The Role Of Gravitation In Physics Report From

The 1957 Chapel Hill Conference Dean Rickles

download

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-role-of-gravitation-in-physics-
report-from-the-1957-chapel-hill-conference-dean-rickles-5906150

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

The Role Of Mathematics In Evolutionary Theory Jun Otsuka

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-role-of-mathematics-in-evolutionary-
theory-jun-otsuka-45547470

The Role Of Nutrition In Cardiometabolic Health Experimental Clinical

And Communitybased Evidence Abeer M Mahmoud Shane A Phillips

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-role-of-nutrition-in-
cardiometabolic-health-experimental-clinical-and-communitybased-
evidence-abeer-m-mahmoud-shane-a-phillips-46073858

The Role Of Family Physicians In Older People Care Jacopo Demurtas

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-role-of-family-physicians-in-older-
people-care-jacopo-demurtas-46099350

The Role Of Monitoring And Evaluation In The Un 2030 Sdgs Agenda

Nadini Persaud

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-role-of-monitoring-and-evaluation-
in-the-un-2030-sdgs-agenda-nadini-persaud-46202450
The Role Of Crises In Shaping Financial Systems From The Global
Financial Crisis To Covid19 Magorzata Iwaniczdrozdowska

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-role-of-crises-in-shaping-financial-
systems-from-the-global-financial-crisis-to-covid19-magorzata-
iwaniczdrozdowska-46219966

The Role Of Crises In Shaping Financial Systems From The Global

Financial Crisis To Covid19 Magorzata Iwaniczdrozdowska

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-role-of-crises-in-shaping-financial-
systems-from-the-global-financial-crisis-to-covid19-magorzata-
iwaniczdrozdowska-46231430

The Role Of The Leastaspected Planet In Astrocartography Planetary

Symbolism In Astrocartography And Transcendental Astrology Rob Couteau

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-role-of-the-leastaspected-planet-in-
astrocartography-planetary-symbolism-in-astrocartography-and-
transcendental-astrology-rob-couteau-46483964

The Role Of 3d Printing For The Growth And Progress Of Medical

Healthcare Technology Dinesh Bhatia

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-role-of-3d-printing-for-the-growth-
and-progress-of-medical-healthcare-technology-dinesh-bhatia-46867444

The Role Of Language In Content Pedagogy A Framework For Teachers

Knowledge Lay Hoon Seah

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-role-of-language-in-content-
pedagogy-a-framework-for-teachers-knowledge-lay-hoon-seah-47107226
 The Role of Gravitation in Physics
Report from the 1957 Chapel Hill Conference
ii

Max Planck Research Library

for the History and Development
of Knowledge

Series Editors
Jürgen Renn, Robert Schlögl, Bernard F. Schutz.

Edition Open Access Development Team

Lindy Divarci, Beatrice Gabriel, Jörg Kantel, Matthias Schemmel, and
Kai Surendorf, headed by Peter Damerow.

Scientific Board
Markus Antonietti, Ian Baldwin, Antonio Becchi, Fabio Bevilacqua,
William G. Boltz, Jens Braarvik, Horst Bredekamp, Jed Z. Buchwald,
Olivier Darrigol, Thomas Duve, Mike Edmunds, Yehuda Elkana, Olaf
Engler, Robert K. Englund, Mordechai Feingold, Rivka Feldhay, Gideon
Freudenthal, Paolo Galluzzi, Kostas Gavroglu, Mark Geller, Domenico
Giulini, Günther Görz, Gerd Graßhoff, James Hough, Manfred Laubich-
ler, Glenn Most, Pier Daniele Napolitani, Alessandro Nova, Hermann
Parzinger, Dan Potts, Circe Silva da Silva, Ana Simões, Richard Stephen-
son, Mark Stitt, Noel M. Swerdlow, Liba Taub, Martin Vingron, Scott
Walter, Norton Wise, Gerhard Wolf, Rüdiger Wolfrum, Gereon Wolters,
Zhang Baichun.

Sources 5

Edition Open Access

2011
 The Role of Gravitation in
Physics
Report from the 1957 Chapel Hill
Conference

Cécile M. DeWitt and Dean Rickles (eds.)

Communicated by
Jürgen Renn, Alexander Blum and Peter Damerow

Edition Open Access

2011
Max Planck Research Library
for the History and Development of Knowledge
Sources 5

Communicated by Jürgen Renn, Alexander Blum and Peter Damerow

Copyedited by Beatrice Gabriel

Editors:
Cécile DeWitt-Morette
Jane and Roland Blumberg Centennial Professor Emerita
Department of Physics
University of Texas at Austin
Dean Rickles
Senior Research Fellow
Unit for History and Philosophy of Science
University of Sydney

ISBN 978-3-86931-963-6
First published 2011
Printed in Germany by epubli, Oranienstraße 183, 10999 Berlin
http://www.epubli.de
Edition Open Access
http://www.edition-open-access.de
Published under Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 Germany Licence
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/de/
 v

The Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of
Knowledge comprises two subseries, Studies and Sources. They present
research results and the relevant sources in a new format, combining the
advantages of traditional publications and the digital medium. The vol-
umes are available both as printed books and as online open access publica-
tions. They present original scientific work submitted under the scholarly
responsibility of members of the Scientific Board and their academic peers.
The volumes of the two subseries and their electronic counterparts
are directed at scholars and students of various disciplines, as well as at a
broader public interested in how science shapes our world. They provide
rapid access to knowledge at low cost. Moreover, by combining print with
digital publication, the two series offer a new way of publishing research
in flux and of studying historical topics or current issues in relation to
primary materials that are otherwise not easily available.
The initiative is supported, for the time being, by research depart-
ments of three Max Planck Institutes, the MPI for the History of Science,
the Fritz Haber Institute of the MPG, and the MPI for Gravitational
Physics (Albert Einstein Institute). This is in line with the Berlin Dec-
laration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities,
launched by the Max Planck Society in 2003.
Each volume of the Studies series is dedicated to a key subject in
the history and development of knowledge, bringing together perspectives
from different fields and combining source-based empirical research with
theoretically guided approaches. The studies are typically working group
volumes presenting integrative approaches to problems ranging from the
globalization of knowledge to the nature of scientific innovation.
Each volume of the Sources series typically presents a primary source
– relevant for the history and development of knowledge – in facsimile,
transcription, or translation. The original sources are complemented by
an introduction and by commentaries reflecting original scholarly work.
The sources reproduced in this series may be rare books, manuscripts,
documents or data that are not readily accessible in libraries and archives.
On the basis of scholarly expertise the publication of the two series
brings together traditional books produced by print-on-demand techniques
with modern information technology. Based on and extending the func-
tionalities of the existing open access repository European Cultural Her-
itage Online (ECHO), this initiative aims at a model for an unprecedented,
web-based scientific working environment integrating access to information
with interactive features.
Contents

1 The Chapel Hill Conference in Context

Dean Rickles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2 The Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

The Original Chapel Hill Report

Session I Unquantized General Relativity

Chairman: B. S. DeWitt

3 The Present Position of Classical Relativity Theory

and Some of its Problems
John Wheeler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

4 The Experimental Basis of Einstein’s Theory

R. H. Dicke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Session II Unquantized General Relativity, Continued

Chairman: P. G. Bergmann

5 On the Integration of the Einstein Equations

André Lichnerowicz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.1 The Space-Time Manifold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.2 The Cauchy Problem for the Gravitational Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5.3 Local Solutions for the Exterior Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.4 The Problem of the Initial Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.5 The Cauchy Problem for the Asymmetric Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.6 Global Solutions and Universes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.7 Global Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

6 Remarks on Global Solutions

C. W. Misner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
viii Contents

7 Solving The Initial Value Problem Using Cartan Cal-

culus
Y. Fourès . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

8 Some Remarks on Cosmological Models

R. W. Bass and L. Witten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Session III Unquantized General Relativity, Continued

Chairman: H. Bondi

9 Gravitational Waves
L. Marder, Presented by H. Bondi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
9.1 Static Cylinder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
9.2 Periodic Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
9.3 Pulse Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

10 Gravitational Field of an Axially Symmetric System

N. Rosen and H. Shamir, Presented by F. Pirani . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

11 The Dynamics of a Lattice Universe

R. W. Lindquist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Session IV Invited Reports on Cosmology

Chairman: F. J. Belinfante

12 Measurable Quantities that May Enable Questions

of Cosmology to be Answered
Thomas Gold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
12.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
12.2 Measurements and Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
12.3 Cosmological Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
12.4 Observational Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

13 Radio Astronomical Measurements of Interest to Cos-

mology
A. E. Lilley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Session V Unquantized General Relativity, Concluded

Chairman: A. Lichnerowicz

14 Measurement of Classical Gravitation Fields

Felix Pirani . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Contents ix

15 Correspondence in the Generalized Theory of Grav-

itation
Behram Kursunoglu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

16 Presentation of Work by T. Taniuchi

Ryoyu Utiyama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

17 Negative Mass in General Relativity

Hermann Bondi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Session VI Quantized General Relativity

Chairman: J. A. Wheeler

18 The Problems of Quantizing the Gravitational Field

P. G. Bergmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

19 Conceptual Clock Models

H. Salecker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

20 The Three-Field Problem

F. J. Belinfante . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Session VII Quantized General Relativity, Continued

Chairman: A. Schild

21 Quantum Gravidynamics
Bryce DeWitt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Session VIII Quantized General Relativity, Concluded

Chairman: V. Bargmann

22 The Possibility of Gravitational Quantization . . . . . . . . . 243

23 The Necessity of Gravitational Quantization . . . . . . . . . . 247

Closing Session
Chairman: B. S. DeWitt

24 Divergences in Quantized General Relativity

S. Deser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
25 Critical Comments
R. P. Feynman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

26 Summary of Conference
P. G. Bergmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

27 An Expanded Version of the Remarks by R.P. Feyn-

man on the Reality of Gravitational Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Dedicated to the memory of Bryce DeWitt
No one man lives long on this earth. It will take the concerted efforts of
many men to pry forth one of the deepest and most obstinate, but one
of the most important and potentially useful secrets of nature ... In this
quest we are reaching for the stars, – and beyond.

