C. Vann Woodward's The Strange Career of Jim Crow
In the field of history, it is rare that an author actually comes to shape the events discussed in their writing. However, this was the case for C. Vann Woodward and his book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow. First published in 1955, it discusses this history of race relations in America, more specifically the Jim Crow laws he equates with the segregation of races. Woodward argues that segregation itself was a fairly new development within the South, and did not begin until after Reconstruction ended. He further argues that since the South has seen so much change, citing the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the development of the Jim Crow laws, it is possible for more changes to occur in a movement away from segregation. Though to a modern reader this seems like a logical argument following the events of history as they occurred, it must be remembered that Woodward was writing during the time period in which all of this was happening and nothing was certain. As William S. McFeely states in his afterword, what Woodward “so modestly stated, was, in fact, a call for the overthrow of what was perceived to be the very grounding of Southern society.” Unlike most historians, Woodward wrote about segregation and the Civil Rights Movement with such proximity that he came to affect public opinion of the time period as well as the final outcome of events. Furthermore, Woodward wrote with what we can now see to be accurate foresight as well as with a clear understanding of historical writing and the challenges it can pose.
In order to support his argument that Jim Crow laws were not developed during the era of slavery in the South, the traditional belief, but rather later in ...
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...ctive. But someone has to make a beginning.”
Making a beginning is exactly what C. Vann Woodward accomplished with the publication of The Strange Career of Jim Crow. A Southerner, he rebelled against other interpretations, unafraid of provoking anger or disagreement during his era. It is his work which laid the groundwork for future publications and in turn greatly influenced Americans’ opinions of his era and thereafter. Any criticisms of his interpretations would be due to his inability to see the future, and these were usually mistakes he attempted to remedy through revisions and later publications of the book, which, in a true testament to its importance, has yet to go out of print. When the rare occurrence of a historical work affecting the course of history occurs, such as this one, the importance of both the work and the historian becomes clear.
...isely. This book has been extremely influential in the world of academia and the thinking on the subject of segregation and race relations in both the North and the South, but more importantly, it has influenced race relations in practice since it was first published. However, Woodward’s work is not all perfect. Although he does present his case thoroughly, he fails to mention the Negroes specifically as often as he might have. He more often relies on actions taken by whites as his main body of evidence, often totally leaving out the actions that may have been taken by the black community as a reaction to the whites’ segregationist policies.
Woodward’s The Strange Career of Jim Crow immediately became an influential work both in the academic and real worlds because of the dramatic events that coincided with the book’s publication and subsequent revisions. It was inspired from a series of lectures that Woodward delivered at the University of Virginia in 1954 on the Jim Crow policies that the South had reverted to in order to deal with the dynamics of its Negro population. The original publication debuted in 1955, just prior to the explosive events that would occur as part of the civil rights movement climax. Because of these developments in less than a decade, the book’s topic and audience had drastically changed in regard to the times surrounding it. Woodward, realizing the fluidity of history in context with the age, printed a second edition of the book in 1966 to “take advantage of the new perspective the additional years provide” and “to add a brief account of the main developments in ...
To really understand the motivation of C. Vann Woodward’s motives of his book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, one must look at Mr. Woodward’s life. Comer Vann Woodward was born and raised in Vanndale, AK in Cross County on November 13, 1908. The town was named after his mother’s aristocratic family. He attended Henderson- Brown College in Arkadelphia, AK for two years before transferring to Emory University in Atlanta, GA in 1930, where he graduated. He received his PHD in history at the University of North Carolina and after he took graduate classes at Columbia University where he was introduced and influenced by the Harlem Renaissance. Woodward taught at Johns Hopkins University from 1946-61 and at Yale University from 1961-67. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for Mary Chestnut’s Civil War and won the Bancroft Prize for Origins of the New South*. It was when he was teaching at Johns Hopkins when he wrote the book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow.
Although some of Woodward’s peripheral ideas may have been amended in varying capacities his central and driving theme, often referred to as the “Woodward Thesis,” still remains intact. This thesis states that racial segregation (also known as Jim Crow) in the South in the rigid and universal form that it had taken by 1954 did not begin right after the end of the Civil War, but instead towards the end of the century, and that before Jim Crow appeared there was a distinct period of experimentation in race relations in the South. Woodward’s seminal his...
C. Vann Woodward wrote The Strange Career of Jim Crow for a purpose. His purpose was to enlighten people about the history of the Jim Crow laws in the South. Martin Luther King Jr. called Woodward’s book, “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” (221) Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote revealed the true importance of Woodward’s book. Woodard’s book significance was based on it revealing the strange, forgotten facets of the Jim Crow laws. Assumptions about the Jim Crow’s career have existed since its creation. Woodward tried to eliminate the false theories as he attempted to uncover the truths. Woodward argued the strangest aspects of Jim Crow’s career were, it was a recent innovation and not created in the South
Imagine a historian, author of an award-winning dissertation and several books. He is an experienced lecturer and respected scholar; he is at the forefront of his field. His research methodology sets the bar for other academicians. He is so highly esteemed, in fact, that an article he has prepared is to be presented to and discussed by the United States’ oldest and largest society of professional historians. These are precisely the circumstances in which Ulrich B. Phillips wrote his 1928 essay, “The Central Theme of Southern History.” In this treatise he set forth a thesis which on its face is not revolutionary: that the cause behind which the South stood unified was not slavery, as such, but white supremacy. Over the course of fourteen elegantly written pages, Phillips advances his thesis with evidence from a variety of primary sources gleaned from his years of research. All of his reasoning and experience add weight to his distillation of Southern history into this one fairly simple idea, an idea so deceptively simple that it invites further study.
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Tom Robinson and Bob Ewell’s case brought out the historical realities of Jim Crow and the Great Depression. Oh how it was a depressing sight, Jim Crow laws pushing the blame and hatred onto our dark skinned brothers and sisters. Even though the town was floating with Jim Crow ideals and hatred for Tom, Atticus willingly bore some of that hatred by taking the case. Tom should have won this case hands down if it were based on integrity and character, but instead he had to be judged on the account of eleven white racist jurors. The historical realities of the Great Depression and Jim Crow ideals were illustrated promptly in how the top lived and how they handled state and city
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..., John E., Strickland, A.J. Thompson, Arthur “Whole Foods Market In 2006: Mission, Core Values, and Strategy”, Crafting & Executing Strategy 15th Ed., McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2007
Hurricane Sandy was definitely a very difficult time for everyone in the northeast region. Initially I did not realize how hard it was going to hit us, because the previous year Hurricane Irene did not have such a strong effect on my town. Of course we did not leave the house, and there were a few fallen trees, however it did not affect us like Hurricane Sandy did.
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NHS CHOICES INFORMATION. (06/01/2011). DO I HAVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE TREATMENT? Available: http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/899.aspx?CategoryID=68&SubCategoryID=156. Last accessed 13th Oct 2012.
The drama surrounds the story of a young woman called Anowa who disobeys her parents by marrying Kofi Ako, a man who has a reputation for indolence and migrates with him to a far place. Childless after several years of marriage Anowa realises that Kofi had sacrificed his manhood for wealth. Upon Anowa’s realisation Kofi in disgrace shoots himself whiles Anowa too drowns herself.