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Contesting Commemoration
The 1876 Centennial, Independence Day, and the Reconstruction-Era South
Jack D. NoeSeries: Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War(0)
About
In Contesting Commemoration: The 1876 Centennial, Independence Day, and the Reconstruction-Era South, Jack Noe examines identity and nationalism in the post-Civil War South through the lens of commemorative activity, namely Independence Day celebrations and the Centennial of 1876. Both events presented opportunities for whites, Blacks, northerners, and southerners to reflect on their identity as Americans. The often colorful and engaging discourse surrounding these observances provides a fascinating portrait of this fractured moment in the development of American nationalism.
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Reviews
"Jack Noe's trenchant account of how southerners engaged with the Fourth of July and the 1876 Centennial exhibition demonstrates the tortuous path toward sectional reconciliation in the postbellum United States. Consistently insightful and engaging, it is essential reading for anyone seeking to learn more about the ways in which the ex-Confederates not only rendered themselves American patriots bu
Robert J. Cook, author of Civil War Memories: Contesting the Past in the United States sin
"The 1876 Centennial came just as Reconstruction's attempt to create a more just, inclusive vision of the nation was collapsing. Contesting Commemoration is a detailed account of how southern whites were able to return to celebrating the nation's founding-but only on their terms. It is a compelling study that brings together scholarship on exhibitions, on Reconstruction politics, and on historical
Bruce E. Baker, author of What Reconstruction Meant: Historical Memory in the American Sou
"With a careful eye and a well-sharpened pen, Jack Noe illuminates the 1876 Centennial as a fraught, bitterly contested struggle over national identity and reconciliation in a period of ongoing battles over the future of Reconstruction and civil rights. In careful studies of struggles over representation by African Americans and by white Southern dissenters, Noe shows a Centennial as interesting a
Gregory P. Downs, author of After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War