Agnew H. Bahnson
The Stars Are Too High
Preface

This book contains the original report from the Conference on the Role
of Gravitation in Physics, which took place at the University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, over six days in 1957. The report was taken down
by Cécile DeWitt and several other “reporters,” as part of a conference
funding agreement with the Wright Air Development Center, a U.S. Army
(Air Force) funding body (the report’s ‘official’ designation is: WADC
Technical Report 57-216). Cécile DeWitt then edited the recorded material
into its final form. The report, though publicly available as a government
document, has not previously been published in book form, and there
are not many copies of the report left in existence. Given the immense
historical significance of the conference - giving gravitational research some
much needed impetus at a time when it was in a state of dire neglect -
we thought it was high time to produce a version of the report ‘for the
masses’ as it were. The version presented here is almost entirely faithful to
the original, and aside from the correction of a few spelling mistakes (and
the possible addition of some entirely new typos!) features no substantive
alterations or annotations. However, in order to make the document more
navigable and more useful as a research tool, we have added an index (of
both names and subjects) and also imposed a little more structure on the
sessions, by setting some of the meatier contributions as chapters. This in
no way interferes with the ordering, and simply amounts to the addition,
in several places, of a title to the presentations and discussions that follow.

In addition to classic debates over cosmological models and the reality

of gravitational waves, many of the still-pressing issues in quantum gravity
were formulated in the discussion periods and interjections reproduced in
the following pages. (Philosophers of physics might be interested to see
Thomas Gold, p. 244, pressing those who assume that the gravitational
field had to be quantized to prove it!) One can also find the roots of many
current research programs in quantum gravity, as well as early intima-
tions of what would become ‘classic’ thought experiments, offering some
guidance to a subject without genuine experiments. We also find, fully
staked out, three central approaches to the quantization of gravity: canon-
4 Contents

ical (focusing on the observables and constraints of the classical theory3 );

the Feynman functional-integral approach; and the covariant perturbative
approach. We also find what is, I believe, the first presentation (albeit
very briefly: see p. 270) of Hugh Everett’s relative-state interpretation of
quantum mechanics - Feynman gives an explicitly ‘many-worlds’ charac-
terization of Everett’s approach (used, by Feynman, in fact, as a reductio
of the interpretation).
As Cécile DeWitt notes in the foreword to the original report (also
reproduced here), the document constitutes a somewhat incomplete repre-
sentation of the actual proceedings in various ways, and does not amount
to an exact transcription of all that went on at the conference.4 However,
the discussions that were captured are often very rich, and of such an inter-
esting (and, I would say, still highly relevant) nature, that the report fully
deserves its present resurrection if only to bring these discussions alone to
a wider audience. However, the transcribed presentations also often reflect
a research area on the cusp of various exciting discoveries, in astrophysics,
cosmology, and quantum gravity. We are sure that both physicists and
historians of physics will find much to interest them in the following pages.
By way of placing this report in the context of its time, an introductory
chapter provides a brief account of how the conference came to be, for it
is a rather remarkable story in itself. We then reproduce the original front
matter from the report, followed by the report itself.

DR
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
September 2010

3 As Peter Bergmann puts it, on p.192, ‘once the classical problems are solved, quanti-

zation would be a “walk.”’

4 How could it? As Agnew Bahnson (about whom, see Chapter 1) noted in his post-

conference report, there were some 57 half-hour tapes recorded in total.

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our thanks to all of those involved in the original
Chapel Hill conference (or their estates) who very kindly gave their per-
mission to reproduce their papers and comments, without which this book
would not have been possible. We would also like to thank those involved
in the smooth, speedy publication of the book, especially Beatrice Gabriel
for her excellent proof reading.
DR is grateful to the the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History
at the University of Texas at Austin for allowing him access to the Bryce
DeWitt Papers; to Cécile DeWitt, firstly for allowing access to her own
archive of papers and letters, from which much of the historical material
in the introductory chapter was drawn, but also for allowing me to take
part in this wonderful project; to Jürgen Renn, Max Planck Institute for
the History of Science, and Don Salisbury, Austin College, for some much
needed motivation, resulting in a significant speed up in the book’s pro-
duction; and to the Australian Research Council for their generous support
of the History of Quantum Gravity Project (DP0984930) that the present
book contributes to; and to the Max Planck Institute for the History of
Science for hosting me as a visiting fellow during the books’s completion.
Finally, DR would like to thank his wife, Kirsty, and children, Sophie and
Gaia, for putting up with his very many absences while this work was
being completed.
Chapter 1
The Chapel Hill Conference in Context
Dean Rickles

The Conference on the Role of Gravitation in Physics was the (official) in-
augural conference of the Institute of Field Physics [IOFP] which had only
just been established at Chapel Hill, with Cécile and Bryce DeWitt at the
helm.1 The IOFP received its certificate of incorporation on September
7, 1955. In fact, it nearly had a very different name, “The Research Insti-
tute of the University of North Carolina”, which, quite naturally, won the
unanimous approval from the University (and Bryce DeWitt), but not,
it transpires, the approval of the primary funder, Mr Agnew Bahnson.
Bahnson was a wealthy North Carolinian industrialist with a passion for
physics (especially gravitational); he made his fortune from industrial air
conditioning systems.
The initial meeting between Bryce DeWitt and Bahnson took place
on July 9, 1955, in Raleigh, N.C. They were joined by Clifford Beck,
who was head of physics at State College in Raleigh - Bahnson originally
planned to have the IOFP at State College since they had a nuclear reac-
tor there, which, as Bryce DeWitt puts it, Bahnson felt “might be useful
for anti-gravity” [3]. Curiously, at the same time, the Glenn L. Martin
Company (now Lockheed-Martin) was setting up its own research institute
that would do work for the U.S. National Defense Service2 though of a
1 An initial ‘get to know each other’ meeting of the IOFP was held June 8-10, 1956,

at Roaring Gap in North Carolina, where Bahnson had a summer house. This was
open to all members of the IOFP and a few select others, including Freeman Dyson and
Lothar Nordheim, potential funders and a reporter from the Winston-Salem Journal &
Sentinel. As Bahnson put it, in his “4th Memorandum” (of June 20, 1956) the purpose
of the meeting was “to introduce members of the Institute and their guests to Mr and
Mrs DeWitt“ and “to define more clearly” the problems to be dealt with at the IOFP
(with gravity as “the focal point of interest” (letter from Cécile DeWitt’s own archive;
henceforth, unless otherwise specified, references will be to documents contained in this
archive).
2 This would become RIAS, or the Research Institute for Advanced Study. It is possible

that DeWitt’s meeting was with the director of RIAS, Welcome Bender, who was in
charge of recruitment, and who also attended the Roaring Gap conference on behalf
8 1. The Chapel Hill Conference in Context

rather different sort, industry sponsored, and not ensconced in a univer-

sity. DeWitt had a meeting with its vice-president, George Trimble (or
Bender - see footnote 2), to discuss a potential project involving gravita-
tional physics research (more on this below). DeWitt flew to his meeting
with Bahnson immediately after visiting the Glenn Martin Company in
Baltimore - indeed, the airplane was owned by a friend of Bahnson’s, one
Earl Slick of Slick Airways!
Bahnson had originally written to DeWitt on May 30, 1955. Just
prior to this, DeWitt had already also been in correspondence with Roger
Babson, another wealthy industrialist with a passion for gravity research.
Babson had established the Gravity Research Foundation (GRF) in Salem,
and had established an essay competition (governed by George Rideout)
“for the best two thousand word essays on the possibilities of discovering
some partial insulator, reflector or absorber of gravity waves” ([2], p. 344)!
DeWitt won first prize in this competition (in 1953) with an essay dismiss-
ing the whole idea; or, as he put it: “[E]ssentially giving them hell for such
a stupid - the way it had been phrased in those early years” [3]. DeWitt
wrote the essay in a single evening: “... the quickest $1000 I ever earned!”
(ibid).3 Given that the essay led to the original exchange between Rideout
and Bahnson over Bryce4 , it seems that this single night’s work might in
fact have earned him rather more than $1000!
Babson clearly saw in DeWitt one who could lift the respectability of
the GRF. Indeed, this seemed to be the case, for whereas the prize was
previously avoided by ‘serious’ physicists, after DeWitt won, the floodgates
opened. The next year, 1954, saw Arnowitt and Deser take first prize.5

of the Glenn Martin Company. However, there certainly was correspondence between
DeWitt and Trimble.
3 In a section entitled ‘Purposes, Objects and Powers’ of the document of incorpora-

tion of the Gravity Research Foundation formed by Babson, Clause (1) states that the
purpose of the corporation is to “Observe the phenomena of nature and encourage, pro-
mote and support investigations in search of underlying knowledge of these phenomena.
Conduct theoretical and experimental studies to discover the laws which affect them
and evolve new technological concepts for the improvement and welfare of mankind”
(Bryce DeWitt Archives, Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin).
Babson had a curious view of gravity as a kind of ‘natural evil’ ( a “dragon”), caused
by his sister’s and grandson’s drowning by, as he saw it, the downward pull of gravity
- see [1].
4 Note that Bryce concluded his GRF essay with the words “External stimuli will

be urgently needed in the near future to encourage young physicists to embark upon
gravitational research in spite of the odds,” which clearly resonated with both Babson
and Bahnson.
5 Much to the chagrin of Robert Oppenheimer who was supervising both of them at

the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. Oppenheimer thought that entering the
1. The Chapel Hill Conference in Context 9

