Joy Hakim

A History of US

Reconstructing America

1865-1890

Reconstructing America looks at life after the Civil War in the newly re-United States. Railroad tycoons are roaring across the country. New cities are springing up, and a new and different American West comes into being: a land of farmers, ranchers, miners, and city dwellers. Immigration is changing the mix of Americans; mostly the newcomers work hard and achieve. Some rare individuals make their mark: P.T.Barnum entertains. Rascally Boss Tweed steals from his constituents. Thomas Edison lights the world. Carry Nation wields a hatchet in her battle against alcoholism. And Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois have different ideas on how the newly freed African Americans should behave.

Quotes

"The thirteenth amendment was ratified on December 6, 1886. That did it. It ended slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation was now the law of the land."

"Like other Americans, cowboys were a mixture: some white, some black, some Mexican, some--like Jesse Chisholm--part Indian. Some were women. It was democratic out there on the trail.

"The biggest hit of all is George Henry Corliss's colossal steam engine--the world's largest machine. It looms 40 feet high in Machinery Hall. Steam from the Corliss engine turns wheels; those wheels pull belts strung overhead; and the belts make 8,000 smaller machines work. President Grant sets the big steam engine going."