Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 January 20

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January 20

Sino-Sikh War fact check?

The climactic Battle of Punjab (August, 1842) was won by the Chinese who executed the enemy general. Was it Gulab Singh or Matraiya Vyas, as an anon suggests? I can't find reference in Google Books to Mr. Vyas, so I'm guessing this is spam. -- Zanimum (talk) 00:01, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Indeed it was vandalism: thanks for the vandalism control help, Zanhe! -- Zanimum (talk) 17:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Sources for Ocean County Sheriff's Department

Does anyone with access to LexusNexus have the time to help find some more sources for Ocean County Sheriff's Department please?LuciferWildCat (talk) 00:56, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Try asking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request which is designed for exactly this sort of request. --Jayron32 02:10, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Governors of Rashidun, Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates

What was the purpose of the governors in those caliphates and is there a list of governors of those caliphates? was Governor the only political that serve as the representative of the caliph? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.35.110 (talk) 01:49, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Rashidun_Caliphate#Political_Administration has some information on specific subdivisions of the Caliphate; so you know what districts there were, though it does not list who each governor was. The title for governor appears to be Wāli, and the English Wikipedia appears to be sparse on the subject, perhaps another language Wikipedia, like Arabic, may have better information for you, if you speak Arabic. Umayyad_Caliphate#Umayyad_Administration is pretty sparse, only noting the existance of such governors. Abbasid Caliphate unfortunately has no information on the political organization of it. Again, let me recommend trying arabic language sources, like ar.wikipedia.org, if you speak or read arabic. It may have more info for you. I don't read it at all, perhaps someone who does may be along to help. --Jayron32 02:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Blame for WWI

I'm apologize ahead of time, but this question has been bugging me for a while. If Austria-Hungary had started World War I by attacking Serbia, why did Germany "take the blame" for the war and pay reparations? I mean, sure Austria pulled out of the war before it ended but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have to own up to the war and the lives lost. So what was the reason that Germany took the blame anyway? 64.229.180.189 (talk) 04:39, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Didn't Serbia start the war by an assassination directed by their secret service? Did they have to pay reparations? Edison (talk) 05:43, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Austria-Hungary really couldn't have afforded to take an aggressive stance if it hadn't been backed by Germany. Even more importantly, Germany aggressively attacked Belgium and France... AnonMoos (talk) 07:59, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreed; Germany only attacked France because it was part of their war plan. Belgium was only invaded because it was a sneaky way into France. Britain only entered the War because she was obliged to protect Belgian nuetrality. Alansplodge (talk) 08:59, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Austria-Hungary also paid a hefty price for the war: it was dismantled into many smaller coutries. I guess all the losers paid, not only Germany. --Lgriot (talk) 09:46, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Didn't the winners pay a hefty price, too? Dbfirs 10:31, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Austria was required to take some responsibility and pay reparations by the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919).

But the size of German reparations were a question of politics and in particular France's desire to punish Germany; France was the country that pushed most strongly for reparations. German reparations to France were seen as a recompense for French reparations to Germany after the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War (see Treaty_of_Versailles#Reparations). Germany wasn't allowed to attend Versailles, so it didn't take the blame willingly. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I would hardly say that the Austro-Hungarian Empire got off "scott-free". Insofar as the state essentially ceased to exist, and was broken up into a half-dozen new states, while Germany remained largely intact (excepting the loss of the Polish Corridor and Alsace-Lorraine), I'd say that Austria-Hungary ended up far worse than Germany. Certainly Germany payed a high financial and political price for the War, but at least it wasn't reduced to a bunch of smaller countries. --Jayron32 15:18, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Blackness

Most cultures seem to associate the color black with darkness, despair, hopelessness, and evil, and the color white with the opposite qualities. Do the cultures of black people share this association? I don't mean African Americans, who are immersed in Western culture, but indigenous Africans, South Asians, Melanesians, Australians, and the like. --140.180.15.97 (talk) 06:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe the root cause is that we are diurnal, and thus have eyes not well suited to night. This means we are vulnerable to predators in the dark, or to other people who mean to do us harm. Thus, a fear of the dark, and, by extension, all things black, is natural. I would expect the same is true in black cultures, with the exception of fearing black people, since they obviously can't fear themselves. StuRat (talk) 06:20, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