The GRF could never really gain the prestige it so desired. Babson
held too much control over what lines of research were investigated. Since
he was no scientist, these tended to be crankish - in one GRF bulletin the
biblical miracle of Jesus walking on water was offered up as evidence in
the possibility of antigravity shields, as was the ability of angels to defy
gravity! The GRF stood no chance (at least not in this form). Martin
Gardner famously mocked Babson’s own gravity ideas in an article entitled
“Sir Isaac Babson”.6 . Gardner called the GRF “perhaps the most useless
scientific project of the twentieth century” ([6], p. 93). He was referring to
the stated aims of the GRF and its essay competition; namely to discover
some kind of gravity screen (‘the right kind of alloy’ - cf. [2], p. 343).
Gardner rightly points out that the concept of a material that is opaque
to gravitational interactions was made obsolete by the shift to the general
theory of relativity.
Agnew Bahnson was a close friend of George Rideout, the president
of Babson’s GRF, and the one who had initially suggested the idea of a
GRF to Babson. On the basis of how the initial organizational meetings
went, Gardner’s critique perhaps offered up a ‘recipe’ for a more successful
venture. Whereas Babson promoted a vision of spectacular technologies
as a result of its gravitational research, Bahnson adopted a more sober ap-
proach. Thus, in the foreword of an early draft (dated November 17, 1955)
for the IOFP’s promotional brochure Bahnson wrote (in stark contrast to
Babson’s statements):

competition and accepting the prize brought the IAS into disrepute. He believed that
Arnowitt and Deser exploited their positions at the institute (see [3]). Note that Pas-
cual Jordan was placed in 5th position this same year, with his essay on his theory
of a variable gravitational constant. James L. Anderson submitted an essay on the
Measurability of Gravitational Fields, but was not placed at all - the same is true of
Dennis Sciama who wrote on a possible method of shielding gravitation using Mach’s
principle. Frederik Belinfante took 1st prize in 1956 for his paper on gravitational ab-
sorbers and shields. In the 1957 competition, Thomas Gold took 1st prize for a paper
on the gravitational interaction of matter and anti-matter, that he co-authored with
Philip Morrison (John Wheeler took second prize, and Felix Pirani took 3rd).
6 This is a reference to Babson’s penchant for all things Newtonian. This penchant led

to the establishment of one of the largest collections of “Newtonia” (as he calls it, [2] p.
340) in the world, on the campus of the Babson Institute in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
One of the library’s rooms is an actual room used by Newton while in his final years
in London. This was purchased by Babson’s wife when she discovered the building was
being demolished, shipped over from the UK, and rebuilt on site as Newton would have
used it “with the same walls, doors and even the identical shutters containing the hole
through which he carried on his first experiments in connection with the diffusion of
light” (loc. cit., p. 340). David Kaiser has a useful discussion of this curious episode in
his PhD thesis, Making Theory: Producing Physics and Physicists in Postwar America
(Harvard University, 2000). See also Kaiser [9]
10 1. The Chapel Hill Conference in Context

In the minds of the public the subject of gravity is often

associated with fantastic possibilities. From the standpoint of
the institute no specific practical results of the studies can be
foreseen at this time.

In many ways, then, Babson’s GRF was used as a foil, highlighting things
to adopt but (more importantly) things to avoid. A lengthy exchange
of letters between Bahnson and several senior physicists (especially John
Wheeler, whom Bahnson clearly admired a great deal) set to work on
eradicating any aspects that might lead to claims that the institute was
for crackpot research.
In 1955, G. S. Trimble, vice president of the Glenn Martin Company,
wrote to Bryce DeWitt7 that:

During a recent conversation with Mr. George Rideout,

president of Roger Babson’s Gravity Research Foundation, we
were commiserating on the unfortunate state of the affairs that
knowledgable folks do not wish to get “mixed up” in the field
of gravity research. During the course of the conversation he
reviewed with me your suggestion that perhaps his Gravity Re-
search Foundation might be transformed from its present func-
tion into an active center of research concentrating on the field
of gravity. He also told me that the foundation was not able
to undertake such an expansion. (Letter from G. S. Trimble
to Bryce DeWitt, dated, June 10, 1955)

It seems that DeWitt had suggested to Babson something along the lines
of the Institutes for Advanced Study - a model he was very familiar with
since both he and his soon to be wife Cécile Morette, had both spent time
in several of them. This model fitted with the Glenn Martin Company’s
plans. However, their goal was not pure research, but something grander,
it seems - Trimble describes the proposed activity as an “industrial version
of the Institute for Advanced Study”.8 The letter goes on:
7 At this time senior research physicist, Radiation Laboratory, University of California,

Berkeley and Livermore, then working on detonation hydrodynamics.

8 Trimble makes an interesting remark concerning the tight relationship between sci-

entific research and society: “[W]e feel morally obligated to push forward in the basic
sciences and we believe as a dynamic industry we can provide the motivation for ad-
vances that can be obtained in no other way”. In other words, for better or for worse,
the pursuit of certain areas of basic research demand some kind of motivation beyond
the search for deeper knowledge. Practical applications are one way to motivate such
study.
1. The Chapel Hill Conference in Context 11

It occurred to us sometime ago that our industry was vitally

concerned with gravity. As time goes on we become more and
more concerned because we feel certain that sooner or later
man will invade space and we see it as our job to do every-
thing possible to speed this event. At least one category of the
things one must study, when he desires to bring space flight to
a reality, is the laws of nature surrounding the force of gravity.
(ibid.)

One wonders what Roger Babson would have made of the fact that it was
Newton’s equations that got man into space!9 Trimble bemoans the fact
that most of those working on gravitation are “mad men and quacks” -
perhaps he has those connected with Babson’s own endeavour in mind?
Indeed, notes Trimble, any relevant work that they had done on space flight
had been contracted out to German scientists working within Germany.
Louis Witten (the father of Ed Witten, and participant in the Chapel
Hill conference)10 was the first researcher hired by RIAS, of the Glenn
Martin Company. He approached DeWitt in a bid to have him join RIAS,
but DeWitt was then already being approached by Bahnson, offering more
lucrative terms (both for him and Cécile): the promise of a position in a
more traditionally academic environment, but with the freedom of an ex-
ternally funded position, would ultimately win out. However, Trimble, and
the Glenn Martin Company nonetheless played a role in helping the IOFP
get off the ground. Not only did they purchase a ‘Founder’s Membership’
for the Institute of Field Physics, for the considerable sum of $5000, they
also offered their support to solicit further funding (letter from Trimble
to Bahnson). The letter reproduced in Fig. 1.1, from Bahnson to Bryce
and Cécile DeWitt, shows just how tightly bound industry, military, and
research were at this time, and also how much influence a single individual
could possess.
The plan of the IOFP was to house an institute within an academic
institution, so as to avoid the conflict that physicists felt working in an
industrial setting. The chosen location was the physics department at the
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In order to lend further pres-
tige to the IOFP, Bahnson secured letters of comment from several of the
most prominent physicists of the day, including Belinfante, Oppenheimer,
9 Curiously,DeWitt later did a report on “The scientific uses of large space ships”, for
the Department of Defense (General atomic report GAMD 965, 1959).
10 Bob Bass, who coauthored the paper with Witten in this conference report, was the

first person to be hired by Witten, in 1956. Bass, together with Witten, would later
manage to hire R. E. Kalman and Solomon Lefschetz, in 1956 and 1957 respectively.
12 1. The Chapel Hill Conference in Context

Figure 1.1: Letter from Agnew Bahnson to the DeWitts from the early
phase of the development of the Institute of Field Physics,
December 29, 1955.
1. The Chapel Hill Conference in Context 13

Dyson, Teller, Feynman, and Wheeler. Wheeler did much behind the
scenes sculpting of the IOFP, and was, next to Bahnson, perhaps most re-
sponsible for the bringing about of the IOFP. For example, it was Wheeler
who tempered Bahnson’s own (somewhat Babsonesque) proposal entitled
“The Glorious Quest”, to make it more attractive to funding agencies:
“Ebullient as you and I are, I suspect sober going may go further when it
comes to getting money from a foundation” (Wheeler to Bahnson, August
29, 1955). Then, writing to the acting president of the University of North
Carolina, Harris Purks, November 25, 1955, Wheeler writes of:

the absolute necessity to avoid identification with so-called

“anti-gravity research” that may be today’s version of the last
century’s search for a perpetual motion machine. [...]
Unfortunately, there are sensationalists only too willing to
confuse in the public mind the distinction between so-called
“anti-gravity research” ... and responsible, well informed at-
tempts to understand field physics and gravitational theory at
the level where it really is mysterious, on the scale of the uni-
verse and in the elementary particle domain.

