William Archibald Dunning
Encyclopedia
William Archibald Dunning (1857-1922) was an American
historian
who founded the Dunning School
of Reconstruction historiography at Columbia University
, where he had graduated in 1881. Between 1886 and 1903 he taught history at Columbia, and was named a professor
in 1904. Born in Plainfield
, N. J.
, Dunning was among the founders of the American Historical Association
and AHA president in 1913.
says the Dunning School broke new ground by escaping the political polemics of the day and used "meticulous and thorough research...in an effort to determine the truth rather than prove a thesis." Beale states that, "The emphasis of the Dunning school was upon the harm done to the South by Radical Reconstruction and on the sordid political and economic motives behind Radicalism. Dunning strongly opposed slavery and his essays explain the legal basis for its destruction.
in a number of his books, including, Militant South and Reconstruction: after the Civil War. The viewpoint of Dunning and his students was sympathetic to the white Southerners. who they saw as being stripped of their rights by a vengeful North after 1865. They criticized the control over the black vote by Carpetbaggers. "Dunning admits that "The legislation of the reorganized governments, under cover of police regulations and vagrancy laws, had enacted severe discriminations against the freedmen in all the common civil rights."
In Black Reconstruction in America, Du Bois characterized Dunning's Reconstruction, Political and Economic as a "standard, anti-Negro" text. In turn Dunning ignored Du Bois and his Marxist interpretation of the history of Reconstruction which centered on the people freed from slavery.
Reconstruction in the United States
that Dunning and his students propounded was the dominant theory taught in American schools for the first half of the 20th century.
Dunning and his followers also criticized white Southerners who did not stand with the Confederacy during the Civil War and who joined the Republican Party after the war. Former Confederate leaders referred to the white Southern Republicans who had been Unionists during the war as Scalawags. They also referred to Northern whites who moved to the South after the war as Carpetbaggers. Both were derisive terms that Dunning and his followers popularized.
Reconstruction's caricatures include the "carpetbaggers", whom southern whites portrayed as greedy interlopers exploiting the South; the "scalawags", who were traitorous southern whites collaborating with the Yankees; the freedmen, whom the Dunning School portrayed as sometimes violent and depraved and at other times ignorant and lost; "copperheads" who were Northerners who promoted peace and opposed war measures taken by President Abraham Lincoln
and who were given that moniker by their Republican opponents; and former Confederates, who were the heroes of the story told by the Dunning School
of historians. Dunning and his followers portrayed former plantation owners as honorable people with the South's best interests in mind, according to a historical essay on myths of Reconstruction.[McCrary, Peyton, "The Reconstruction Myth" in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture]
Dunning was a Democrat who like most historians denounced the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson
. Dunning wrote from the point of view of the northern Democrats and painted the Radical Republicans as villains. The Dunning viewpoint saturated public memory in history textbooks until the dawn of the modern civil rights
era. Dunning School influence is evident in John F. Kennedy
's book Profiles in Courage, which admired Edmund G. Ross
, the Kansas Republican senator who cast the vote that acquitted Johnson.[Joshua Zeitz The New Republic, 18 January 1999, pp. 13-15]
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
who founded the Dunning School
Dunning School
The Dunning School refers to a group of historians who shared a historiographical school of thought regarding the Reconstruction period of American history .-About:...
of Reconstruction historiography at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, where he had graduated in 1881. Between 1886 and 1903 he taught history at Columbia, and was named a professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
in 1904. Born in Plainfield
Plainfield, New Jersey
Plainfield is a city in Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population increased to a record high of 49,808....
, N. J.
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, Dunning was among the founders of the American Historical Association
American Historical Association
The American Historical Association is the oldest and largest society of historians and professors of history in the United States. Founded in 1884, the association promotes historical studies, the teaching of history, and the preservation of and access to historical materials...
and AHA president in 1913.
Favorable critics
Historian Howard K. BealeHoward K. Beale
Howard Kennedy Beale was an American historian. He specialized in nineteenth and twentieth-century American history, particularly the Reconstruction Era. He also wrote biographies of Theodore Roosevelt, Edward Bates, and Charles A. Beard. Beale was born in Chicago to Frank A. and Nellie Kennedy...
says the Dunning School broke new ground by escaping the political polemics of the day and used "meticulous and thorough research...in an effort to determine the truth rather than prove a thesis." Beale states that, "The emphasis of the Dunning school was upon the harm done to the South by Radical Reconstruction and on the sordid political and economic motives behind Radicalism. Dunning strongly opposed slavery and his essays explain the legal basis for its destruction.
Hostile critics
Dunning's views were disputed by black historians W. E. B. Du Bois beginning in 1901, and John Hope FranklinJohn Hope Franklin
John Hope Franklin was a United States historian and past president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and...
in a number of his books, including, Militant South and Reconstruction: after the Civil War. The viewpoint of Dunning and his students was sympathetic to the white Southerners. who they saw as being stripped of their rights by a vengeful North after 1865. They criticized the control over the black vote by Carpetbaggers. "Dunning admits that "The legislation of the reorganized governments, under cover of police regulations and vagrancy laws, had enacted severe discriminations against the freedmen in all the common civil rights."
