Upheaval in Charleston
Earthquake and Murder on the Eve of Jim Crow
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2.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
History and suspense combine in this scholarly account of a city recovering from the Civil War and rocked by an earthquake and murder.
On August 31, 1886, a massive earthquake centered near Charleston, South Carolina, sent shock waves as far north as Maine, down into Florida, and west to the Mississippi River. When the dust settled, residents of the old port city were devastated by the death and destruction.
Upheaval in Charleston is a gripping account of natural disaster and turbulent social change in a city known as the cradle of secession. Weaving together the emotionally charged stories of Confederate veterans and former slaves, Susan Millar Williams and Stephen G. Hoffius portray a South where whites and blacks struggled to determine how to coexist a generation after the end of the Civil War.
This is also the story of Francis Warrington Dawson, a British expatriate drawn to the South by the romance of the Confederacy. As editor of Charleston’s News and Courier, Dawson walked a lonely, dangerous path, risking his life and reputation to find common ground between the races. Hailed as a hero in the aftermath of the earthquake, Dawson was denounced by white supremacists and murdered less than three years after the disaster. His killer was acquitted after a sensational trial that unmasked Charleston’s underworld of decadence and corruption.
Combining careful research with suspenseful storytelling, Upheaval in Charleston offers a vivid portrait of a volatile time and an anguished place.
“Recommended for those who appreciate books on natural disasters, American history, and the secret goings-on of the political world.”—Library Journal
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1886 an earthquake devastated Charleston as thoroughly as one did San Francisco 20 years later. South Carolina historians Williams (A Devil and a Good Woman) and Hoffius (co-editor, The Landscape of Slavery) present a vivid account of the disaster and the political aftermath. Civic leaders, including the book's hero, Frank Dawson, the pugnacious but progressive editor of the city's leading newspaper, organized to provide relief. Although widely praised for his effort, Dawson had influential enemies who thought blacks were benefiting disproportionately from the relief effort. Antiblack violence was encouraged by the rising populist, viciously antiblack movement, led in South Carolina by Ben Tillman. Then in a bizarre incident, a neighbor infatuated with his French au pair murdered Dawson in 1889. Elected governor in 1890, Tillman pushed through strict Jim Crow laws. The authors make an unconvincing claim that the quake formed a turning point in the oppression of Southern blacks, but deliver a solid history of an obscure disaster and an enlightening portrait of a Southern city in the final stages of snuffing out black gains from Reconstruction. Illus.; map.