He goes on to applaud the step (in fact suggested by Wheeler himself,

earlier) of attaching to every piece of IOFP publicity a ‘disclaimer’ to the
effect that the IOFP is in no way connected to anti-gravity research. This
“Protection Clause” would be attached to each IOFP statement:

The work in field physics and gravitation theory carried on at

the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and financed
by the Institute of Field Physics, as fund raising agency, has no
connection with so-called “anti-gravity research” of whatever
kind and for whatever purposes. Its scientists, basing their
investigations upon verifiable data, accept the Newton-Einstein
analysis of gravity as free of a single established exception, and
as the most comprehensive physical description we have today.
They seek the implications of gravity and other fields of force
at the level of the elementary particles. More generally, the
Chapel Hill project is a modest attempt to learn more about
the nature of matter and energy.

This expedient, Wheeler argued, is necessary to avoid discouraging both

sponsors and scientists. The message that anti-gravity connotations must
14 1. The Chapel Hill Conference in Context

be avoided at all costs runs through much of the correspondence and foun-
dation documents like a mantra. It clearly played a vital role (in the minds
of physicists) in establishing the legitimacy of the enterprise.
Wheeler did not hold back on the need for the IOFP, though his
claims were moderated somewhat by a knowledge that progress might well
be very slow:

It is hard to see how one can get to the bottom of the elemen-
tary particle problem - the central issue of modern physics -
without coming to the very foundations of our physical world
and the structure of space and time. Gravity, fields and parti-
cles must in the end be all one unity. The absence of any para-
dox or discrepancy in gravitation theory at the human and
astronomical levels creates an obligation to apply Einstein’s
ideas down to smaller and smaller distances. One must check
as one goes, until one has either a successful extension to the
very smallest distances, or a definite contradiction or paradox
that will demand revision. ... The challenge cannot be evaded.
Exactly how to proceed is a matter of wisdom, skill, judgement,
and a good idea. Nobody guarantees to have a good idea, but
the DeWitts, fortunately, have a very sound plan of what to
do while searching for a good idea. They propose to do some-
thing that has long needed doing - help make clear the funda-
mental facts and principles of general relativity so clearly and
inescapably that every competent worker knows what is right
and what is wrong. They can do much to clear away the debris
of ruined theories from the rocklike solidity of Einstein’s grav-
itation theory so its meaning and consequences will be clear to
all. This is a great enterprise. Einstein’s theory of the space-
time-gravitation field is even richer than Maxwell’s theory of
the electromagnetic field. That field has been investigated for
many years, and now forms the foundation for a great science.
One cannot feel physics has done its job until a similarly com-
plete investigation has been made for the gravitational field.
(John Wheeler, letter to Bahnson, November 25, 1955)

Though there is, of course, a good deal of colourful rhetoric in this passage,
it nonetheless shows the importance in Wheeler’s mind of the role that the
IOFP (and the DeWitts) would play. (Note that Wheeler had only just
recently had to intervene in a proposal of Samuel Goudschmidt’s to impose
1. The Chapel Hill Conference in Context 15

an embargo on all papers dealing with general relativity and unified field
theory from the pages of Physical Review - cf. [5], p. 414.)
The various letters of support (dating from between October 1955 and
January 1956), for which the preceding letter from Wheeler to Purks pro-
vides a cover letter, highlight the recognition that general relativity and
gravitational research had been unfairly neglected, and the need for a re-
newal of interest. Oppenheimer writes that he “shares with most physicists
the impression that this field has been rather neglected by us”. Dyson sec-
onds this (as does Nordheim), but adds some conditions for success, more
or less reiterating what Wheeler had already said: that immediate results
should not be expected, and that (“to avoid becoming isolated and ster-
ile”) the institute should be settled as firmly as possible in “the framework
of normal university life”. Edward Teller remarks in his letter that “a
comprehensive examination of general relativity and high-energy physics,
together with an investigation of the interaction between these two fields
may very well lead to the essential advance for which we are all looking”.
Feynman too voiced the opinion that “the problem of the relation
of gravitation to the rest of physics is one of the outstanding theoretical
problems of our age”. However, he was less positive about the chances of
the proposed institute in (what he thought was) its original form. Feyn-
man was not convinced that an industrially funded institute, detached
from a university, could possibly deliver the requisite flexibility to develop
new fundamental knowledge: that required absolute freedom to bounce
around between topics, as one chose. On learning that the institute was to
be housed in a university, Feynman was unreservedly positive about the
proposal (letter to Wheeler, dated December 2, 1955).
John Toll, head of physics at the University of Maryland, writes, di-
rectly discussing the other letters:
Most of my colleagues have pointed out in their comments
that the field of general relativity has not received the atten-
tion which it deserves and that it is particularly important
to attempt to obtain some synthesis of the methods and con-
cepts used in general relativity with the ideas now employed
to discuss elementary particles. One reason for the neglect of
general relativity has been the great difficulty of work in this
field which challenges even the best theoretical physicists; so-
lution of the major problems involved will probably require a
determined program which may extend over many years. A
second and related reason has been the difficulty of obtaining
adequate support for this field; the problems are not of the
16 1. The Chapel Hill Conference in Context

type which are supported by federal agencies which finance so

much of the research in physics in the United States by short
term contracts, mostly in fields which appear to have more im-
mediate applicability to defence problems. (Letter from J. S.
Toll to John Wheeler, dated December 28, 1955.)

This was all written towards the end of 1955.11 By 1957 the picture looked
remarkably rosier. Whether it was due to some degree of influence of the
IOFP12 and/or RIAS (or the beginnings of the ‘Space Race’ and the Cold
War), the Air Force and the Department of Defense in fact soon began to
fund fundamental research in gravitational physics. Rather fortuitously,
Joshua Goldberg was, at the time of the establishment of the IOFP and
the conference, in charge of aspects of the Air Force’s funding of general
relativity, in the ‘modern physics research branch’ (based at the Aero-
nautical Research Laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base). In
addition to a $5000 grant, one of the (very crucial) things he was able
to do was secure MATS (Military Air Transport Service) transportation
to and from the USA (initially just for Géhéniau, Rosen, and Laurent,
but later this would include transportation for Behram Kursunoglu from
Turkey and Ryoyu Utiyama from Japan, extending to 11 nations in all).
In a letter to Bryce DeWitt (dated October 3, 1956), Goldberg notes that
the suggestion to use Air Force transportation to bring over physicists
11 December 7, 1955 saw DeWitt deliver a paper focusing on current research in gravita-
tional physics to the American Astronautical Society (published as [4]). By this time he
was able to give his position as ‘Director of the IOFP’. The talk was clearly intended as
a piece of propaganda for the IOFP. DeWitt opened by distancing his work from any
foreseeable practical applications. He then notes the lack of serious research being car-
ried out, counting just seven institutions with gravitation research projects: Syracuse,
Princeton, Purdue, UNC, Cambridge, Paris, and Stockholm - with RIAS, Inc, on the
industrial side. DeWitt mentions even at this early stage of quantum gravity history
the problems that would plague the quantum geometrodynamical approach throughout
its existence (until it transformed into loop quantum gravity): these are the problems
of defining the energy and the quantities that are conserved with respect to it (i.e. the
observables), and the factor ordering problem. (This problem refers to an issue caused
by the straightforward canonical quantization of general relativity, based on the metric
variables. According to the standard quantization algorithm, when one meets a mo-
mentum term, one substitutes a derivative. However, when this procedure is applied in
general relativity, one faces situations were one has products, and so one has to multiply
as well as differentiate. The order in which one does this matters for the form of the
final wave equation.) The former was studied by Bergmann’s group at Syracuse, while
the latter problem was studied by DeWitt’s own group at the IOFP.
12 Not so far fetched as it might sound. Bahnson notes in a letter to Bryce and Cécile

of December 29, 1956, that by then the Air Force had expressed interest in their work
(this he heard directly from Glenn Martin) - see Fig.1.1.
1. The Chapel Hill Conference in Context 17

from Europe had been Peter Bergmann’s idea - Goldberg gives a personal
account of his role in the Air Force’s support of general relativity (and the
possible reasons behind the military support of research in gravitation) in
[7]. Such free transportation became commonplace for the IOFP at this
time, and since many commentators who lived through this experience
have suggested that the ability to be able to network, made possible by
the availability of easy transportation, played a key role in the reemer-
gence of gravitational physics. Later funding would also take the form of
free computing time on IBM’s best machines13 , and (in limited cases) free
flights on TWA’s line.
Securing additional funding for the conference was time-consuming.
In May 1956, the DeWitts visited the National Science Foundation in
Washington, to explain the nature of their project - a visit that met
with success. The same week Bryce DeWitt gave a layman’s talk to the
Winston-Salem Rotary Club - at which various industrialists and wealthy
interested parties were present - in which he described the various techno-
logical innovations that have emerged from ‘pure research’. It seems (from
a memorandum Bahnson sent to his fellow funders) that the Chapel Hill
conference was virtually entirely externally funded (i.e. independent of
the IOFP’s own funds). This, he notes, is almost entirely thanks to the
work of Cécile DeWitt (Bahnson, “Memorandum No. 9”, May 7, 1957) -
in a letter to Bahnson dated November 5, 1956, Bryce DeWitt notes that
in the space of two weeks, Cécile composed 52 letters and placed 10 long
distance calls, chasing potential funding for the conference.
Though not quite a cascade, the IOFP had enough funding in its hey-
day to attract several first-rate postdoctoral fellows. These included Peter
Higgs, Heinz Pagels, and Ryoyu Utiyama. Among the first postdoctoral
fellows at the institute was Felix Pirani, who had previously belonged (and
would later return) to Hermann Bondi’s Relativity and Gravitation group
at King’s College, London (Clive Kilmister was another long term mem-
ber of this group).14 Pirani received his (first) doctorate under Arthur
Schild (who would later head the Center for Relativity) at The Carnegie

