An Intellectual Historiography of Race and Race Science

An Intellectual Historiography of Race and Race Science

Today intellectuals in history and other disciplines examine the idea of race even though biologists and geneticists no longer believe in the biological existence of race.[1]  The question of race and the science of race are fertile ground for historians that seek to understand how our progenitors dealt with the question of race. Today it is a commonly held belief among scholars that race is a social construction. It is important to understand the historiography of race because by understanding the thought that led to large portions of this country’s population being subjugated for no other reason than the color of their skin we can as a country move beyond such prejudices.  By examining a sample of books published within the last fifty years, it is possible to compare how the author’s examination of the topic has changed over the last half-century.

One of the most important works in understanding race and racism is White Over Black: American Attitudes Towards the Negro, 1550 – 1812 by Winthrop Jordan. Written in 1968 it has stood the test of time and is still well received. Annette Gordon-Reed stated in a 2012 review of White Over Black that, “White Over Black remains a signal achievement in American historiography, a rich and analytical stylistic bequest to early American scholarship.”[2]  This mirrors the review it received soon after it was released in a 1968 review.  Historian Michael Kamen said of White Over Black, “it stands as one of the major achievements in American historical scholarship in our time.”[3]  The primary scholarly argument is that slavery did not cause racism or vice versa, rather they seem to generate each other.[4]  A view shared by James Campbell and James Oates, historians from Northwestern, in their review of White Over Black written in 1993, “Elizabethan attitudes toward African blacks did not constitute racism and cannot explain the origins of slavery in North America.”[5]  Prior to Jordan’s interpretation, the question of did slavery cause racism or did racism cause slavery was the subject of the Handlin-Degler debate, which Handlin believed that Africans were treated early on by the English as indentured servants and only after the economic pressures of the new world did Africans became associated with slavery.  It was that association that led to the ideology of black inferiority, whereas Degler argued that Africans were subjected to very discriminatory treatment from the beginning and economics may have given rise to slavery and racism developed later but prejudice was crucial in the decision to enslave Africans.[6]  By providing a powerful argument that rejected both Handlin and Degler’s theses, Jordan has remained relevant, as pointed out by Gordon-Reed, “the ‘origins debate’ continues,…But his [Jordan] treatment of the question of how slavery emerged from racial ideology in White Over Black was a powerful intervention that helped set the terms of the discussion and will likely continue to do so in the future.”[7]

Though White Over Black has retained its relevance over the decades since it was originally published it does not mean that it is not subject to criticism by historians.  One major point of contention was Jordan’s treatment of Thomas Jefferson, who Jordan used to illustrate the dilemma of North American slavery.[8]  Then on page 481 Jordan writes of Jefferson “the most intense, extensive and extreme formulation of anti-Negro ‘thought’ offered by any American in the thirty years after the Revolution.”[9]  As pointed out by Campbell and Oates, “the sheer density of evidence, combined with Jordan’s refusal to resort to simple explanations, imparts an almost Delphic quality to parts of the analysis.”[10]  Another point of contention is the lack of emphasis placed on Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings.[11]  A position that he backtracked on in the article “Hemings and Jefferson: Redux”.[12]  Campbell and Oates points out that Jefferson’s miscegenation would have been treated differently today.[13]  Though as Campbell and Oates elucidates, despite its shortcomings, White Over Black is still a masterpiece.[14]

On the heels of White Over Black came another book significant in the canon of American history on race, George Fredrickson’s The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 (1971).  The Black Image did not garner the attention upon its debut as White Over Black, which won both the Bancroft prize and a national book award.[15]  As stated by Mia Bay, the author of To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B Wells, “[The Black Image] still stands alone as a detailed survey of nineteenth-century white racial thought. Untroubled by interpretative rivals, this book is still assigned and read as the definitive guidebook to the nineteenth century racial thought more than a quarter of a century after its initial publication.”[16]  Bay points out in her 1999 review of the Black Image that,

