1. In what ways did the popularization of literature such as  “The Lonely Crowd” affect views on 1950s conformity?

Questions to think about:

What were the failures of the Reconstruction and what were its successes?
The positive successes from the reconstruction were the reunification of the union, expansion of the South and North’s economy, more laws, the Freedmen’s Bureau, the compromise of 1877, and the Enforcement Act of 1870.
Essay #1 “With the military Reconstruction Acts, Congress gave the federal government unprecedented power to recognize the ex-confederate South politically, imposed political disabilities on leaders of the rebellion, and, most stunning of all, extended the elective franchise to southern black males, the great majority of whom had been slaves”.
The failures of the Reconstruction were the Ku Klux Klan, poverty, industrialization in the South, sharecropping and tenant farming, black codes, taxes, and Jim Crow Laws, which supported discrimination and racial segregation. In primary source 3, the different sections of the Louisiana Black Codes give the freedmen no rights. They cant even own houses or property in most areas.
2. Why did it collapse, to the extent that it did?
Reconstruction failed. After Union troops were pulled from the Southern States which participated in the Rebellion, The Democrats seized control of the State legislatures and business continued as usual. Southern states instituted a poll tax which began in Georgia and spread to other states in the South to prevent Blacks from exercising their 15th Amendment right to vote. A share-cropping, farm tenancy, and the crop-lien systems had replaced slavery. Furthermore, Blacks had been stripped of basic civil rights such as the right to vote or even carry firearms. New laws ensured compliance and violators were often jailed or imprisoned for petty offenses to acquire their labor on chain gangs and other pubic works projects. Perhaps the most devastating aspect of the period was the corruption and abuses incurred under the Freedmen Bureau which was created to help not only the former slaves and mulattoes, but other displaced persons and refugees.
In primary source 8, Lucy McMillan, a former slave in South Carolina, explains how the Klu Klux Klan came to her house, took away her husband, threatened to whip her, and burned down her property. Showing that reconstruction failed, and the blacks were not seen as equal to rights during this period.

3. How successful was the Union in reincorporating the southern states and people?
Seen in primary source #3, all the laws for the blacks and freemen are laid out. In the Louisiana Black Codes, 11 sections, all state strict laws people had to follow. Some being “Section 1: No Be it therefore ordained by the board of police of the town of Opelousas. That no negro of freedman shall be allowed to come within the limits of the town of Opelousas without special permission from his employers, specifying the object of his visit and the time necessary for the accomplishment of the same…” or “Section 8: No freedmen shall sell, barter or exchange any articles of merchandise or traffic within the limits of Opelousas without permission in writing from his employer or the mayor or president of the board…” The union failed at reincorporating the southern states, because the differences between the 2 sides still stayed. The promise of the South’s economy recovering, never went as planned. The South was based off of the slave system, and when turned to a machine based economy, it failed.

4. Did Reconstruction come to an end primarily because the North abandoned it or because it was opposed by the South?
“Sensibility had always been been in evidence, it now expressed itself as weariness with the issues of Reconstruction, as skepticism about the capabilities of freed people, as concerns about the expansion of federal powers, as revulsion over political corruption, and, especially, as exasperation with the ‘annual autumnal outbreaks’ in the the Deep South”. The south opposed it because of the strict laws that were put in place for them, and they were not given the freedom they were promised.

5. How did African Americans feel about the possibilities and the terrors of Reconstruction?
The African-Americans in the South were segregated through local and state legislatures passing laws that kept them separated from the the white society. The only jobs for the African-Americans were as domestics, agriculture, or the timber industry. The Ku Klux Klan was formed by whites to terrorize the blacks and keep them from voting or organizing for better jobs or politically active groups. Thousands of blacks were lynched for trying to better themselves.
“Yet through all of this, what appeared to be taking shape was less a ‘compromise’ than a shared political sensibility in northern ruling circles that questioned the legitimacies of popular democracy”.Dis