13 This possibility was initially raised by IBM’s representative, Dr John Greedstadt,

at the Roaring Gap meeting, though apparently trying to define problems to run on
the machines was not an easy task. It is, however, worth mentioning that Bryce De-
Witt would later be a pioneer of numerical relativity; also, the issue of putting general
relativity on a computer arises in the Chapel Hill report: p. 83.
14 As Ezra Newman pointed out in his recollections of the early history of general rel-

ativity ([11], p. 379), Pirani completely abandoned physics for a life as an author of
children’s books. See also [14].
18 1. The Chapel Hill Conference in Context

Institute of Technology - he received a second doctorate from Cambridge

University, under Hermann Bondi.
Peter Higgs too had been part of Hermann Bondi’s Relativity and
Gravitation group at King’s College, London, since 1956. It was Pirani
who urged him to take more interest in quantum gravity, prompting him
to take up the position at the IOFP. Though invited to the institute
to study gravitation, Peter Higgs ruefully admits that he spent his time
there working on symmetry breaking in quantum field theory.15 Higgs
first encountered Bryce DeWitt in 1959, in Royamont France. This was
the second GRG conference16 , and it was shortly after that the Interna-
tional Committee on General Relativity and Gravitation was formed (see
Kragh [10], p. 362). He met him again at the GRG3 conference in War-
saw, in 1962. After 1956, following Pirani’s advice, Higgs began looking
at quantum gravity - at the time he was working with Abdus Salam at
Imperial College. Here he wrote on the constraints in general relativity
[8]. This led, in 1964, to DeWitt’s invitation to Higgs to spend a year
at the institute, which he did, arriving in September 1965, after a year’s
postponement. Bahnson died tragically in an airplane crash the year prior
on June 3, 1964 - a chair was established at UNC in his honour, to be
occupied by Bryce DeWitt.
A follow up meeting focusing purely on ‘Exploratory Research on the
Quantization of the Gravitational Field’ was held in Copenhagen, June 15
to July 15, the same year as the Chapel Hill conference. This meeting in-
volved DeWitt, Deser, Klein, Laurent, Misner, and Møller. Again, MATS
was utilised for this meeting, courtesy of Goldberg and the ARL. Møller
and Laurent would return to Chapel Hill as visiting fellows for two months,
starting in February. Their brief was to work on the role of gravitation in
artificial Earth satellites and also atomic clocks (Bahnson, Memorandum
#11, Feb. 3, 1958).17
There are similarities between the Chapel Hill conference and the 1955
conference to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Einstein’s theory of spe-
cial relativity, held in Berne. Einstein was, of course, to have attended
15 Letterto Cécile DeWitt.
16 Or the third, depending on whether one counts the conference in Berne in 1955 to
mark the Jubilee of Einstein’s theory of special relativity. This conference is often
referred to as GR0.
17 Cold War paranoia can be clearly seen in this memorandum. Bahnson mentions a

recent report (apparently reported in American Aviation magazine) of a “graviplane”

about to be produced by the Russians, based on “the extension of Einstein’s theories
by Dr. Foch (sic.) of Leningrad” - though Bahnson admits it is likely a “propaganda
trap.”
1. The Chapel Hill Conference in Context 19

but he fell ill during the planning and died just before the event took
place, prompting Pauli to declare that “This important moment in history
is a turning point in the history of the theory of relativity and therefore
physics” ([12], p. 27). Pauli himself died not long after, in 1958. Somewhat
surprisingly, this jubilee celebration was in fact the first ever international
conference devoted solely to relativity. As it would turn out, the con-
ference dealt almost exclusively with general relativity, special relativity
being more or less a finished enterprise, formally, experimentally, and con-
ceptually. The conference would later come to be known as “GR0”, the
zeroth conference in a series which continues to this day, and of which
Chapel Hill was the first, GR1.18
The proceedings (replete with post-talk discussions) were quickly edit-
ed by André Mercier and Michel Kervaire. This proceedings volume, and
the conference itself, played a central role in the future evolution of clas-
sical and quantum gravity. However, it was no Shelter Island. Whereas
that conference had been driven by the younger generation of physicists -
Feynman, Schwinger, Wheeler, and others - the Berne Jubilee conference
was dominated by older, more established physicists. In his own report
on the Chapel Hill conference, Bahnson noted that he had talked to a
physicist (unnamed) who had also participated in the Berne conference,
who had remarked that the Chapel Hill conference had “greater informal-
ity” and that “the younger participants contributed to more discussion
and exchange of information”. The Chapel Hill conference on the Role
of Gravitation in Physics, that would happen just two years later, did
18 Schweber traces the “reawakening of interest in the field [of GR]” ([13], p. 526) to
the Berne conference, GR0, in 1955. He also notes that interest in quantum gravity
was made “respectable” as a result of Feynman’s course at Caltech between 1962 and
1963 (loc. cit., p. 527). The Berne conference was important. But it was distinctly a
European affair. In the United States, as we have seen, there were several converging
lines of attack leading to a reawakening of interest. Indeed, I would argue that since the
Berne conference consisted mostly of an older generation who had persistently thought
about general relativity and quantum gravity for decades, the phrase ‘reawakening
of interest’ is not really appropriate. Klein, Pauli, and Rosenfeld, for example, were
veterans when it came to the study of both. In fact, there was an earlier conference in
honour of Bohr to which many of the same people contributed, and gave very similar
talks. Further, to trace the respectability of quantum gravity research to Feynman’s
course is over-stretching. Wheeler had been including material on quantum gravity
from the time he began teaching his general relativity course at Princeton. One can
even find quantum gravity problems posed within his earlier advanced quantum theory
course. In addition to this, there were, as Schweber himself notes, several strong ‘schools’
concentrating on gravitation research by the end of the 1950s. That Feynman’s course
happened was as a result of the increased respectability already in operation - moreover,
Feynman’s interest was surely stimulated as a result of his participation in the Chapel
Hill conference, though he seems to have already been investigating the subject by 1955.
20 1. The Chapel Hill Conference in Context

for general relativity and gravitation what Shelter Island did for quantum
electrodynamics. The Chapel Hill conference was a genuine break from
the Berne conference, both in terms of its organization, its content, but
more so its spirit.

References
[1] Babson, R. W. (1948) “Gravity - Our Enemy Number One”. Reprinted
in H. Collins Gravity’s Shadow: The Search for Gravitational Waves
(pp. 828-831). University of Chicago Press, 2004.
[2] Babson, R. W. (1950) Actions and Reactions: An Autobiography of
Roger W. Babson. (2nd revised edition). Harper & Brothers Publish-
ers.
[3] Interview of Bryce DeWitt and Cécile DeWitt-Morette by Kenneth
W. Ford on February 28, 1995, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, Amer-
ican Institute of Physics, College Park, MD USA: http://www.aip.
org/history/ohilist/23199.html
[4] DeWitt, B. S. (1957) Principal Directions of Current Research Activ-
ity in the Theory of Gravitation. Journal of Astronautics 4: 23-28.
[5] DeWitt, B. S. (2009) Quantum Gravity: Yesterday and Today. Gen-
eral Relativity and Gravitation 41: 413-419.
[6] Gardner, M. (1957) Fads & Fallacies in The Name Of Science. Dover.
[7] Goldberg, J. M. (1992) “US Air Force Support of General Relativity:
1956-1972.” In J. Eisenstaedt and A. J. Kox (eds.), Studies in the
History of General Relativity (pp. 89-102). Boston: Birkhäuser.
[8] Higgs, P. W. (1958) Integration of Secondary Constraints in Quan-
tized General Relativity. Physical Review Letters 1(10): 373-374.
[9] Kaiser, D. (1998). “A ψ is just a ψ ? Pedagogy, Practice, and the Re-
constitution of General Relativity, 1942-1975.” Studies in the History
and Philosophy of Modern Physics 29 (3): 321-338.
[10] Kragh, H. (2002) Quantum Generations: A History of Physics in the
Twentieth Century. Princeton University Press.
[11] Newmann, E. (2005). “A Biased and Personal Description of GR.” In
A. Kox and J. Eisenstaedt, The Universe of General Relativity (pp.
373-383). Boston: Birkhäuser, 2005.
1. The Chapel Hill Conference in Context 21

[12] Pauli, W. (1956) Opening Talk. In A. Mercier and M. Kervaire (eds.),

Fünfzig Jahre Relativitätstheorie, Bern, July 11-16, 1955. (p. 27).
Helvetica Physica Acta, Suppl. 4. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag.

[13] Schweber, S. (2006) Einstein and Oppenheimer: Interactions and In-

tersections. Science in Context 19 (4): 513-559.

[14] Trautman, A. (2009) Editorial Note to J. L. Synge, ‘On the Deviation

of Geodesics and Null-Geodesics, Particularly in Relation to the Prop-
erties of Spaces of Constant Curvature and Indefinite Line-Element’
and to F. A. E. Pirani, ‘On the Physical Significance of the Riemann
Tensor.’ General Relativity and Gravitation 41 (5): 1195-1203.
Chapter 2
The Authors

In this chapter we provide brief biographical notes on the participants,

focusing on those who made a contribution that is represented in the re-
port. Many are, of course, very well-known figures, but others may not
be familiar. For convenience we have arranged them according to their re-
spective host countries (that is, the countries in which they were working
at the time of the conference). Rather than provide any kind of extensive
biography, we simply focus on key details and material that is relevant to
the conference theme.