Unlike other classics of the early 70s, such as Eugene Genovese’s Roll Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1972), Fredrickson’s book did not generate voluminous and fruitful scholarly controversies, nor inspire monograph-length debates. Instead, it received respectful reviews and passed quietly into American historiography’s canon of graduate reading lists and frequently cited works.[17] 

One of the reasons that The Black Image was somewhat overlooked at the time it debuted was that by concentrating on the period between 1817-1914 Fredrickson, unlike Jordan, was not concerned with whether racism proceeded slavery or vice versa.  Because of this, Fredrickson did not address the Handlin-Degler debate. Though Bay points out that Fredrickson “was most interested in was the belief in the biological or genetic inferiority of black people—a form of racism which, he maintains, rarely appears in print prior to 1830.”[18]  This interpretation was also made in 1974 by Carnegie Mellon’s, David Fowler, who stated, “the book’s [The Black Image] version of the growth of white racism fits the accepted picture: egalitarianism, such as it was, peaked in the 1830s.”[19]

Another way Black Image distinguished itself from other historical works of the time was that Black Image was an intellectual history when most works published at the time were social history.[20]  A point also made by Fowler who opens his 1974 review by stating, “historians have needed a unified treatment of American white racist thought in the nineteenth century. This strong and lucid book goes far toward filling the need.”[21]  Bay demonstrates the nature of the book by stating, “Fredrickson’s book surveyed the racial views of few hundred prominent white Americans, almost all of whom were male. Moreover, it focused on racial ideas instead of analyzing the economic and social forces that produced racial opposition.”[22]

Even though The Black Image is a study of elites the book does not delineate a variety of investments in whiteness and demonstrates they extended across class boundaries. This puts Fredrickson in opposition to Fitzhugh’s characterization of the antebellum South as a “seigneurial” society because in Fredrickson’s view the South was a “Herrenvolk democracy” or a society that was Democratic to the master race, but tyrannical for subordinate groups.[23]

Another area that Fredrickson covers is the complex interplay of racist ideas in class interests, and how the rise of the American school of ethnology coincided with the popularization of the idea of Afro-Americans being biologically inferior. Fredrickson also revises the interpretations of several historians. For instance, Robert McColley wrote in his work Slavery in Jeffersonian Virginia that Virginians relied significantly on a racial argument and handed down the model theory of American racism.  Fredrickson points out this is misleading because it is taken almost entirely from Jefferson’s tentative statements about black inferiority and taken in its entirety demonstrates that anti-slavery forces are so weak there was no need to develop racism in order to sustain the institution of slavery.[24] Another case for that could be made for the revisionism of Fredrickson as pointed out by Fowler who stated, “He [Fredrickson] offers brief revisions of interpretations by… [William] Stanton (Nott was more racist than scientist).”[25]  More than forty years after it was written The Black Image in the White Mind remains a foil to any work that attempts to reduce racial thought to a subject described wholly based on class by demonstrating the importance of ideas, anxieties and economics.[26]

In 1979, Ronald Takaki perhaps took up the gauntlet thrown down by Fredrickson. Takaki’s work Iron Cages:  Race and Culture in the Nineteenth-Century America, “utilizing Marx’s concept of bourgeois ideology as maximizing self-denial and estrangement, Takaki also draws upon their Gramscian model of cultural hegemony.”[27]  Takaki’s ambitious work differs from most in that he has chosen to analyze white racial thought towards African-Americans, American Indians, and Chinese all in the same work, which draws accolades from John Haller the author of Eugenics:  Hereditary and Attitudes in American Thought.[28]  Takaki also provides insight into the role of racism in maintaining racial and class subordination especially during the antebellum period.[29]

