ShmoopTube

00:00

[ musical flourish ]

00:03

And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by carpetbaggers,

00:07

portable floor decor for the modern woman.

00:10

Yeah.

00:11

All right, give this excerpt a read here, right here.

00:14

All right.

00:15

In general, how did Southerners react to the wave of Northerners

00:18

who migrated to the South after the Civil War?

00:22

And here are your potential answers.

00:23

[ water glugs ]

00:24

[ mumbles ]

00:27

[ mumbling continues ]

00:29

All right, you know the big migration of former slaves

00:32

to the North following the war? Well, there was also

00:35

a big migration of Northerners coming down to the South.

00:38

Some of them were abolitionists relocating for the noble work

00:42

of improving access to education.

00:44

The not-so-noble were businessmen looking to profit

00:47

from the chaos following five years of destructive conflict.

00:50

So let's see which answer best describes how Southerners reacted

00:53

to the folks who rode that midnight train down to Georgia.

00:57

Well, in general, did Southerners react to the wave of Northerners

00:59

with the feeling that A - they needed the Northerners' technical knowledge?

01:03

Well, actually, the economy remained predominantly agriculture-based

01:06

in the years following the war, so there wouldn't have been

01:08

any big need to share in technical knowledge.

01:11

So it's not A. Did Southerners

01:13

B - welcome the Reconstruction aid Northerners provided?

01:17

Well, they say there's no such thing as a free lunch,

01:19

and in the Southerners' case, there were a whole bunch

01:21

of strings attached to the relief coming from the North.

01:24

So that knocks out B.

01:25

Would Southerners have C - appreciated that Northerners

01:28

would accept low wages?

01:30

All those Northern businessmen that flooded the region after the war, you kidding?

01:34

Well, they were looking for a quick buck in bottom-rate prices.

01:36

So low wages definitely were not on the table.

01:39

So it can't be C, either.

01:41

Which means that Southerners D - mistrusted Northerners

01:44

and accused them of exploitation.

01:47

Four years of fighting brewed a lot of bad blood,

01:48

so when Northerners flooded the region following their victory,

01:51

Southerners were none too pleased with what they found

01:54

regardless of the Northerners' intentions.

01:56

So D is the right answer, and it looks like Reconstruction

01:59

might have been a few tools short of a toolbox.

02:02

[ hammer bangs ]

Full Transcript