A Tale as Old as Time: Changing Interpretations of Democratic and Republican Polarization during Reconstruction

This paper started in the beginning of the 2018 spring semester with the reading of Eric Foner\u27s A Short History of Reconstruction. This book started with a historiography, which students modeled their own off of, and continued with an extremely detailed documentation of Reconstruction. After this my instructor had the class propose a topic and choose 15 relevant sources. Then the class chose 8 sources to create an annotated bibliography with. In March I began the writing process slowly and tediously, but competition with a friend created a positive and fun environment. As we worked, we read our papers to each other, improving our papers steadily. I then met with my professor, Dr. Meisami, and polished my paper from there. The paper is an amalgamation of the semester\u27s work and something to be proud of for all students in ASI 120