A Victorian Views Reconstruction: The American Diary of Samuel Augustus Barnett

Abstract

A VICTORIAN VIEWS RECONSTRUCTION: The American Diary of Samuel Augustus Barnett Emily K. Abel At the conclusion of the Civil War, hundreds of visitors from Europe and the northern United States toured the South and recorded their impressions in voluminous diaries and letters. These accounts have formed a major source for historians of the Reconstruction. Samuel Augustus Barnett, a prominent British social reformer, wrote a short journal for his family during a trip to America in 1867, which was recently found among his collected papers. Although Barnett did not venture outside the cities and spoke to members of the middle class almost exclusively, his observations furnish further information about the economic condition of the South and Southern reactions to defeat and to the beginning of Congressional Reconstruction. In addition, the diary reveals the social assumptions from which the Victorians viewed the Reconstruction. Samuel Barnett was one of the leaders who, towards the end of the nineteenth century, sought to arouse his contemporaries to the injustices and inequalities of their society. He did this as a member of the establishment, indignant about the selfishness and parochialism of his class. He was born in Bristol in February, 1844, the son of a manufacturer . Following his graduation from Oxford in June, 1865, he spent a year and a half as a master at Winchester College, a prominent public school, in order to earn enough money to travel to the United States. He embarked on a two-and-a-half month trip on April 6, 1867. Immediately upon his return, he began his career as a social reformer. While serving as a curate in London, he helped to organize the first district committee of the Charity Organization Society, an important philanthropic association. In 1873 he married and became vicar of a church in East London. His decision to reside in this working-class community was a highly unusual one for a man of his background at the time. Residential segregation of the classes in cities was almost complete. Upper-class Englishmen shielded themselves from all unnecessary contact with the poor and even leading radicals confessed their own ignorance about the way the other half actually lived. As vicar of St. Jude's, Barnett attempted to fill the gap in moral and cultural leadership created by the flight of the wealthy from East London. He " I wish to thank the Greater London Record Office for permission to publish portions of the diary, document GLRO/F/BAR/557. 135 136CIVIL WAR HISTORY campaigned for better housing, served as a member of local government boards and philanthropic associations and brought adult education within reach of members of the community. In 1883 Barnett founded Toynbee Hall, the first settlement house, as a means of enabling other young men to follow his example. If a large group of Oxford and Cambridge graduates resided in the community and engaged in practical philanthropy, harmony between the classes might be advanced. By 1900 the settlement had developed into a center of social investigation and reform. Instead of restricting their activities to traditional charitable enterprises, the settlement residents sought to apply new political, social and educational theories to the problems they found around them. It was at Toynbee Hall that many of the men who were later instrumental in establishing the British welfare state first formulated their social policy. Barnett changed with the institution and, as warden, he encouraged this gradual broadening of the settlement's concerns. He spoke less about providing the poor with the example of a leisured class and more about solving the nation's fundamental social and economic problems. Upon his appointment as Canon of Westminster in 1906, Barnett resigned the position of warden but continued to watch closely over the settlement. He died in June, 1913. Barnett's influence lay as much in the force of his personality and writings as in the institution he founded. He wrote frequently for the leading periodicals of his day and remained in close contact with men who were prominent in the fields of government, journalism and social reform. His ponderous, moralizing tone was inspiring to many of his contemporaries who accepted even his homilies as wisdom. W. H. Beveridge , Charles Booth...