The Reconstruction Era: Primary Documents on Events from 1865 to 1877

Dickerson, Donna L. The Reconstruction Era: Primary Documents on Events from 1865 to 1877. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003. 432 pp. $65.

The delight of this and other books in the "Debating Historical Issues in the Media of the Time" series being issued by Greenwood Press is reading original newspaper and magazine articles, editorials, and essays from each time period. The Reconstruction Era joins the scries that has already issued similar works on the Revolutionary, Federalist, Antebellum, Civil War, Progressive, and World War I eras.

Donna Dickerson's introduction provides a brief overview of newspapers during the Reconstruction era, pointing out the editorial page remained the most important page of dailies and weeklies and newspapers feverishly embraced partisanship years after the partisan era of the media ended. As with the other books in the series, each section focuses on one of the important public...