USA

J. L. Anderson James Anderson was born in Chicago in 1926. He re-

ceived his PhD in 1952, under Peter Bergmann at Syracuse Univer-
sity, with a thesis entitled: “On the Quantization of Covariant Field
Theories.” He was Bergmann’s research assistant between 1951 and
1952 and continued to work with him on the canonical approach to
quantum gravity.
V. Bargmann Valentine Bargmann was born in 1908 in Berlin. He ob-
tained his PhD in 1936 from the University of Zurich under the su-
pervision of Gregor Wentzel, on the subject of electron scattering in
crystals - “Über die durch Elektronenstrahlen in Kristallen angeregte
Lichtemission”. He had worked with Peter Bergmann, and was also
Einstein’s assistant, at the Institute for Advanced Study, working on
the problem of motion in general relativity and unified field theory.
He also did much important work on the application of group theory
to physics in the years prior to the Chapel Hill conference.
R. Bass Robert Bass was born in 1930. He received his PhD in mathe-
matics from Johns Hopkins University in 1955, under Aurel Wintner,
on the subject: “On the Singularities of Certain Non-Linear Systems
of Differential Equations.” Following a postdoc at Princeton Univer-
sity, he was a staff scientist at RIAS [Research Institute for Advanced
24 2. The Authors

Study] (a division of the Martin-Marietta Company) at the time of

the Chapel Hill conference.

F. J. Belinfante Frederik Belinfante was born in the Hague, in the Nether-

lands, in 1913, and received his PhD under the supervision of Kramers
at the University of Leiden. After World War II he moved to Purdue
University (via the University of British Columbia). At the time of
the Chapel Hill conference he was one of the few physicists pursuing
an active research program in quantum gravity research, including
the supervision of PhD students on this topic.

P. G. Bergmann Peter Bergmann was born in Berlin in 1915. He received

his doctorate in 1936, under Philipp Frank, at the Deutsche Techni-
sche Hochschule in Prague, with a thesis entitled: “Der harmonische
Oszillator im sphärischen Raum.” He was Einstein’s research assis-
tant until 1941, working on unified field theory. He began working
on the direct quantization of gravity in 1949, and soon established a
group that specialized in the canonical quantization of gravity. By
the time of the Chapel Hill conference he was responsible for one of
the few ‘schools of relativity,’ based at Syracuse.

D. R. Brill Dieter Brill was born in 1933, and received his PhD from
Princeton in 1959, on the subject of the positivity of mass in general
relativity. He was a student of John Wheeler during the conference.
He would later go on to write one of the earliest review articles on the
quantization of general relativity, with his student Robert Gowdy.

M. J. Buckingham Michael Buckingham was born in Sydney in 1927. He

gained his PhD in Liverpool, in the UK, under Herbert Fröhlich,
on the subject of superconductivity. At the time of the Chapel Hill
conference he was a postdoctoral fellow at nearby Duke University,
also in North Carolina. He returned to Australia shortly after the
conference.

W. R. Davis William Davis received his PhD from the University of Göt-
tingen in 1956. He was hired by the University of North Carolina in
1957. He later became one of the world’s foremost authorities on the
works of Cornelius Lanczos, and is the editor of Lanczos’ complete
works.

B. S. DeWitt Bryce DeWitt was born in California in 1923. He received

his PhD at Harvard under the supervision of Julian Schwinger in
2. The Authors 25

1950. Entitled “I. The Theory of Gravitational Interactions. II.

The Interaction of Gravitation with Light,” it is one of the earliest
examples of a thesis devoted to quantum gravity. After a string
of research fellowships, including a Fullbright, he took up (with his
wife Cécile) directorship of the Institute for Field Physics at the
University of North Carolina.

C. M. DeWitt Cécile DeWitt-Morette was born in Paris in 1922. She

completed her doctoral research at the Dublin Institute for Advanced
Study, under Walter Heitler, in 1947, on the physics of mesons, enti-
tled “Sur la Production des Mésons dans les Chocs entre Nucléons” -
though officially she received her degree from the Université de Paris.
She traveled to the Institute for Advanced Study at the request of
Robert Oppenheimer were she first encountered Feynman’s path in-
tegral theory, a subject she would specialize in. She founded the Les
Houches summer school series in 1951, and directed the Institute of
Field Physics with her husband Bryce DeWitt. She was the chief
organizer of the Chapel Hill conference.

R. H. Dicke Robert Dicke was born in Missouri in 1916. He received his

PhD from the University of Rochester in 1941, under Victor Weiss-
kopf, with a thesis on the experimental investigation of the inelastic
scattering of protons. He was based at Princeton in 1957, and was
already gaining a reputation for his research on new experiments in
the theory of gravitation as well as controversial interpretations of
gravitational phenomena.

F. J. Ernst Frederick Ernst was born in 1932 near Manhattan. He was

among those students to attend John Wheeler’s first ever general rel-
ativity course at Princeton in 1953. He would later complete a thesis
on geons under Wheeler’s supervision (between 1951 and 1955), the
contents of which were presented in his talk at the Chapel Hill con-
ference. He gained his doctoral thesis in 1958 under Robert Sachs,
on quantum field theory.

R. P. Feynman Richard Feynman was born in 1918 in New York City. He

received his PhD under the supervision of John Wheeler, at Prince-
ton, in 1942, with his thesis on “The Principle of Least Action in
Quantum Mechanics.” Even by 1955 Feynman claimed to have spent
a great deal of effort on the problem of gravitation (letter from Bryce
DeWitt to Agnew Bahnson, November 15, 1955).
26 2. The Authors

T. Gold Thomas Gold was born in Austria in 1920. After a circuitous

trajectory through engineering and the theory of hearing, Gold was,
in 1947, elected to a Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge (with-
out having obtained a PhD). Soon after he devised, with Hermann
Bondi and Fred Hoyle, the idea of continuous creation of matter on
the basis of a conflict between Hubble’s time constant and empirical
evidence. By the time of the Chapel Hill conference he was working
on a range of problems in and around astronomy at Harvard.

J. N. Goldberg Joshua Goldberg was born in New York in 1925. He was a

graduate student at Syracuse, where he received his PhD under Peter
Bergmann in 1952. He took up a position as research physicist at the
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and, as part of his administrative
duties at Wright-Patterson, was crucial in obtaining funding for the
Chapel Hill conference.

A. E. Lilley Arthur Lilley was born in 1928. He received his PhD in 1956
in astronomy from Harvard University under the direction of Bart
Bok. At the time of the conference he was a radio astronomer with
the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, though affiliated to Harvard.
He was a pioneer in radio astronomy and its uses in the testing of
relativity.

R. W. Lindquist Richard Lindquist was a graduate student of Wheeler’s,

and received his PhD under Wheeler’s direction in 1962, with a the-
sis on “The Two Body Problem in Geometrodynamics.” He later
extended this work into numerical relativity in which he was one of
the first to develop computer simulations of colliding black holes.

C. W. Misner Charles Misner was born in Michigan in 1932. He received

his PhD under the supervision of John Wheeler the same year as
the Chapel Hill conference, on the subject of the Feynman quantiza-
tion of general relativity. He was already an instructor at Princeton
from 1956, and would often give ‘guest’ seminars in John Wheeler’s
courses. He was very closely involved in Wheeler’s ‘geometrodynam-
ical’ approach at the time of the conference.

R. Mjolsness Raymond Mjolsness was a beginning graduate student of

John Wheeler’s at Princeton (on the NSF graduate fellowship) -
though he later gained his PhD under Edward Freiman in 1963, with
a thesis entitled: “A Study of the Stability of a Relativistic Particle
Beam Passing Through a Plasma.”
2. The Authors 27

E. T. Newman Ezra Newman was born in New York in 1929. He was

a student of Peter Bergmann at Syracuse and gained his PhD un-
der his supervision in 1956 - Newman initially began working with
Bergmann as an undergraduate in 1951.
A. Schild Alfred Schild was born in Istanbul in 1921. He was interned
in Canada during World War II, and obtained his PhD there, from
the University of Toronto, in 1946, under the supervision of Leopold
Infeld, with a thesis entitled: “A New Approach to Kinematic Cos-
mology.” He moved to the University of Austin, Texas, just after
the Chapel Hill conference and established the very successful Cen-
ter for Relativity Theory. Together with his student Felix Pirani, he
had written one of the first papers on the canonical quantum of the
gravitational field.
R. S. Schiller Ralph Schiller was a graduate student with Peter Bergmann
at Syracuse and had worked on translating results from the canoni-
cal formulation of general relativity into the Lagrangian formulation.
He later switched to biophysics after spending some time as David
Bohm’s research assistant in Brazil.
J. Weber Joseph Weber was born in New Jersey in 1919. His interests
spanned laser physics and gravitational physics. He received his PhD
in 1951 under Keith Laidler on the subject of “Microwave Technique
in Chemical Kinetics” at the Catholic University of America. In
1955 he began investigating gravitational radiation, and accompa-
nied John Wheeler to Leiden in 1956. Weber began the construction
of the gravitational wave detector that bears his name the year fol-
lowing the Chapel Hill conference.
J. A. Wheeler John Wheeler was born in Florida in 1911. He obtained his
PhD from Johns Hopkins University (under Karl Herzfeld) in 1933.
He had a range of postdoctoral positions following this, including
one under Bohr’s supervision. He was a professor at Princeton when
the Chapel Hill conference took place, and had only fairly recently,
in the fall of 1952, begun to teach and learn general relativity. Many
of his doctoral students were present at the conference. Just prior to
the conference, Wheeler was Lorentz Professor in Leiden - he took
three of his brightest doctoral students with him, including Charles
Misner and Joseph Weber.
L. Witten Louis Witten was born in Baltimore in 1921. He received his
PhD in 1951, from Johns Hopkins University, under the supervision
28 2. The Authors

of Theodore Berlin. His interests shifted to general relativity during

postdoctoral stints at Princeton and Maryland. At the time of the
conference he was working at RIAS.

