The Dunning School was from 1900 to 1960 the dominant school of historiography regarding the Reconstruction period in American history, 1865-1877. It was named after Columbia University professor William Dunning, whose seminar trained many of the leading historians. In a series of state-by-state monographs, as well as large-scale histories, Dunning School historians argued that Reconstruction was badly handled after the Radical Republicans won the 1866 elections. They generally agreed with the policies of Abraham Lincoln and especially Andrew Johnson , and sharply condemned Ulysses Grant as corrupt. The saw the Carpetbaggers and Scalawags as corrupt, and believed the Freedmen were unready for full participation in politics. Worst of all, they said, the exclusion of ex-Confederates was a terrible mistake. In the 1940s a different approach was pioneered by Howard K. Beale and C. Vann Woodward. As disciples of Charles A. Beard they focused on greed and economic causation and downplayed the centrality of corruption. By 1960 a new school of neoabolitionist historians, riding the Civil Rights Movement rejected the Dunning interpretation. By and large the neoabolitionists praised the Radical Republicans, and especially the Freedmen. Historiography can refer to two separate notions about the study of history. ... In the history of the United States, reconstruction was the period after the American Civil War when the states of the breakaway Confederacy were reintegrated into the United States of America. ... Radical Republicans were certain Republicans in Congress and other federal and state leaders during the American Civil War and Reconstruction eras in U.S. history. ... Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865), sometimes called Abe Lincoln and nicknamed Honest Abe, the Rail Splitter, and the Great Emancipator, was the 16th President of the United States (1861 to 1865), and the first president from the Republican Party. ... Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the sixteenth Vice President (1865) and the seventeenth President of the United States (1865–1869), succeeding to the presidency upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. ... Ulysses Simpson Grant (April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was an American Civil War General and the 18th (1869–1877) President of the United States. ... American usage In the United States, the negative term carpetbagger was used to refer to a Northerner who traveled to the South after the American Civil War, through the late 1860s and the 1870s, during Reconstruction. ... The term scalawag or scallywag traces its origin to the post-Civil War era in the South of the United States. ... A freedman is a former slave who has been manumitted or emancipated. ... Comer Vann Woodward (November 13, 1908 - December 17, 1999) was a preeminent American historian focusing primarily on the American South and race relations. ... Charles Austin Beard (November 27, 1874 - September 1, 1948) was an American historian, author with James Harvey Robinson of The Development of Modern Europe (1907). ... Civil Rights Movement in the United States, political, legal, and social struggle to gain full citizenship rights for African American and to achieve racial equality. ...

Representative scholars besides Dunning include: E. Merton Coulter, Civil War and Readjustment in Kentucky (1926), J. W. Garner, Reconstruction in Mississippi (1901), W. L. Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama (1905), J. G. deR. Hamilton, Reconstruction in North Carolina (1914), W. W. Davis, The Civil War and Reconstruction in Florida (1913), J. S. Reynolds, Reconstruction in South Carolina, 1865-1877 (1905); C. W. Ramsdell, Reconstruction in Texas (1910), Francis Butler Simkins, South Carolina During Reconstruction (1932) and C. M. Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia (1915). Claude Bowers wrote The Tragic Era (1929), a popular history that echoed the school.

Secondary Sources

• Bright, David. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2000) a history of neoabolitionist opposition to reconciliationist visions, the search for North-South reunion, and the retreat from equality for African Americans as represented by the Dunning School.
• eNotes on Dunning
• short biography of Dunning
• Muller, Philip R. "Look Back Without Anger: A Reappraisal of William A. Dunning". Journal of American History 1974 61(2): 325-338. online at JSTOR at most colleges.

• Smith, John David. Slavery, Race and American History: Historical Conflict, Trends, and Methods, 1866-1953 (1999)

Primary Sources

• Coulter, E. Merton. The South During Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1947), best synthesis from the Dunning School.
• Dunning, William Archibald. Reconstruction: Political & Economic, 1865-1877 (1905), classic statement of Dunning School.
• "The Undoing of Reconstruction," by William A. Dunning (1901) by leader of Dunning School
• The Sequel of Appomattox, A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States by Walter Lynwood Fleming, (1918) full text of short overview from Dunning School.
• Fleming, Walter L. ed. Documentary History of Reconstruction: Political, Military, Social, Religious, Educational, and Industrial (1906).