EARLY YEARS / PREHISTORY TO 1873

Reconstruction and a New Social Order

Reconstruction was a period after the war when the U. S. Congress imposed a series of increasingly strong measures to bring the defeated southern states back into the Union-- minus their previous pro-slavery, pro-states rights and often anti-industrial views. Southerners resisted. Northerners who came south to support the new order were called “Carpetbaggers” for their small suitcases made of carpet pieces. Southerners who helped them were scorned and called “Scallywags.”