| Description |
xii, 324 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Series |
American history and culture
|
|
American history and culture (New York University Press)
|
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-305) and index. |
| Summary |
The end of slavery in the United States inspired conflicting visions of the future for all Americans in the nineteenth century, black and white, slave and free. The black child became a figure upon which people projected their hopes and fears about slavery’s abolition. As a member of the first generation of African Americans to grow up in freedom, the black child-freedom’s child-connoted a future where African Americans might enjoy the same privileges as whites: landownership, equality, autonomy. Yet this image was a nightmare for most white southerners. Even many northerners expressed doubts about the consequences of abolition for the nation and its identity as a “white” republic. From the 1850s and the Civil War to emancipation and the official end of Reconstruction in 1877, Raising Freedom’s Child examines slave emancipation and opposition to it as a far-reaching, national event with profound social, political, and cultural consequences. Mary Niall Mitchell analyzes a dizzying array of representations of the black child-letters, photographs, newspaper columns, court cases, and more-to illustrate how Americans contested and defended slavery, tracing sharp debates over black children’s education, labor, racial classification, and citizenship. Only with the triumph of segregation in public schools in 1877 did the black child lose its public role in the national struggle over civil rights, a role it would not play again until the 1950s--Publisher description. |
| Contents |
Emigration : a good and delicious country -- Reading race : rosebloom and pure white, or so it seemed -- Civilizing missions : Miss Harriet W. Murray, Elsie, and Puss -- Labor : Tillie Bell's song -- Schooling : we ought to be one people -- Conclusion : some mighty morning. |
| Subject |
African American children -- History -- 19th century.
|
|
African American children. |
|
History. |
| Chronological Term |
19th century |
| Subject |
Enslaved persons -- Emancipation -- United States.
|
|
Enslaved persons -- Emancipation. |
|
United States. |
| ISBN |
9780814757192 cl alkaline paper |
|
0814757197 cl alkaline paper |
|
