Editing Reconstruction era (section)

===In popular culture===
[[File:Gone With The Wind 1967 re-release.jpg|thumb|right|A poster for the 1939 epic film ''[[Gone with the Wind (film)|Gone with the Wind]]'', which is set during the Civil War and Reconstruction eras]]
The journalist [[Joel Chandler Harris]], who wrote under the name "Joe Harris" for the ''Atlanta Constitution'' (mostly after Reconstruction), tried to advance racial and sectional reconciliation in the late 19th century. He supported [[Henry W. Grady]]'s vision of a [[New South]] during Grady's time as editor from 1880 to 1889. Harris wrote many editorials in which he encouraged Southerners to accept the changed conditions along with some Northern influences, but he asserted his belief that change should proceed under White supremacy.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor=40580412 |title=Joel Chandler Harris, the Yeoman Tradition, and the New South Movement |journal=The Georgia Historical Quarterly |volume=61 |issue=4 |pages=308–317 |last=Mixon |first=Wayne |date=1977}}</ref>

In popular literature, two early 20th-century novels by [[Thomas Dixon Jr.]]&nbsp;– ''[[The Leopard's Spots]]: A [[Romanticism|Romance]] of the White Man's Burden – 1865–1900'' (1902), and ''[[The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan]]'' (1905)&nbsp;– idealized White resistance to Northern and Black coercion, hailing vigilante action by the [[Ku Klux Klan]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=Maxwell |last=Bloomfield |title=Dixon's ''The Leopard's Spots'': A Study in Popular Racism |journal=American Quarterly |volume=16 |issue=3 |date=1964 |pages=387–401 |doi=10.2307/2710931 |jstor=2710931 |url=http://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1864&context=scholar |access-date=February 7, 2017 |archive-date=April 29, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190429095029/https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1864&context=scholar |url-status=live }}</ref> [[D. W. Griffith]] adapted Dixon's ''The Clansman'' for the screen in his anti-Republican movie ''[[The Birth of a Nation]]'' (1915); it stimulated the formation of the 20th-century version of the KKK. Many other authors romanticized the supposed benevolence of slavery and the elite world of the antebellum plantations, in memoirs and histories which were published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; the [[United Daughters of the Confederacy]] promoted influential works which were written in these genres by women.<ref name="Gardner">{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=-xG7Dfsxya8C |first=Sarah E. |last=Gardner |title=Blood and Irony: Southern White Women's Narratives of the Civil War, 1861–1937 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |date=2006 |pages=128–130 |isbn=9780807857670}}</ref>

Of much more lasting impact was the story ''Gone with the Wind'', first in the form of [[Gone with the Wind (novel)|the best-selling 1936 novel]], which enabled its author [[Margaret Mitchell]] to win the [[Pulitzer Prize]], and an award-winning [[Gone with the Wind (film)|Hollywood blockbuster with the same title]] in 1939. In each case, the second half of the story focuses on Reconstruction in Atlanta. The book sold millions of copies nationwide; the film is regularly re-broadcast on television. In 2018, it remained at the top of the [[list of highest-grossing films]], adjusted in order to keep up with inflation. The ''New Georgia Encyclopedia'' argues:<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |first1=Hugh |last1=Ruppersburg |first2=Chris |last2=Dobbs |title=''Gone With the Wind'' (Film) |url= https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/gone-wind-film |encyclopedia=New Georgia Encyclopedia |date=2017}}</ref>
{{blockquote|1=Politically, the film offers a conservative view of Georgia and the South. In her novel, despite her Southern prejudices, Mitchell showed clear awareness of the shortcomings of her characters and their region. The film is less analytical. It portrays the story from a clearly Old South point of view: the South is presented as a great civilization, the practice of slavery is never questioned, and the plight of the freedmen after the Civil War is implicitly blamed on their emancipation. A series of scenes whose racism rivals that of D. W. Griffith's film ''The Birth of a Nation'' (1915) mainly portrays Reconstruction as a time when Southern whites were victimized by freed slaves, who themselves were exploited by Northern carpetbaggers.}}