            However, Takaki is criticized by his reviewers on numerous points, “had Takaki read more in the medical and scientific literature of the era, he probably would have expanded his theme to encompass the self-images of Western culture opposed to simply American society.”[30]  Herbert Shapiro of the University of Cincinnati states, “there is a tendency to see northern white society in relation to racism as a monolith, a conclusion assumed rather than demonstrated...”[31]  Shapiro also points out that, “in seeking to explore the racist aspects republicanism, Takaki omits from the picture the other side of the coin, the link of republicanism to abolitionism and the advocacy of racial equality.”[32]  In a review published in the Journal of Southern History it is stated, “Certainly the most objectionable aspect of the book is its unremitting denunciations of industrialization and loss of craftsmanship and creativity.”[33]  The review goes on to say, “Perhaps the old American Studies school overdid the praise of American democratic advance; Takaki, however, swings too far the other way.”[34]  By providing a Marxist view of the problem of racism Takaki adds much to the debate of white races constructed, by those who created society.

Three years later Nancy Stepan wrote the first book to examine the relationship between race and science over an extended period of time.[35]  Though the main thrust of this book is based on race science as it developed in Great Britain, Stepan demonstrates that there is a great deal of exchange of ideas among practitioners of race science across the Atlantic. For instance, Samuel Morton appears throughout Stepan’s text.[36]   Though Stepan’s work is widely well received, it was not without criticism.

Perhaps the most vocal critic was Frank Spencer. Spencer accused Stepan of presentism.[37]  Spencer also seems to disagree with Stepan on the amount of influence that the United States had on their British counterparts.  This can be seen in the article published in “Brill” where Spencer states, “… it is evident that this approach has led Stepan to suggest that the emergence of racism and racial theory in Europe was due in large part to slavery in the New World, rather than stemming principally from the intellectual concerns of 18th-century natural science.”[38]  Though perhaps the biggest criticism of Stepan’s work by both Spencer and Greta Jones is that Stepan implies that she will concentrate initially on science and not involve social or political context.[39] [40]

However, Stepan answers this criticism in an article published in “Brill” where she states, “I believe Spencer means to associate me with those in the history of science to view science not as a uniquely distinctive form of knowledge but as a cultural product.  Indeed, I do view science in this way, and believe by placing natural knowledge in its ‘cultural context’ we gain a more accurate sense of how science is made.”[41]  It is corroborated by the passage in her book that reads,

Scientists who studied race in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were not isolated then any more than they are today, in a ‘Scientific Republic’ of their own, but with participants in the larger society in which they lived and worked. They inherited from this larger society distinct social, philosophical, metaphysical, theological, political and aesthetic traditions, as well as scientific ones.[42]

Despite their criticism, both Jones and Spencer state that The Idea of Race and Science is a work that would be helpful to those who taught the history of race. In fact, Spencer stated that Stepan, “does provide an overview which hitherto has not been available.”[43]  He goes on to say, “…I intend to use this book but will recommend to my students that they read it in conjunction with texts of Jordan (1968) [White Over Black], Stocking (1968) [Race, Culture and Evolution], Stanton (1960) [Leopards Spots], and Haller (1971) [Outcasts From Evolution].”[44]

In 1994, Audrey Smedley wrote Race in North America: Origins and Evolution of a Worldview. In this work, Smedley, who is professor emerita of anthropology and African-American studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, wrote an ambitious synthesis of work that traces the beginnings of the concept of race. Smedley although, not a historian, receives high praise on her work.  Carl Degler writes of Racism in North America, “whence emerges the concept of race in American society? That is the central concern of this lucid book by an anthropologist, who writes good analytic history.”[45]  Smedley states that this book is an analytical study and should not be read as a “conventional” history.[46]  Smedley’s purpose is to specify and analyze the ideological “ingredients of which the idea of race was composed and to identify the cultural context that nourishes them.[47]  Degler supports this when he writes, “Audrey Smedley opens appropriately with the etymology of the term ‘race’ and ends with a sophisticated analysis of where the idea fits into modern scientific analysis.”[48]  Degler’s assessment is shared with Vernon Williams Junior from the University of Indiana who wrote, “Tracing the origin and transmogrifications of the idea of race from early modern Europe through the twentieth century, Smedley succeeds in demonstrating how and why the nagging and seemingly perennial idea of race has such an obdurate persistence.”[49]

