Book description
Anna Dickinson's career as an orator began in her teenage years, when
she gave her first impassioned speech on women's rights. By the age of
twenty-one, she was spending at least six months per year on the road,
delivering lectures on abolitionism, politics, and public affairs, and
establishing herself as one of the nation's first celebrities. In March
1875, Dickinson departed from Washington, D. C., for an extended tour of
the South, curious to see how far the region had progressed in the
decade after Appomattox. In A Tour of Reconstruction, editor J. Matthew
Gallman compiles Dickinson's commentary and observations to provide an
honest depiction of the postwar South from the perspective of an
outspoken radical abolitionist. She documents the continuing effects of
the Civil War on the places she visited, and true to her inquisitive
spirit, questions the societal developments she witnessed, seeking out
black and white southerners to discuss issues of the day. Like many
northern observers, she focuses on documenting race relations and the
state of the southern economy, but she also details the public's
reactions to her appearances, providing some of her most telling
commentary. A Tour of Reconstruction, punctuated with a wealth of
historical observations and entertaining anecdotes, is the story of one
woman's experiences in the postbellum South. J. Matthew Gallman,
professor of history at the University of Florida, is the author of
America's Joan of Arc: The Life of Anna Elizabeth Dickinson. He lives in
Gainesville, Florida.