UK

H. Bondi Hermann Bondi was born in Vienna in 1919. He did his PhD at
Cambridge under Arthur Eddington. In 1948 Bondi had, together
with Thomas Gold, published a theory of cosmology (the ‘steady
state theory’) based on the ‘perfect cosmological principle’, which
was still being debated at the time of the Chapel Hill conference. By
1957, Bondi had established (at King’s College, London) one of the
few schools of general relativity.

F. Pirani Felix Pirani was born in 1928. He received his first PhD un-
der Arthur Schild, at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, in 1951,
where he had worked (together with Schild) on the canonical quan-
tization of the gravitational field. He obtained a second PhD under
Hermann Bondi at Cambridge in 1956, on “The Relativistic Basis Of
Mechanics.” Just prior to the Chapel Hill conference he had proposed
the geodesic deviation equation as a tool for designing a workable
gravitational wave receiver. He later became an author of children’s
books, a shift which seems to have been triggered by his experience
of racism in the United States during a postdoctoral fellowship at
Chapel Hill in 1959.

L. Rosenfeld Léon Rosenfeld was born in Belgium in 1904. He received

his PhD in 1926, at the University of Liège under Marcel Dehalu and
Niels Bohr. Following this he undertook a series of fellowships, with
de Broglie, Born, Pauli and Bohr. He had done pioneering work on
constrained systems and the quantization of the gravitational field
in the 1930s. He succeeded Hartree at Manchester in 1947 and was
still based there at the time of the Chapel Hill conference.

D. Sciama Dennis Sciama was born in Manchester in 1926. He received

his PhD from Cambridge under Dirac in 1953, with a thesis on
Mach’s Principle. He followed his PhD with postdoctoral fellow-
ships at the Institute for Advanced Study and Harvard. He later
returned to Trinity College in Cambridge on an earlier fellowship,
before joining Bondi’s group at King’s College in 1958.
2. The Authors 29

France
Y. Fourès Yvonne Fourès (née Bruhat; now Choquet-Bruhat) was born
in Lille in 1923. She received her PhD (‘Docteur des Sciences’) from
the Université de Paris in 1951 on the Cauchy problem for a system
of second order partial differential equations (with application to
general relativity). She spent 1951-1952 at the Institute for Advanced
Study in Princeton. She was a member of the Faculté des Sciences
de Marseille at the time of the Chapel Hill conference.
André Lichnerowicz Lichnerowicz was born in Bourbon l’Archambault in
1915. He received his PhD in 1939, on differential geometry in gen-
eral relativity, under the supervision of Georges Darmois. He was
based at the Collège de France, in Paris when the conference took
place. He was a full professor of mathematics, rather than physics.
As we have seen, at the time it was common for general relativists
to be found in mathematics departments. Lichnerowicz had earlier
been to the States, where he had spent some time as a visiting pro-
fessor at Princeton. The same year as the conference, Lichnerowicz
founded (along with John Wheeler and Vladimir Fock) the Interna-
tional Society for General Relativity and Gravitation.
M. A. Tonnelat Marie-Antoinette Tonnelat-Baudot was born in 1912 in
Southern Burgundy. She gained her doctorate in 1939, under the su-
pervision of de Broglie. In this work (which includes a little-known
paper coauthored with de Broglie) she investigated the relationship
between the wave mechanics of spin-2 particles (gravitons) and lin-
earized general relativity. By the time of the conference she had a
long history of research in general relativity and unified field theory
and was holding a position at the Henri Poincaré Institute at the
Université de Paris.

Germany
H. Salecker Helmut Salecker had been a research assistant of Eugene
Wigner, and was reporting on their joint work at the Chapel Hill
conference. He spent part of 1957 based in Princeton with Wigner,
working on general relativistic invariance and quantum theory, and
the work on quantum limitations of measurements of spacetime dis-
tances. Following this he took up a position at the Institut für The-
oretische Physik at Freiburg.
30 2. The Authors

Japan

R. Utiyama Ryōyū Utiyama was born in Shizuoka, Japan in 1916. He

received his PhD from Osaka University under the supervision of
Minoru Kobayashi in 1940. He had been a visiting fellow at the
Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton between 1954 and 1956,
where he was working on ‘general gauge theory.’ He had done earlier
quite pioneering work on quantum gravity. He would be among the
first postdoctoral fellows at the Institute for Field Physics at Chapel
Hill.

Denmark

S. Deser Stanley Deser was born in 1931, in Poland. He obtained his PhD
from Harvard in 1953, under the supervision of Julian Schwinger
with a thesis on “Relativistic Two-Body Interactions.” He had been
an NSF Jewett Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Advanced
Study (IAS) between 1953 and 1955 under the supervision of Robert
Oppenheimer - he was also associated with the ‘Rad lab’ at Berkeley
during 1954. At the time of the conference he was a member of the
Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen.

Sweden

B. Laurent Bertel Laurent had been Oskar Klein’s last student. In the
years immediately preceding the Chapel Hill conference he had been
working on the first attempt at a Feynman-style quantization of gen-
eral relativity.

Turkey

B. Kursunoglu Behram Kursunoglu was born in Turkey in 1922. He re-

ceived his PhD from Cambridge, where he was part of a group includ-
ing Kemmer, Salam, and Dirac - Kursunoglu also attended Dirac’s
quantum mechanics lectures. He was the chief scientific advisor to
the Turkish general army staff at the time of the conference, and was
working on a unified field theory.
The Original Chapel Hill Report
Foreword
Cécile DeWitt

A conference on The Role of Gravitation in Physics was held at the Univer-

sity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, from January 18 to January 23, 1957.
It was planned as a working session to discuss problems in the theory of
gravitation which have recently received attention.
The present report was undertaken as a necessary requirement to
obtain conference funds. However, as the conference progressed, it became
more and more apparent that a report of the discussions would have a
scientific interest, partly because of an increasing number of requests for a
report from physicists unable to attend the conference, and partly because
of the nature of the discussions.
Research in gravitational theory has been relatively neglected in the
past two or three decades for several good reasons: (1) the lack of exper-
imental guideposts, (2) the mathematical difficulties encountered in the
study of non-linear fields, and (3) the experience of repeated early failures
to extend general relativity theory in a permanently interesting fashion.
A renewed interest in the subject has recently begun to develop, and the
Chapel Hill conference gave an opportunity to the few physicists actively
working in the field - some having kept up an interest in it in spite of its
difficulties, others having lately engaged in its study, often from a new
point of view - to discuss the preliminary results obtained and to present
new lines of approach.
This situation gave rise to very lively discussions. Obviously, most of
the material discussed is not ready for publication yet and - owing to the
difficulty of the problems under consideration - may not be for a long time
to come. That is why an informal report of the proceedings is valuable, but
at the same time delicate to write up. An effort has been made to check
with the authors the report of their contributions to the conference, and
some have very kindly rewritten the draft proposed to them. However, the
time allotted to the preparation of the report had to be limited, because
the usefulness of such a report decreases with time more rapidly than its
quality increases; moreover, the reporters should not be asked to spend an
undue amount of time working on the report, which could be better spent
on original research. Consequently, no statement from this report
can be quoted without explicit permission from the author.
The papers which are ready for publication will appear in the July
1957 issue of Reviews of Modern Physics. A brief summary of the confer-
ence intended for non-specialists has been sent to Science.
It can hardly be said that the report gives a perfectly true picture
of the conference. The report has been prepared from notes taken during
the session, from material given by the authors, and from tape recordings.
(The reporters had hoped to have a stenographic transcript available, but
the cost of this transcript was beyond common sense.) Some contributions
have been very appreciably abridged, some are reproduced practically ver-
batim, some are extended, and some have not been recorded, depending
largely on the “communication” (both material and intellectual) between
authors on the one hand and reporters and editors on the other.
At the end of the conference, the participants expressed - together
with their belief in the importance of the subject matter - the wish to meet
again, if possible in Europe in the summer of 1958. Such meetings should
truly give an opportunity for discussions and for contacts between senior
physicists who have a broad and thorough understanding of the subject
and younger physicists of various backgrounds who have an interest in it.
The need is also felt for discussions and contacts between workers in the
field for periods of time longer than conferences.
Thanks are due to the sponsors, the members of the steering com-
mittee, and the members of the Physics Department of the University of
North Carolina. The interest shown in the conference by Governor Luther
H. Hodges and by the officers of the University was very gratifying. Spe-
cial mention should be made of the cooperation of the University Extension
Division and of the many individuals who assisted in hospitality arrange-
ments for the conferees. To all who have made the Chapel Hill conference
possible and have helped in its organization, this report is dedicated as a
token of appreciation.

