Reconstructing a Nation

Unit Resources

Unit Reference Materials

Burr, Virginia Ingraham, ed. The Secret Eye: The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848-1889. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1990.

Dodge, Grenville Mellen. How We Built the Union Pacific Railway. Worcester, MA: Readex Microprint, 1974.

Nash, Gary B., Julie Roy Jeffrey, John R. Howe, Peter J. Frederick, Allen F. Davis, and Allan M. Winkler. The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society, 6th ed. New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2004. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc.

Vigilante, David. The Port Royal Experiment: Forty Acres and A Mule—A Unit of Study for Grades 8-12. National Center for History in the Schools. Los Angeles: University of California, 1991.

Wood, Peter, Jacqueline Jones, Thomas Borstelmann, Elaine Tyler May, and Vicki Ruiz. Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States. New York: Pearson Education Inc., 2003. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc.

Further Reading

Clinton, Catherine. Tara Revisited: Women, War, and the Plantation Legend. Abbeville Press, 1995.

Foner, Eric. Reconstruction, America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2002.

Foner, Eric and Olivia Mahoney. America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War. Louisiana State University Press, 1997.

Litwack, Leon F. Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. Vintage, 1980.

Simpson, Brooks. The Reconstruction Presidents. University Press of Kansas, 1998.

The University of North Carolina, Documenting the American South Web site. http://docsouth.unc.edu/

National Center for History in the Schools Teaching Units

The Freedmen's Bureau: Catalyst for Freedom? (PDF)

The Ghost Dance: The Indian Removal after the Civil War (PDF)

Organization of American Historians: Talking History Radio Program

Teaching History
Jacquelyn Hall joins Host Bryan Le Beau to discuss the teaching of American history in the schools. Hall is Julia Cherry Spruill Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and past president of the Organization of American Historians.

Airdate: September 12, 2005.
Listen now: MP3 Format
Running time: 29 minutes

For our commentary, James Sheehan offers us his thoughts on how we learn from history. Sheehan is Dickason Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Modern European History at Stanford University and President of the American Historical Association.