NORTHERN VISIONS OF RACE, REGION, & REFORM is an online resource documenting conflicting representations of African-Americans, white Southerners, and reformers during and and immediately after the Civil War. In particular, it looks at the stereotypes popularized in the northern press, and the ways that these depictions were countered--or in some cases, reinforced--in the letters written for northern readers by freedmen's teachers and freedmen themselves.

This site uses the letters written by freedmen and their teachers, articles and illustrations from northern periodicals, and other primary resources drawn from the collections of the American Antiquarian Society to invite users to explore the shifting and contradictory images of race, region, and reform disseminated in the North between 1861 and 1871.