A "Carpetbagger" in South Carolina
Dublin Core
Title
A "Carpetbagger" in South Carolina
Description
A personal record of a white Northerner, Louis F. Post, recounting his experience moving to South Carolina to work for the US Attorney for the District of South Carolina in 1870. The account was written for and published in the Journal of African American History in 1925. The source aims to fairly and objectively document the legal, social, and cultural landscape of South Carolina from the perspective of a Northerner doing public work in the Reconstruction-era South. The source is intended for a mostly Northern audience, but effort is made to improve understanding of both Northern and Southern perspectives on the other, as well as to document how various social and political forces manifested themselves socially.
This source is a direct account of one man’s migration from North to South, documenting the changes and challenges he encountered. Despite previously ordained political power, Post was presented with constant challenges to his social and cultural authority, restricting his mobility within society. From this source, we may learn of the priorities of a political regime seated in the North taking power in the South, as well as gain a detailed snapshot of various social forces and organizations at play in that struggle. As this source is highly anecdotal, it is worth exploring how much of his experience was ubiquitous to the rest of the South and the experience of other types of Northerners who made similar migrations.
Further Suggested Reading:
Carl H. Moneyhon, “Carpetbaggers,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed February 18, 2025, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/carpetbaggers.
Fleming, Walter Lynwood, ed. Documentary History of Reconstruction: The Union League of America. Vol. 2. AH Clark Company, 1907.
Marten, James. “The Making of a Carpetbagger: George S. Denison and the South, 1854-1866.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 34, no. 2 (1993): 133–60. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4233009.
Owens, Susie Lee. The Union League of America: Political Activities in Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Virginia, 1865-1870. New York University, 1943.
Reynolds, John Schreiner. Reconstruction in South Carolina, 1865-1877. State Company, 1905.
This source is a direct account of one man’s migration from North to South, documenting the changes and challenges he encountered. Despite previously ordained political power, Post was presented with constant challenges to his social and cultural authority, restricting his mobility within society. From this source, we may learn of the priorities of a political regime seated in the North taking power in the South, as well as gain a detailed snapshot of various social forces and organizations at play in that struggle. As this source is highly anecdotal, it is worth exploring how much of his experience was ubiquitous to the rest of the South and the experience of other types of Northerners who made similar migrations.
Further Suggested Reading:
Carl H. Moneyhon, “Carpetbaggers,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed February 18, 2025, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/carpetbaggers.
Fleming, Walter Lynwood, ed. Documentary History of Reconstruction: The Union League of America. Vol. 2. AH Clark Company, 1907.
Marten, James. “The Making of a Carpetbagger: George S. Denison and the South, 1854-1866.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 34, no. 2 (1993): 133–60. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4233009.
Owens, Susie Lee. The Union League of America: Political Activities in Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Virginia, 1865-1870. New York University, 1943.
Reynolds, John Schreiner. Reconstruction in South Carolina, 1865-1877. State Company, 1905.
Source
Post, Louis F. "A ‘Carpetbagger’ in South Carolina." The Journal of Negro History 10, no. 1 (1925): 10-79.
Citation
“A "Carpetbagger" in South Carolina,” The Kudzu Experience, accessed July 21, 2025, https://kudzu.ecdsomeka.org/items/show/128.