The Rosenwald Schools of the American South (review)

240Southwestern Historical QuarterlyOctober Democratic leadership to the state. Even Republican GovernorAdelbertAmes could not thwart the Democrats and their White Line army from regaining control of the state. In the state elections of 1875, the clash between Republicans and Democrats peaked when Governor Ames pleaded with President Grant to send federal troops to ensure a fair electoral process and to prevent white terrorists from disrupting Republican rallies in the state. Grant, apparendy influenced by national political trends, ignored the governor's plea for help, effectively allowing the Democrats and White Liners to wage a bloody campaign against their political adversaries. Following one of the most violent and corrupt elections in Mississippi's history, leading Democrats successfully regained political control of the state. From dieir position of power, they hastened the end of Reconstruction and ushered in the era ofJim Crow. In his final chapter, Lemann traces die evolution ofthe myths surrounding Reconstruction and chronicles how Americans came to demonizeYankees, carpetbaggers, scalawags, and African Americans, and lionize white Southern terrorists and Democratic leaders. This is perhaps die most significant chapter in this book. Even today die myth ofReconstruction remains strong in the psyche ofthe American populous. It is with great hope that Lemann's book will reach a wide audience, educating them on the realities ofReconstruction, both in Mississippi and in the broader South. For diis reason alone, Lemann's Redemptionshould be required reading for every student taking a course dealing with the subject of Reconstruction. Prairie View A&M UniversityKenneth Wayne Howell TheRosenwaldSchools oftheAmerican South. By Mary S. Hoffschwelle. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006. Pp. 402. Foreword, acknowledgments, author's note, illustrations, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 081302957. $39-95- cloth.) When thinking about the history of African American education, we often view it in terms ofthe heroic efforts ofmarginalized communities as they challenge the racist hostilities ofpublic schooling. Rarely, however, do we assume the ways in which such excluded groups effectively shaped mainstream education. In her latest book, The Rosenwald Schools ofthe American South, Mary Hoffschwelle, professor of history at Middle Tennessee State University, considers the monumental influence of Rosenwald schools that not only represented "African Americans' historical struggle for educationaljustice" (p. 271) but also contributed to the formation of public schooling in general in the early twentieth-century South. The Rosenwald School project was the brainchild of the wizard of Tuskegee, BookerT. Washington, and the president and later chairman ofthe board ofSearS, Roebuck and Co.Julius Rosenwald. In the mid-i 920s, the shrewd business-minded Rosenwald dedicated himself to philanthropy, especially the cause of African American education. He was eager to cooperate widi Washington, who willingly embraced white charity, after reading Up From Slavery. The two met in 1911 and discovered "that they shared a commitment to 'self-help' as well as a firm belief 2007Book Reviews241 that education could improve the lives of black Americans in the rural South" (p. 10). Between 1912 and 1932, the Rosenwald building project, with the donations of Rosenwald and the matching funds raised largely by African Americans in communities where die schools were built, reached a combined total of more than $9 million and established well over five thousand schools, of which one in five was African American. In writing her account, Hoffschwelle has undoubtedly benefited from the latest trends in material, social, and cultural history. Washington and Rosenwald tapped into the progressivist pedagogy ofthe early twentieth century that paid close attention to die relationship between material conditions and social development. The actual physical layout of the school, the lighting, sanitation, and ventilation were essential in shaping individual "experience and values" and advancing communities toward "social progress" (p. 3). More importandy, the Rosenwald schools were so impressive that they became models for soutfiern public education in general, which dien, Hoffschwelle argues, "created a visual vocabulary for southern rural schools that crossed the color line and suggested that all students could and should learn in professionally designed instructional environments" (p. 113). The project's administration revealed the racial structures endemic toJim Crow America with whites holding top positions and blacks occupying lower ones. But the spatial, cultural, and class distance between white and black agents did not undermine the project's overall goal...