A Short History of Reconstruction [Updated Edition]

by Eric Foner

Only a tiny minority achieved professional status during Reconstruction, although the number of lawyers and doctors increased in the 1870s thanks to the new black universities. Artisans, perhaps a quarter of employed blacks in most Southern towns and cities, comprised the largest group above the ranks of the unskilled. But instead of prospering, their economic position steadily worsened. Denied access to credit, threatened by an influx of Northern manufactured goods, and driven from many skilled crafts by white employers and competitors, black artisans were mostly confined to trades that required little capital, like carpenter, blacksmith, brickmason, and shoemaker, or to occupations like barber, traditionally avoided by whites.