As one example of how it plays out in race relations, the minority lighter-skinned Tutsi were the victims of the majority darker-skinned Hutu in the Rwandan Genocide. The Wikipedia Article specifically states that "Skin color was a general physical trait that was typically used in "ethnic" identification." This could indicate that there either were not the same associations with these colors, or that the associations were irrelevant in the scope of this awful time. Not sure if that helps. Falconus^{p t c} 07:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Not sure that it is relevant but on the plantations, the darker skinned slaves were furthest from the house and the lighter skinned were nearest. Kittybrewster ☎ 07:41, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Again, relevance uncertain but Borderline Personality disordered people think people are all black or all white. No shades of grey. Kittybrewster ☎ 07:44, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

That may be true of some BPD people, Kitty, but to suggest they are all like that is itself a somewhat black-white statement. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 07:59, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I understand it is a characteristic. Kittybrewster ☎ 08:02, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The characteristic is "black-and-white" (i.e., unnuanced categorical) thinking, aka splitting—it has nothing to do with race. - Nunh-huh 14:33, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

According to this table, black as a bad colour is fairly global - they cite it as meaning "impure" in Nigeria, "ominous" in Ethiopia, "evil" in Thailand and Tibet. The exception is parts of Oceania - notably New Zealand, of course - but I think that's more likely to be because black and dark red dyes are easy to find there. I can't find any particular justification for why New Zealand's national colour is black, though. Black as the colour of death/mourning isn't universal, but that seems to have little to do with skin colour. Even in European countries, there are places where white traditionally symbolises death. Smurrayinchester 10:37, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

White = daylight, brightness / Black = nighttime, darkness. Definitely a strong association in western culture at least. Jesus associated with the Roman sun god. And in the song, "...He will bring us goodness and light." Satan called "The Prince of Darkness". That kind of thing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:53, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Of course, Lucifer is also called the "son of the dawn" (Isaiah 14:2) ... -- AnonMoos (talk) 11:40, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

And doesn't "Lucifer" actually translate as "light-bearer"? --TammyMoet (talk) 12:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

We have an article on black, with a long sectionon its symbolism, including authority, power, seriousness, academe, religion, and anarchism. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:55, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Another country to have black as a national colour was Brunswick. Alansplodge (talk) 14:23, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

This might be helpful. --Frumpo (talk) 16:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

And see List of flags by color#Black (Sable). -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:10, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

According to Color in Chinese culture, white is the color traditionally associated with mourning there, while black has a more preferred place as the color of the Dao. I don't know these things myself, or how well-founded the article is. Wnt (talk) 23:34, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

---

There's a clever color-culture graphic at http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/colours-in-cultures/ , but I don't know that I'd accept any one data-point without caution... AnonMoos (talk) 23:51, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

What a bizarre way to present that data. Why on Earth did they put it in a circle ? StuRat (talk) 03:24, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

That dataset is interesting, though. Half the time when one culture assigns black to some quality named, any other culture giving that quality a color also assigns black to it. This is true 63% of the time for red. But black and red have zero overlap - if one culture assigns one, none of the others assign the other. Either the authors have bent the data, or that indicates a less than random emotional impact of the colors over great cultural distances. Wnt (talk) 07:32, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

After toying with a spreadsheet for a bit I've gotten this dataset into a Wiki form at [1]. (I haven't included it here because the table still takes up way too much space as coded) Provided that this study, which I haven't examined, doesn't project a common bias onto the data, it looks like either there's something to the idea that colors suggest certain broad meanings, or else those meanings have been conserved since truly ancient times, or else global communication has aligned them already. Wnt (talk) 17:32, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Insurance

A large US insurance company went bust a couple of years ago. I don't remember which - it wasn't Freddy Mae or Freddy Mac. Q1: What was it called? The US Government stepped in to bail it out. Q2: Why did they do that? Kittybrewster ☎ 07:38, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

AIG? -- AnonMoos (talk) 07:54, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

AIG indeed. Kittybrewster ☎ 08:03, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

By the way, the two companies you mentioned are called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and I don't think they are usually described as insurance companies. 130.88.99.217 (talk) 13:55, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Unresolved

Why did the government bail out AIG? Kittybrewster ☎ 08:59, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Because they were concerned about the wider impact on the economy if AIG were to default on its obligations. As a major reinsurer (that is, an insurance company that other insurance companies get insurance from), AIG going bust could cause a lot of other insurance companies to go bust. That would leave lots of companies and individuals having to pay for their own losses on all sorts of things, which would bankrupt them. That would cause the companies they used to do business with to go bankrupt, and the domino effect would continue on and on causing a major depression. (It's not certain if that would have happened, but the government feared it could happen, so they bailed AIG out.) --Tango (talk) 16:48, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

What nations that have financial troubles would be keen to enact a "Verbal Morality Statute?"