In Black Reconstruction in America, Du Bois characterized Dunning's Reconstruction, Political and Economic as a "standard, anti-Negro" text. In turn Dunning ignored Du Bois and his Marxist interpretation of the history of Reconstruction which centered on the people freed from slavery.
Historical influence
The interpretation of post-Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
Reconstruction in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
that Dunning and his students propounded was the dominant theory taught in American schools for the first half of the 20th century.
Dunning and his followers also criticized white Southerners who did not stand with the Confederacy during the Civil War and who joined the Republican Party after the war. Former Confederate leaders referred to the white Southern Republicans who had been Unionists during the war as Scalawags. They also referred to Northern whites who moved to the South after the war as Carpetbaggers. Both were derisive terms that Dunning and his followers popularized.
Reconstruction's caricatures include the "carpetbaggers", whom southern whites portrayed as greedy interlopers exploiting the South; the "scalawags", who were traitorous southern whites collaborating with the Yankees; the freedmen, whom the Dunning School portrayed as sometimes violent and depraved and at other times ignorant and lost; "copperheads" who were Northerners who promoted peace and opposed war measures taken by President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
and who were given that moniker by their Republican opponents; and former Confederates, who were the heroes of the story told by the Dunning School
Dunning School
The Dunning School refers to a group of historians who shared a historiographical school of thought regarding the Reconstruction period of American history .-About:...
of historians. Dunning and his followers portrayed former plantation owners as honorable people with the South's best interests in mind, according to a historical essay on myths of Reconstruction.[McCrary, Peyton, "The Reconstruction Myth" in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture]
Dunning was a Democrat who like most historians denounced the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States . As Vice-President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American...
. Dunning wrote from the point of view of the northern Democrats and painted the Radical Republicans as villains. The Dunning viewpoint saturated public memory in history textbooks until the dawn of the modern civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
era. Dunning School influence is evident in John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
's book Profiles in Courage, which admired Edmund G. Ross
Edmund G. Ross
Edmund Gibson Ross was a politician who represented the state of Kansas after the American Civil War and was later governor of the New Mexico Territory. His vote against convicting of President Andrew Johnson of "high crimes and misdemeanors" allowed Johnson to stay in office by the margin of one...
, the Kansas Republican senator who cast the vote that acquitted Johnson.[Joshua Zeitz The New Republic, 18 January 1999, pp. 13-15]
Books by Dunning
- Essays on the civil war and reconstruction and related topics (1897, 2nd ed. 1904) online edition
- History of Political Theories, Ancient and Mediœval (3 vol., 1902–20) vol 1 online; vol 2 online; vol 3 online
- History of Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu (1905)
- Reconstruction, Political and Economic, 1865–1877 (1907) online edition
- A Sketch of Carl Schurz's Political Career, 1869-1906 (with Frederic BancroftFrederic Bancroft-Biography:He was born in Galesburg, Illinois and was graduated with an A.B. from Amherst College and received a Ph. D. from Columbia University. He was a lecturer for one year at Columbia, and served as Librarian of the State Department from 1888 to 1892....
; 1908) - Paying for Alaska (1912)
- The British Empire and the United States (1914)
- Studies in southern history and politics (1914) online edition
Further reading
- Beale, Howard K. "On Rewriting Reconstruction History," American Historical Review. Vol. 45, No. 4 (Jul., 1940), pp. 807-827 in JSTOR
- Foner, Foner|Eric FonerEric FonerEric Foner is an American historian. On the faculty of the Department of History at Columbia University since 1982, he writes extensively on political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African American biography, Reconstruction, and historiography...
. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. 1988. - Du Bois, W.E.B.|W.E.B. Du BoisW.E.B. Du BoisWilliam Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor. Born in Massachusetts, Du Bois attended Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate...
. Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 (Touchstone: 1992 reissue) p. 179-180. - Franklin, John Hope|John Hope FranklinJohn Hope FranklinJohn Hope Franklin was a United States historian and past president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and...
. "Mirror for Americans: A Century of Reconstruction History" presidential address, American Historical Association. 1979.http://www.historians.org/info/AHA_History/jhfranklin.htm - McCrary, Peyton. "The Reconstruction Myth" in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (University of North Carolina Press: 1989) McCrary, a historian with the United States Department of JusticeUnited States Department of JusticeThe United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
taught at the University of Minnesota, Vanderbilt, and the University of South Alabama for 20 years. - Stephenson, Wendell Holmes. South Lives in History: Southern Historians and Their Legacy (1969)
- Zeitz, Joshua. The New Republic, 18 January 1999, pp. 13-15.