List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. Reconstruction and Its Reach, 1865-1901; 2. Captains and Cohorts; 3. Teachers and Teaching; 4. The Schoolhouse--Inside and Out; 5. Funding and Survival; 6. The Progressive Urge; 7. Special Days and Festivals, Rites and Rituals; 8. Black Schools in a Dual System; 9. 1915--A Watershed Year?; 10. Conclusion: Then and Since; Notes; Bibliographical Essay; Index
Summary
This richly researched and impressively argued work is a history of public schooling in Alabama in the half century following the Civil War. It engages with depth and sophistication Alabama's social and cultural life in the period that can be characterized by the three "R"s: Reconstruction, redemption, and racism. Alabama was a mostly rural, relatively poor, and culturally conservative state, and its schools reflected the assumptions of that society
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 163-206) and index