Of course it would not be the United States; too many of us would be up in arms to invoke the first amendment right, even though we are deep to hell in debt.

As depicted in this clip, a "verbal morality statute" helps generate revenue for the future city of San Angeles:

<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5rVQGT01Kzg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Now, what countries would be more likely to favor a "verbal morality statute" wherein the fines generated would help quell their financial troubles?

In said countries, would it be practical to put in listening devices specifically meant to pick up swear words? What would it take to set up the infrastructure for this, and for auto-debiting the fine amounts from the verbal offenders' assets?

Moreover, what flaws would they be faced with such a system that was not readily apparent in Demolition Man? Thanks. --129.130.217.116 (talk) 18:01, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Swear words are immoral? I'm fucked then... --Jayron32 18:03, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

If you visit such countries, Jay, you'd best replace that word with "plucked." Moreover, for the environmentalists out here, everyone needs not worry about paper waste being printed as depicted in the film; a text message about the fine and offense would get sent to the phone. (Given that the film was made in 1993, the writers of the movie had not envisioned the smartphones coming along, with apps, texting, and what-not.) --129.130.217.116 (talk) 18:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think something like that would help solve financial problems. The money has to come from somewhere. Economically speaking, it is really no different to a tax increase, and all the things that are stopping such countries just putting up taxes would stop them implementing something like this too. --Tango (talk) 16:51, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello, Tang. This is that other IP on my home's network. If it costs too much to put up the infrastructure for swear word-listening and fine-debiting, then would they supposedly put it in the cities that have the most problems? (For example, if it was in the US, which it likely won't be, they'd place such devices in East St. Louis, Compton, Camden, and Detroit.)

Moreover, your reasons are why the countries the experiment starts in would need to not have democracy as the stronger influence there, because too many would protest against it otherwise.

So as a "trial experiment," why not put it in the places with the most crime and moral issues? Then if it generates serious revenue there, the project spreads to more cities?

(And why can't the damned^{SMS: You've been fined one Simoleon for violating the Verbal Morality Statute. Definition of word sworn: A. Adjective 1. god-forsaken. 2. Variant of the profane intensifier. B. Adverb 1. Vulgar form of "very." C. Verb 1. Simple past tense and past participle of to condemn to the Outer Darkness.} er, um, danged, video embed code work? It seems to many other places. Oh well, you can still click on it to watch.) --70.179.174.101 (talk) 18:11, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

You need to be clearer about what the goal of this idea is. Is it to stop people swearing or is it to make money? What I'm saying is that if you are a government wanting to make more money, you can just put up taxes. I don't think this idea would be more effective at raising money than a regular tax. --Tango (talk) 18:37, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

It's to both. With taxes, it's involuntary. With swearing and being fined, it is by choice. Hence, since people can control how much they get fined for swearing, it would not be as derided as higher taxes are. --70.179.174.101 (talk) 21:48, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Wasn't it illegal like 100 years ago in some places to swear in front of a woman? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:14, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

That argument strikes me as fallacious. The government would set the fine arbitrarily, so the level of the fine would be set to accumulate some amount of revenue, equal to that which would be raised by some other tax. While some lucky individuals might reduce this tax to some extent, on average just as many would pay more. So it's not that people are "voluntarily" paying this as opposed to the other tax - rather, they pay the same tax on average, plus suffer the indignity of additional impositions on their freedom. (plus enforcement costs etc.) Wnt (talk) 23:23, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

The enforcement costs would not be as high as would have been with San Andreas's methods; it costs quite a bit to constantly supply the listening devices with paper to print fines on: The cost of the paper itself, delivery from a warehouse, to pay the deliverer the labor in which to travel to each listening device to load in said paper, etc.

On the other hand, to wirelessly transmit a text-message to the offender's phone or email would come at a tiny fraction of that cost. The only remaining costs beyond initial installation would be maintenance, but in this future, sturdier materials would make this less often of a necessity anyway. --70.179.174.101 (talk) 04:42, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

'tiny fraction of the cost' is a moot point when you're talking about an insane cost. Few cities have even managed to make a city wide publicly accessible wifi, and you're talking about something which is going to need many more nodes, not to mention by nature they will need to be exposed, so an an easy source of vandalism. It's also impossible anyway since speech recognition is still way too crap. (Adding humans to the mix just makes your cost more insane). Nil Einne (talk) 12:48, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Teuira Henry

Was Tahitian writer and historian Teuira Henry of Native Tahitian descent? And is there any other information on her that can be present other than the information I have here?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 19:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