Smedley’s work is well received by historians.  It is not universally so, as Jordan writes of Smedley’s work, “it lacks the sense of feel for the past that comes from intimate acquaintance with original materials.”[50]  Jordan is also critical of Smedley’s overemphasis on the English and her omission of the Dutch when discussing the racial attitudes of European countries.[51] The fact that Jordan was so critical of Smedley’s work does not completely exclude Smedley from historical relevance.  Smedley draws heavily from Fredrickson and even more so from Jordan, so it seems that she is well acquainted with the secondary research.

In 1999, Mia Bay wrote The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas About White People, 1830-1925. In this work of intellectual history, Bay “addresses the efforts of African Americans to come to terms with race and the role of blacks within the race based ethnology of nineteenth and early twentieth-century America.”[52]  This work of scholarship fills a void in the current canon of race scholarship.[53]  This sentiment is echoed by Wilson Moses in his review of The White Image in the Journal of American History when he writes, “this work will stand among the most authoritative in the field… it will be added to the select list of indispensable works in the history of African American thought.”[54]

Bay’s thesis “that during the nineteenth century African American intellectuals increasingly accepted and rationalized race.”[55]  This is supported by Waldo Martin who writes, “Bay proposes that race rather than nation/class is the primary conceptual and analytical tool for blacks in this period working through the problems of whiteness.”[56]  As one might garner from the title, Bay’s work parallels that of Fredrickson, especially in what Fredrickson called “romantic radicalism”[57]  Which Fredrickson defines as, “the Negro as a pathetically inept creature who was a slave to his emotions.”[58]  Fredrickson goes on to say, “whereas scientists and other ‘practical’ men saw only weakness, others discovered redeeming virtues and even evidence of black superiority.”[59]

Though Bay’s work has been well received, it has also garnered some criticism.  Cary Wintz writes, “In section two Bay attempts to analyze the racial thoughts of African American slaves… and it is not entirely successful.”[60]  The reason he attributes this lack of success is weakness of Bay’s sources, specifically slave narratives and WPA oral history interviews.[61]  Other criticisms include Dain stating, “…several historians have recently shown.  A growing body of work on nineteenth-century African-American thought attests that figures like Easton, Frederick Douglas…or James McCune Smith were more self-conscious about the absurdities and paradoxes of race thinking than Bay allows.”[62]

Yet as Wintz states, “these shortcomings, however, do not detract significantly from the importance or value of this well-researched, well-documented book.”[63]  This is a sentiment that is echoed by Martin who states, “This fine intellectual history deftly explores the paradox of using their inherently hierarchical and contested concept of race to argue for a common humanity… Bay’s study thus succeeds admirably.”[64]

Three years later (2002) Bruce Dain wrote A Hideous Monster of the Mind: American Race Theory and the Early Republic, in which he states that he is expanding on the work of George Fredrickson.[65]  T. Stephen Whitman corroborates this statement, “Bruce Dain builds from Winthrop Jordan’s and George Fredrickson’s interpretations of white conceptions of blackness and black images.”[66]  However, Dain argues that, “black people’s own sense of blackness may be seen as a new thing… in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world.”[67]  As Whitman argues, “tracing and connecting these evolutions and black thought are a Hideous Monster of the Mind’s most significant achievement.”[68]

Unfortunately, A Hideous Monster of the Mind travels very well-traveled ground. An assessment supported by Clarence Walker who wrote, “A welcome addition to an impressive list of books dealing with race and colonial, early national, and antebellum periods of American history.”[69]  This rehashing of many white elites also feels familiar to those who have read Stanton, Jordan, and Fredrickson. But more interesting and informative is Dain’s treatment of members of the African-American elite such as James McCune Smith and Hosea Easton. Walker corroborates this feeling when he states, “readers will be familiar with the thought of Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Stanhope Smith, Samuel G Morton, and Josiah Nott.”[70]  Whitman also writes, “In comparison, the chapters on white thinkers are less provocative.”[71]

