Description

Would this bag hold your clothes for a long trip? Many northerners carried their belongings in bags like this one, instead of in suitcases, when they moved south following the Civil War to help with the Reconstruction of the South. The presence of so many bags and strangers inspired the term "carpetbaggers." Devastated by war and still reliant on plantation farming, many people wanted to change the south into a manufacturing economy like the north. These northerners were not always welcome; instead southerners saw them as invaders trying to make money or further the rights of freed slaves.

Record Contributed By

The Children's Museum of Indianapolis

Record Harvested From

Indiana Memory