On American history textbooks and integration in the South: Woodrow Wilson and the rhetoric of division and reunion 1829–1889

Abstract

In the South, competing attitudes favoring segregation or integration were products of a vast “communication mosaic,” myriad messages or “bits” spread over time and media. Early, predictive assessments suggested, though, that integration eventually would prevail because Americans are “moral conscious,” typically acting with “high national and Christian precepts.” For Southerners, however, that “American Creed” received indirect but vital corroboration from historians as opinion leaders. This process of rhetorical influence is illustrated here with an analysis of Woodrow Wilson's popular textbook Division and Reunion 1829–1889, and its message on behalf of the pragmatic complement of morality: economic prosperity.