This family tree gives very un-Tahitian names for her parents and grandparents. This discussion about Tahiti aux temps anciens describes her as not a neutral witness, while this auctioneer's notes talks about where she worked. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:01, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think she could be Native Tahitian now. Her names and her looks just really threw me off.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 22:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Political weight of being faithful

Why do Americans care about the extra-marital affairs of their politicians? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.14.196.211 (talk) 23:25, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

For a variety of reasons. One of them is that American politicians pontificate about and make policies affecting the institution of marriage. So when a politician who has vocally opposed marriage equality, and opined that "marriage is between one man and one woman", it strikes some people as hypocritical when it becomes public knowledge that he asked his second ex-wife to have their marriage consist of a man and a woman and another woman. For that matter, it strikes some American voters as odd that their politicians claim to value the "sanctity" of marriage in order to get votes, when those same politicians have been through one, two or three divorces. - Nunh-huh 23:48, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Americans have rather conservative "public" sexual mores. (In terms of their actual, private practices, they break almost all of them.) They weigh it quite heavily as a sign of character for public figures. That's not really an answer — it's just a tautological reframing of the question. Where do these mores come from? That's a very hard to answer question, for any country. Why do the French have their mores? It's not like any one of these is the "default" or "natural" position — no social stance is any more or less "natural" than the other.

If you're asking about Gingrich in particular (who has been in the news relating to this lately), the attention is in part related to the fact that his policy stance is one that pledges to defend the ideals of "traditional marriage" (that is, he is against gay marriage and abortion) but he's not very representative of the ideals of "traditional marriage" himself, which of course opens him up to charges of hypocrisy. Of course, any potentially controversial fact — whether actually resonant with the American public/voters or not — is going to be in the news at the moment, and that's more a reflection both on the political process and the nature of the 24-hour news culture than it is necessarily about American political thinking. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers. No, I was not thinking about Gingrich, but his recent press exposure made me aware of this basic difference between Europe and the US. I'm sure there is no universal default position, but the US is, from a religious perspective, Christian like Spain, the UK, or France, (thou maybe with a bigger Jewish population), so, there is a source of morality there, that should make both sides more similar. 88.14.196.211 (talk) 01:03, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I suspect the difference between private sexual behavior is probably not that different between the countries. The public perception though is definitely different. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:43, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

There is an innate human tendency to think of a leader as a surrogate for the whole people of a country. If a leader behaves badly, people feel that the guilt carries over to them. Frazer's book The Golden Bough discusses this behavior pretty extensively, from a quasi-anthropological point of view. Looie496 (talk) 23:59, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

But this doesn't explain at all the observed differences among countries, in and of itself, much less the different views on public vs. private morality. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:43, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Looie's observation really just reinforces the question. Why does Looie describe extra-marital affairs as behaving badly? The OP didn't put a judgement on it. In many countries it's obvious that voters know about politicians' marital indiscretions, and largely ignore them when it comes to the ballot box. But not in America. HiLo48 (talk) 07:36, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

To put your question another way, the ideal in the US seems to be fidelity during marriage, while some, like the Italians, seem to actually have an ideal of a married man who cheats on his wife every chance he gets, preferably with underage girls. Why is the US ideal different ? It probably goes back to the Puritans, who were, well, puritanical. To some extent, Puritanism is just an extrapolation of Protestantism, which was formed as a protest to the perceived lax morals of Catholics, and the Pope/Church in particular, at the time. As to why northern Europeans seemed to object more than Southern Europeans, perhaps it just came down to geography, with them being far enough from Rome to get away with it, while anyone in what would become Italy who criticized the Pope was risking his life. And, as it happened, the first immigrants to what would become the US were mainly northern European (British and Dutch), so they were able to set the moral tone for the nation. StuRat (talk) 08:14, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

