter shows how this unique day unfolded, and reveals the particular messages delivered by African American leaders. It argues that Kentucky’s unusual “Emancipation Day” happened because of bonds of union forged before and during the Civil War. The epilogue also makes a case for the historical significance of efforts to imagine an inclusive society before 1865, despite continued efforts to undermine equality in the United States following the Civil War.Less
This concluding chapter describes Louisville’s “Emancipation Day,” which took place on July 4, 1865. Orchestrated by the city’s leading black churches, this remarkable day saw slavery declared finally dead by the Union commander in the state before tens of thousands of bondsmen and women who had fled masters in Kentucky’s interior. The chapter shows how this unique day unfolded, and reveals the particular messages delivered by African American leaders. It argues that Kentucky’s unusual “Emancipation Day” happened because of bonds of union forged before and during the Civil War. The epilogue also makes a case for the historical significance of efforts to imagine an inclusive society before 1865, despite continued efforts to undermine equality in the United States following the Civil War.
Jessica Ziparo
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469635972
- eISBN:
- 9781469635989
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469635972.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
Chapter 7 explores the equal pay debates of the Civil War era. The government paid women less than it paid men, although many performed the same or equivalent work. Between late 1864 and early 1870, ...
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Chapter 7 explores the equal pay debates of the Civil War era. The government paid women less than it paid men, although many performed the same or equivalent work. Between late 1864 and early 1870, Congress received at least 740 female federal employee signatures on eleven separate petitions asking for greater pay. Some of these women argued that since they performed the same work as men, they should be paid the same. The efforts of early female federal employees and labor feminists to obtain equal pay for equal work engendered a precocious debate in Congress that almost succeeded in earning equal pay for women and forced Congressmen to engage in dialogues about gender equality and the role the federal government should play in society. Despite the exciting rhetoric of equality and justice in these debates, Congress did not set the standard of equal pay for women underscoring that although women had made much progress in federal work during the Civil War era, much work remained to be done. Surprisingly, petitioners did not receive much assistance from the women’s suffrage movement. The absence of the suffrage movement in these debates arguably disadvantaged both causes.Less
Chapter 7 explores the equal pay debates of the Civil War era. The government paid women less than it paid men, although many performed the same or equivalent work. Between late 1864 and early 1870, Congress received at least 740 female federal employee signatures on eleven separate petitions asking for greater pay. Some of these women argued that since they performed the same work as men, they should be paid the same. The efforts of early female federal employees and labor feminists to obtain equal pay for equal work engendered a precocious debate in Congress that almost succeeded in earning equal pay for women and forced Congressmen to engage in dialogues about gender equality and the role the federal government should play in society. Despite the exciting rhetoric of equality and justice in these debates, Congress did not set the standard of equal pay for women underscoring that although women had made much progress in federal work during the Civil War era, much work remained to be done. Surprisingly, petitioners did not receive much assistance from the women’s suffrage movement. The absence of the suffrage movement in these debates arguably disadvantaged both causes.
Joseph P. Reidy
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814785690
- eISBN:
- 9780814785737
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814785690.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This chapter focuses on the responses of free blacks to the Civil War. During the war, African American volunteers from the Northern states took up the cause of citizenship rights where the military ...
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This chapter focuses on the responses of free blacks to the Civil War. During the war, African American volunteers from the Northern states took up the cause of citizenship rights where the military service of their fathers and grandfathers and the abolitionist and the state convention movements had left it: in full expectation that the government would reward their sacrifices with full freedom, equality, and citizenship. They defined citizenship in their own terms through their complex loyalties to the free black communities in which they lived, to the slave communities to which many Northern blacks had close ties, and to the dominant white society that influenced their lives. Without their efforts, the prevailing antebellum concepts of citizenship may not have undergone such scrutiny during the Civil War era.Less
This chapter focuses on the responses of free blacks to the Civil War. During the war, African American volunteers from the Northern states took up the cause of citizenship rights where the military service of their fathers and grandfathers and the abolitionist and the state convention movements had left it: in full expectation that the government would reward their sacrifices with full freedom, equality, and citizenship. They defined citizenship in their own terms through their complex loyalties to the free black communities in which they lived, to the slave communities to which many Northern blacks had close ties, and to the dominant white society that influenced their lives. Without their efforts, the prevailing antebellum concepts of citizenship may not have undergone such scrutiny during the Civil War era.
Daniel W. Crofts
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469627311
- eISBN:
- 9781469627335
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469627311.003.0014
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
Epilogue Two shows how the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment—the enlarged definition of national citizenship, and the requirement that states provide equal protection, due process, and ...
