books.google.com - With the abolition of slavery in the American South, the largest slave population in the hemisphere gained independence from institutional powers that had absorbed its social being into masters' and mistresses' households. Ex-slaves seized emancipation as the occasion to reclaim their persons and their...https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Work_of_Reconstruction.html?id=AHQ0hY7ZhKgC&q=Foner&utm_source=gb-gplus-shareThe Work of Reconstruction