Perhaps Dain’s biggest shortcoming is that he does not stray far enough outside of the shadow of Jordan and Fredrickson. Though for readers that have not read Jordan or Fredrickson, A Hideous Monster will be very relevant not only because Dain is standing on the shoulders of the giants but because as Duncan Faherty states in reference to Dain’s work, “he crafts an ‘integrated’ intellectual history of race, linking categorization not just to emergence of pseudo-scientific racism but to a broader systems of classification as well.”[72]

In the 2010 work The History of White People, Nell Irvin Painter writes a work that covers the “confused and flexible discourses on the white races.”[73]  In this detailed survey of racial whiteness as a political rather than biological category, Painter shows that the category of white people has been comprised of ever-changing political groups of dis-separate peoples.[74]  While, “The History of White People is not groundbreaking in the manner of Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction (1935) or David Roediger’s The Wages of Whiteness (1991)… [It is] a thorough… comprehensive study of American whiteness.”[75]  As Matt Wray points out, Painter’s main goal is to demonstrate that race is an idea not a fact.[76]

Though well-received, Painter’s audience is decidedly non-scholarly and as such this synthesis is not going to cause much controversy among historians. As Wray writes, “readers looking for a comprehensive overview of the best of whiteness studies will not find it in this book.”[77]  However, the book’s strengths are many.[78]  Perhaps its greatest strength is that as a first book on the subject it is a good choice.

“During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, scientific racism formed a vital link in the oppression of American blacks.”[79]   Yet as we know today much of the scientific theories of men, like Josiah Nott and Samuel Morton, are not valid and just as invalid is the racial ideas of men such as Thomas Jefferson or Ralph Waldo Emerson.  We know this today because of historians such as Jordan, Fredrickson, and Takaki whose research in the thoughts and ideas of men shaped the thought of in an inherently racist society though intellectual histories have fallen somewhat out of fashion.  They are crucial to understanding society’s role in the creation of racism.

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[1] Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People (New York:  W. W. Norton & Company, 2010), xii.

[2] Annette Gordon-Reed, “Reading White Over Black,” The William and Mary Quarterly 69 (October 2012):  853.

[3] Michael G. Kamen, “White over Black:  American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812 by Winthrop Jordan,” The Florida Historical Quarterly 47 (October 1968):  198.

[4] Annette Gordon-Reed, “Reading White Over Black,” The William and Mary Quarterly 69 (October 2012):  855.

[5] James Campbell and James Oakes, “The Invention of Races:  Rereading White Over Black,” Reviews in American History 21 (March 1993):  174.

[6] Ibid, 173.

[7] Annette Gordon-Reed, “Reading White Over Black,” The William and Mary Quarterly 69 (October 2012):  855.

[8] Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black:  American Attitudes Towards the Negro, 1550-1812 (Baltimore:  Penguin Books, 1968), 429.

[9] Ibid, 481.

[10] James Campbell and James Oakes, “The Invention of Races:  Rereading White Over Black,” Reviews in American History 21 (March 1993):  182.

[11] Annette Gordon-Reed, “Reading White Over Black,” The William and Mary Quarterly 69 (October 2012):  857.

[12] Ibid, 857.

[13] James Campbell and James Oakes, “The Invention of Races:  Rereading White Over Black,” Reviews in American History 21 (March 1993):  182.

[14] Ibid, 183.

[15] Mia Bay, “Remembering Racism:  Rereading the Black Image in the White Mind,” Reviews in American History 27 (December 1999):  647.

[16] Ibid, 647.

[17] Ibid, 647.