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Epilogue Two shows how the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment—the enlarged definition of national citizenship, and the requirement that states provide equal protection, due process, and privileges or immunities to all citizens—was crafted in 1866 by yet another Republican congressman from Ohio, John A. Bingham, the most radical dissenter from the prewar political consensus that slavery in the states could never be touched by the federal government. Bingham believed that the promise of equality always was implicit in the Constitution; he insisted that it be made explicit. He thereby created what has become the Constitution’s most important section. Bingham’s handiwork assured that the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s had far stronger constitutional foundations than the pre–Civil War abolition movement. Long ignored, twisted, and misinterpreted, the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment moved to center stage a century after it first was written. President John F. Kennedy’s watershed speech of June 11, 1963, and Martin Luther King’s oration at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, made it morally imperative that the constitutional transformation of the Civil War era be heeded.Less
Epilogue Two shows how the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment—the enlarged definition of national citizenship, and the requirement that states provide equal protection, due process, and privileges or immunities to all citizens—was crafted in 1866 by yet another Republican congressman from Ohio, John A. Bingham, the most radical dissenter from the prewar political consensus that slavery in the states could never be touched by the federal government. Bingham believed that the promise of equality always was implicit in the Constitution; he insisted that it be made explicit. He thereby created what has become the Constitution’s most important section. Bingham’s handiwork assured that the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s had far stronger constitutional foundations than the pre–Civil War abolition movement. Long ignored, twisted, and misinterpreted, the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment moved to center stage a century after it first was written. President John F. Kennedy’s watershed speech of June 11, 1963, and Martin Luther King’s oration at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, made it morally imperative that the constitutional transformation of the Civil War era be heeded.
Mark Wahlgren Summers
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781469617572
- eISBN:
- 9781469617596
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469617572.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This chapter discusses the ebb and flow of Unionism in the south. It analyzes President Andrew Johnson's pardoning policy; southern movements aimed at rebuilding white militia to keep order and hold ...
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This chapter discusses the ebb and flow of Unionism in the south. It analyzes President Andrew Johnson's pardoning policy; southern movements aimed at rebuilding white militia to keep order and hold the freedpeople in awe, and the disarming of the black population; and northern vagrancy laws. By 1866, it became clear that conservatives saw their every concession as tactical and temporary until they got the federal government off their back. Far from serving as a way-station on the road to full equality, the Black Codes were the absolute most that southern states were prepared to concede and only as long as they had to.Less
This chapter discusses the ebb and flow of Unionism in the south. It analyzes President Andrew Johnson's pardoning policy; southern movements aimed at rebuilding white militia to keep order and hold the freedpeople in awe, and the disarming of the black population; and northern vagrancy laws. By 1866, it became clear that conservatives saw their every concession as tactical and temporary until they got the federal government off their back. Far from serving as a way-station on the road to full equality, the Black Codes were the absolute most that southern states were prepared to concede and only as long as they had to.
Bridget Ford
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469626222
- eISBN:
- 9781469628028
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469626222.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This chapter argues that writers and educators in the Ohio River valley helped to make enlightenment a powerful bond of union before the Civil War by imagining a world in which every person ...
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This chapter argues that writers and educators in the Ohio River valley helped to make enlightenment a powerful bond of union before the Civil War by imagining a world in which every person regardless of race could fulfil his or her own potential. This chapter describes the work of black and white antislavery reformers in Cincinnati and Louisville who pursued far-reaching efforts to eradicate prejudice and foster feelings of respect and belonging in daily life through universal public schools. Cincinnatians and Louisvillians also produced a unique body of fictional literature, plumbing the deeper meaning of widespread literacy and creating the grounds for cross-race identification through the act of reading. Published on the eve of the Civil War, this literature wholeheartedly endorsed the idea of a biracial society with benefits and opportunities universally available.Less
This chapter argues that writers and educators in the Ohio River valley helped to make enlightenment a powerful bond of union before the Civil War by imagining a world in which every person regardless of race could fulfil his or her own potential. This chapter describes the work of black and white antislavery reformers in Cincinnati and Louisville who pursued far-reaching efforts to eradicate prejudice and foster feelings of respect and belonging in daily life through universal public schools. Cincinnatians and Louisvillians also produced a unique body of fictional literature, plumbing the deeper meaning of widespread literacy and creating the grounds for cross-race identification through the act of reading. Published on the eve of the Civil War, this literature wholeheartedly endorsed the idea of a biracial society with benefits and opportunities universally available.
