Chapter 10 - The Political Functions of Reconstruction Literature, Then and Now

Summary

This chapter examines the emergence of Reconstruction literature as a field of study within nineteenth-century American literature. What can we learn from the appearance of Reconstruction literature as an area of research now, given the troubled landscape of our own twenty-first century? I suggest an answer by focusing on the public political function that this body of writing represented: Reconstruction literature constituted the playing field for fierce debates surrounding Black citizenship and enfranchisement, federal government oversight, and Confederate punishment. Case in point is Albion W. Tourgée’s novel A Fool’s Errand (1879), which, when it appeared in 1879, was hailed as the “Uncle Tom’s Cabin of Reconstruction.” Deploying Tourgée as a representative Reconstruction writer, I ask what his novel’s varied reception by diverse Americans can teach us about the significance that fictional works held for postbellum policy debates, and what this state of affairs illuminates about the place of Reconstruction literature in the twenty-first century, particularly given the disappearance of nineteenth-century American literature as a dedicated hiring field in the academy today. Ultimately, I argue that to realize the promise of Reconstruction literature requires time and resources, and a reinvigoration of the role of the university in democratic society.