[18] Mia Bay, “Remembering Racism:  Rereading the Black Image in the White Mind,” Reviews in American History 27 (December 1999):  647.

[19] David H. Fowler, “The Black Image in the White Mind:  The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 by George M. Fredrickson,” The Journal of American History 61 (September 1974):  476.

[20] Mia Bay, “Remembering Racism:  Rereading the Black Image in the White Mind,” Reviews in American History 27 (December 1999):  647.

[21] David H. Fowler, “The Black Image in the White Mind:  The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 by George M. Fredrickson,” The Journal of American History 61 (September 1974):  476.

[22] Mia Bay, “Remembering Racism:  Rereading the Black Image in the White Mind,” Reviews in American History 27 (December 1999):  648.

[23] George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind:  the Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York:  Harper & Row, 1971), 61.

[24] Ibid, 3.

[25] David H. Fowler, “The Black Image in the White Mind:  The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 by George M. Fredrickson,” The Journal of American History 61 (September 1974):  476.

[26] Mia Bay, “Remembering Racism:  Rereading the Black Image in the White Mind,” Reviews in American History 27 (December 1999):  655.

[27] Herbert Shapiro, “Iron Cages:  Race and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America by Ronald T. Takaki,” Pacific Historical Review 50 (November 1981), 537.

[28] John S Haller, Jr, “Iron Cages:  Race and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America by Ronald T. Takaki,” The American Historical Review 85 (October 1980), 991.

[29] Herbert Shapiro, “Iron Cages:  Race and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America by Ronald T. Takaki,” Pacific Historical Review 50 (November 1981), 537.

[30] John S Haller, Jr, “Iron Cages:  Race and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America by Ronald T. Takaki,” The American Historical Review 85 (October 1980), 992.

[31] Herbert Shapiro, “Iron Cages:  Race and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America by Ronald T. Takaki,” Pacific Historical Review 50 (November 1981), 537.

[32] Ibid, 537.

[33] Bertram Wyatt-Brown, “Iron Cages:  Race and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America by Ronald. T. Takaki,” The Journal of Southern History 46 (November 1980), 624.

[34] Ibid, 624.

[35] Greta Jones, “The Idea of Race in Science:  Great Britain, 1800-1960 by Nancy Stepan,” Isi 75 (June 1984):  407.

[36] Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science (Hamden, CT:  Archon Books, 1982), 17, 27, 40, 72, 187.

[37] Frank Spencer, “The Idea of Race in Science:  Great Britain, 1800-1960 by Nancy Stepan,” Nieuwe West-Indische Gids / New West Indian Guide 57 (1983):  253.

[38] Ibid, 253.

[39] Greta Jones, “The Idea of Race in Science:  Great Britain, 1800-1960 by Nancy Stepan,” Isi 75 (June 1984):  407.

[40] Frank Spencer, “The Idea of Race in Science:  Great Britain, 1800-1960 by Nancy Stepan,” Nieuwe West-Indische Gids / New West Indian Guide 57 (1983):  253.

[41] Nancy Stepan, “A Reply from Stepan,” Nieuwe West-Indische Gids / New West Indian Guide 58 (1984):  142-143.

[42] Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science (Hamden, CT:  Archon Books, 1982), xiv-xv.

[43] Frank Spencer, “The Idea of Race in Science:  Great Britain, 1800-1960 by Nancy Stepan,” Nieuwe West-Indische Gids / New West Indian Guide 57 (1983):  254.

[44] Ibid, 254.

[45] Carl N. Degler, “Race in North America:  Origin and Evolution of a Worldview by Audrey Smedley,” The Journal of American History 81 (September 1994):  634.

[46] Audrey Smedley, Race in North America:  Origin and Evolution of a Worldview (Boulder, CO:  Westview Press, 2007), 13.

[47] Ibid, 17.

[48] Carl N. Degler, “Race in North America:  Origin and Evolution of a Worldview by Audrey Smedley,” The Journal of American History 81 (September 1994):  634.