In the US there is a strong sense that if a politician does not act morally in his or her personal life, the said politician's immorality will carry over into his or her political dealings. Basically, if the President cheats on his (or her) spouse, then we feel we can't trust that president to lead the country in an ethical manner. I know that this contrasts severely with the French view on matters, which I have had explained to me loosely as "what the President does in his or her personal life is between the president and the president's family; it's not really of great public concern." Also, as others have said, if the politician proclaims "The problem with this country is the breakdown of the traditional family", and proceeds to have three divorces and an affair, then the politician is a hypocrite, and nothing they say can really be trusted from that point on. Falconus^{p t c} 08:32, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Of course it is the North American stereotype to say that Europeans don't care about this...but in France and Italy at least, everyone is interested in the personal life of Berlusconi, or Sarkozy, or Strauss-Kahn, as much as Americans are interested in the lives of non-political celebrities. Berlusconi's affairs certainly do impact his ability to govern, although in that case it was because he himself seemed unable to separate his public and private life. True, nobody really cares that Sarkozy left his wife for Carla Bruni, that has no effect on his ability as a politician. But the Strauss-Kahn problems were different...opinion polls and such showed that many people would no longer have voted for him (if he had been able to run). It is a bit different, but it's not like people don't care at all. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:27, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Strauss-Kahn didn't just have an extra-marital affair. He was accused of rape and spend some time in jail followed by house arrest. Berlusconi is also a kind of similar case. It was not just cheating on his wife, getting a divorce and so on. They were suspects of the involvement in some criminal activity here. 88.14.196.211 (talk) 13:51, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Berlusconi still had excellent opinion poll ratings during all the sex scandals. It was the economy that did it for him, not his personal life. The fact that he owns most of the Italian media can't have hurt, but I think it is true that Italians are more tolerant of that kind of thing than other nationalities. --Tango (talk) 21:33, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

To the excellent answers above I would like to add that many people consider someone who would cheat on his wife to be a scumbag, and may say that scumbags don't deserve to be rewarded with a big job. Although it's worth remembering that many U.S. politicians have survived sex scandals, like Gerry Studds, Steve LaTourette and Jerry Springer (yes that Jerry Springer, who was mayor of Cincinnati before becoming a talk-show host). When Bill Clinton got in trouble, the prevailing opinion was that it wasn't his infidelity that bothered people so much as his lying and weaseling about it. And the attempt to throw him out of office not only failed but generated quite a backlash against those behind it. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:13, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I should agree with the others that it seems relevant, but I'd say however that this isn't precisely a sexual moral issue in the Puritan sense. In other words, you can be pro-gay, but still find marital infidelity disturbing. Because you feel like if a candidate can lie to his wife, he can lie to you; if he can break a vow that he personally appears to find of great importance, he might break a principle that he seems to support; if he abandons a wife when times are tough, maybe he will sell out your cause when his opponents threaten to come at him with a serious political attack. "Never trust a traitor" would seem to be the relevant idea. Wnt (talk) 23:29, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I think Wnt has the right idea. While folks like to make all kinds of mental "deals" to justify their own hypocritical actions, we don't often cut others the same kind of slack - he lied once = he's a liar = he lies all the time = he lied to me! Matt Deres (talk) 00:13, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's disqualifying, and frankly I doubt it ever really has been. Presidential candidates surviving sex scandals, even ones that were credible, are not novelties.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:35, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

To see this thought pattern illustrated in language, Google estimates 3,010,000 results for "in bed with the oil companies", 121,000 results for "in bed with the defense contractors", 754,000 results for "in bed with al Qaida" and so forth. True, their estimates are usually tremendously inflated, but the point is, in everyday speech, Americans literally talk about politicians committing adultery with various distrusted entities. Wnt (talk) 14:42, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

The South After the Reconstruction

In the Southern United States, what was life like for a white female schoolteacher during the Reconstruction period right after the Civil War? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.32.209.45 (talk) 23:57, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

There might have been conflict, if she was forced to teach black students, since this was before segregation was established following the end of Reconstruction. Any white woman raised at that time in that place would have found this to be "unnatural" and "against God's will". Note that blacks had some political power at the time, due to being the majority in many areas, having the vote, and having protection of Union troops. StuRat (talk) 08:06, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Not sure where that comes from -- the Freedmen's Bureau paid many teachers, some women, most white. There were also private church-supported schools in some areas. Some women took such jobs out of idealism, but I don't see how anyone could have been "forced" to do so (unless by personal economic necessity). AnonMoos (talk) 23:41, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, economic necessity. Many Southerners had lost everything in the war. StuRat (talk) 03:01, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S. The Prudence Crandall case was rather famous in the 1830s, where great pressure was applied to force a woman not to teach blacks... AnonMoos (talk) 00:10, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

• I think the original question is very broad, and much would depend on circumstance, such as the teaching blacks bit. However, given the great upset after the Civil War economically in the South, my reaction to a woman making a secure living as a schoolteacher is "lucky". It was a time when few women could make their own way, and many women had their husbands or other male relatives dead or broke. However, there were parts of the South which were far less affected, especially if they had been in Union hands for several years already or were particularly remote.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:25, 22 January 2012 (UTC)