[49] Vernon J. Williams, Jr., “Race in North America:  Origin and Evolution of a Worldview by Audrey Smedley,” The American Historical Review 99 (June 1994):  961.

[50] Winthrop D. Jordan, “Race in North America:  Origin and Evolution of a Worldview by Audrey Smedley,” The International History Review 17 (February 1995):  125.

[51] Winthrop D. Jordan, “Race in North America:  Origin and Evolution of a Worldview by Audrey Smedley,” The International History Review 17 (February 1995):  124-125.

[52] Cary D. Wintz, “The White Image in the Black Mind:  African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 by Mia Bay,” Journal of American Ethnic History 21 (Fall 2001):  142.

[53] Ibid, 142.

[54] Wilson J. Moses, “The White Image in the Black Mind:  African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 by Mia Bay,” The Journal of American History 88 (September 2001:  617.

[55] Bruce Dain, “The White Image in the Black Mind:  African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 by Mia Bay,” The Journal of Southern History 68 (February 2002):  165.

[56] Waldo E. Martin, Jr., “The White Image in the Black Mind:  African American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 by Mia Bay,” Callaloo 23 (Summer 2000):  1154.

[57] Bruce Dain, “The White Image in the Black Mind:  African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 by Mia Bay,” The Journal of Southern History 68 (February 2002):  166.

[58] George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind:  the Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York:  Harper & Row, 1971), 101.

[59] Ibid, 101.

[60] Cary D. Wintz, “The White Image in the Black Mind:  African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 by Mia Bay,” Journal of American Ethnic History 21 (Fall 2001):  143.

[61] Ibid, 143.

[62] Bruce Dain, “The White Image in the Black Mind:  African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 by Mia Bay,” The Journal of Southern History 68 (February 2002):  166.

[63] Cary D. Wintz, “The White Image in the Black Mind:  African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 by Mia Bay,” Journal of American Ethnic History 21 (Fall 2001):  144.

[64] Waldo E. Martin, Jr., “The White Image in the Black Mind:  African American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 by Mia Bay,” Callaloo 23 (Summer 2000):  1155.

[65] Bruce Dain, A Hideous Monster of the Mind:  American Race Theory in the Early Republic (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2002), ix.

[66] T. Stephen Whitman, “A Hideous Monster of the Mind:  American Race Theory in the Early Republic by Bruce Dain,” The Journal of American History 90 (March 2004):  1433.

[67] Bruce Dain, A Hideous Monster of the Mind:  American Race Theory in the Early Republic (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2002), ix.

[68] T. Stephen Whitman, “A Hideous Monster of the Mind:  American Race Theory in the Early Republic by Bruce Dain,” The Journal of American History 90 (March 2004):  1433.

[69] Clarence E. Walker, “A Hideous Monster of the Mind:  American Race Theory in the Early Republic by Bruce Dain,” The Journal of Southern History 71 (February 2005):  145.

[70] Ibid, 146.

[71] T. Stephen Whitman, “A Hideous Monster of the Mind:  American Race Theory in the Early Republic by Bruce Dain,” The Journal of American History 90 (March 2004):  1433.

[72] Duncan Faherty, “’A Condition Perpetuated in America’:  Race, Benevolence and Antebellum Culture,” Reviews in American History 32 (March 2004):  28.

[73] Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People (New York:  W. W. Norton & Company, 2010), ix.

[74] Bruce Baum, “On the History of American Whiteness,” Reviews in American History 39 (September 2011):  488.

[75] Ibid, 488.

[76] Matt Wray, “The History of White People by Nell Painter,” The Journal of American History 97 (September 2010):  475.

[77] Ibid, 475.

[78] Ibid, 474.

[79] Carol M. Taylor, “W.E.B. DuBois’s Challenger to Scientific Racism,” Journal of Black Studies 11 (June 1981):  450.