Cécile M. DeWitt

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

March 15, 1957
Abstract

From January 18-23, 1957, a group of physicists from several countries

met at the University of North Carolina to discuss the role of gravitation
in physics. The program was divided into two broad headings: Unquan-
tized and quantized general relativity. Under the former came a review
of classical relativity, its experimental tests, the initial value problem,
gravitational radiation, equations of motion, and unified field theory. Un-
der quantized general relativity came a discussion of the motivation for
quantization, the problem of measurement, and the actual techniques for
quantization. In both sections the relationship of general relativity to fun-
damental particles was discussed. In addition there was a session devoted
to cosmological questions. A large part of the relevant discussions is repro-
duced in this report in a somewhat abridged form. A conference summary
statement is presented by Professor P. G. Bergmann.
 PROCEEDINGS
OF THE
CONFERENCE ON THE ROLE OF GRAVITATION IN PHYSICS
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, January 18-23, 1957

UNDER THE SPONSORSHIP

OF THE
International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, with financial support
from
UNESCO
National Science Foundation
Wright Air Development Center, U.S. Air Force
Office of Ordnance Research, U.S. Army

This conference was an activity of the North Carolina Project of the In-
stitute of Field Physics, established in 1956 in the Department of Physics
of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Its organization has been carried out through the Institute of Natural
Science of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

STEERING COMMITTEE
Frederick J. Belinfante, Purdue University
Peter G. Bergmann, Syracuse University
Bryce S. DeWitt, University of North Carolina
Cécile M. DeWitt, University of North Carolina
Freeman J. Dyson, Institute for Advanced Study
John A. Wheeler, Princeton University

MARCH 19571
Wright Air Development Center
Air Research and Development Command
United States Air Force
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio

1 Cécile M. DeWitt mailed this report to the Air Force on March 18; on March 19, she

gave birth to her third daughter.

 Reporters

W. A. Bowers
B. S. DeWitt
Cécile M. DeWitt
M. M. Duncan
J. M. Ging
J. R. Herring
E. M. Lynch
A. V. Masket
Eugen Merzbacher

Technical editor and typist

Ouida C. Taylor

Scientific editors

Cécile M. DeWitt
Bryce S. DeWitt
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
ticket. The legislature of 1874-1875 was to be composed as follows: Senate, 13
Republicans (of whom 6 were negroes) and 20 Democrats; House, 40
Republicans (of whom 29 were negroes) and 60 Democrats.[2162]
The whites were exceedingly pleased with their victory, while the Republicans
took defeat as something expected. There were, of course, the usual charges of
outrage, Ku Kluxism, and the intimidation of the negro vote, but these were
fewer than ever before. There was considerable complaint that the Federal
troops had sided always with the whites in the election troubles. The Republican
leaders knew, of course, that for their own time at least Alabama was to remain
in the hands of the whites. The blacks were surprisingly indifferent after they
discovered that there was to be no return to slavery, so much so that many
whites feared that their indifference masked some deep-laid scheme against the
victors.

Larger Image
The heart of the Black Belt still remained under the rule of the carpet-bagger
and the black. The Democratic state executive Committee considered that
enough had been gained for one election, so it ordered that no whites should
contest on technical grounds alone the offices in those black counties. Other
methods gradually gave the Black Belt to the whites. No Democrat would now
go on the bond of a Republican official and numbers were unable to make
bond; their offices thus becoming vacant, the governor appointed Democrats.
Others sold out to the whites, or neglected to make bond, or made bonds which
were later condemned by grand juries. This resulted in many offices going to
the whites, though most of them were still in the hands of the Republicans.
[2163]

Houston’s two terms were devoted to setting affairs in order. The administration
was painfully economical. Not a cent was spent beyond what was absolutely
necessary. Numerous superfluous offices were cut off at once and salaries
reduced. The question of the public debt was settled. To prevent future
interference by Federal authorities the time for state elections was changed
from November, the time of the Federal elections, to August, and this separation
is still in force. The whites now demanded a new constitution. Their objections
to the constitution of 1868 were numerous: it was forced upon the whites, who
had no voice in framing it; it “reminds us of unparalleled wrongs”; it had not
secured good government; it was a patchwork unsuited to the needs of the
state; it had wrecked the credit of the state by allowing the indorsement of
private corporations; it provided for a costly administration, especially for a
complicated and unworkable school system which had destroyed the schools;
there was no power of expansion for the judiciary; and above all, it was not
legally adopted.[2164]
The Republicans declared against a new constitution as meant to destroy the
school system, provide imprisonment for debt, abolish exemption from taxation,
disfranchise and otherwise degrade the blacks. By a vote of 77,763 to 59,928, a
convention was ordered by the people, and to it were elected 80 Democrats, 12
Republicans, and 7 Independents. A new constitution was framed and adopted
in 1875.[2165]

Later Phases of State Politics

From 1875 to 1889 neither national party was able to control both houses of
Congress. Consequently no “force” legislation could be directed against the
white people of Alabama, who had control and were making secure their control
of the state administration. The black vote was not eliminated, but gradually fell
under the control of the native whites when the carpet-bagger and scalawag
left the Black Belt. In order to gain control of the black vote, carpet-bag
methods were sometimes resorted to, though there was not as much fraud and
violence used as is believed, for the simple reason that it was not necessary; it
was little more difficult now to make the blacks vote for the Democrats than it
had been to make Republicans of them; the mass of them voted, in both cases,
as the stronger power willed it. The Black Belt came finally into Democratic
control in 1880, when the party leaders ordered the Alabama Republicans to
vote the Greenback ticket. The negroes did not understand the meaning of the
manœuvre, did not vote in force, and lost their last stronghold. A few white
Republicans and a few black leaders united to maintain the Republican state
organization in order that they might control the division of spoils coming from
the Republican administration at Washington. Most of them were or became
Federal officials within the state. It was not to their interest that their numbers
should increase, for the shares in the spoils would then be smaller. Success in
the elections was now the last thing desired.

Larger Image
This clique of office-holders was almost destroyed by the two Democratic
administrations under Cleveland, and has been unhappy under later Republican
administrations; but the Federal administration in the state is not yet
respectable. Dissatisfaction on the part of the genuine Republicans in the
northern counties resulted in the formation of a “Lily White” faction which
demanded that the negro be dropped as a campaign issue and that an attempt
be made to build up a decent white Republican party. The opposing faction has
been called “The Black and Tans,” and has held to the negro. The national party
organization and the administration have refused to recognize the demands of
the “Lily Whites”; and it would be exceedingly embarrassing to go back on the
record of the past in regard to the negro as the basis of the Republican party in
the South. In consequence the growth of a reputable white party has been
hindered.

Larger Image
The Populist movement promised to cause a healthy division of the whites into
two parties. But the tactics of the national Republican organization in trying to
profit by this division, by running in the negroes, resulted in a close reunion of
the discordant whites, the Populists furnishing to the reunited party some new
principles and many new leaders, while the Democrats furnished the name,
traditions, and organization.
To make possible some sort of division and debate among the whites the
system of primary elections was adopted. In these elections the whites were
able to decide according to the merits of the candidate and the issues involved.
The candidate of the whites chosen in the primaries was easily elected. This
plan had the merit of placing the real contest among the whites, and there was
no danger of race troubles in elections. In the Black Belt the primary system
was legalized and served by its regulations to confine the election contests to
regularly nominated candidates, and hence to whites, the blacks having lost
their organization.

Larger Image
The Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments in their operation gave undue
political influence to the whites of the Black Belt, and this was opposed by
whites of other districts. It also resulted in serious corruption in elections. There
was always danger in the Black Belt that the Republicans, taking advantage of
divisions among the whites, would run in the negroes again. There were
instances when the whites simply counted out the negro vote or used “shotgun”
methods to prevent a return to the intolerable conditions of Reconstruction. The
people grew weary of the eternal “negro in the woodpile,” and a demand arose
for a revision of the constitution in order to eliminate the mass of the negro
voters, to do away with corruption in the elections and to leave the whites free.
The conservative leaders, like Governors Jones and Oates, were rather opposed
to a disfranchising movement. The Black Belt whites were somewhat doubtful,
but the mass of the whites were determined, and the work was done; the
stamp of legality was thus placed upon the long-finished work of necessity, and
the “white man’s movement” had reached its logical end.[2166]

The mistakes and failures of Reconstruction are clear to all. Whether any
successes were achieved by the Congressional plan has been a matter for
debate. It has been strongly asserted that Reconstruction, though failing in
many important particulars, succeeded in others. The successes claimed may be
summarized as follows: (1) there was no more legislation for the negro similar
to that of 1865-66, that following the Reconstruction being “infinitely milder”;
(2) Reconstruction gave the negroes a civil status that a century of “restoration”
would not have accomplished, for though the right to vote is a nullity, other
undisputed rights of the black are due to the Reconstruction; the unchangeable
organic laws of the state and of the United States favor negro suffrage, which
will come the sooner for being thus theoretically made possible; (3)
Reconstruction prevented the southern leaders from returning to Washington as
irreconcilables, and gave them troubles enough to keep them busy until a new
generation grew up which accepted the results of war; (4) by organizing the
blacks it made them independent of white control in politics; (5) it gave the
negro an independent church; (6) it gave the negro a right to education and
gave to both races the public school system; (7) it made the negro economically
free and showed that free labor was better than slave labor; (8) it destroyed the
former leaders of the whites and “freed them from the baleful influence of old
political leaders”; in general, as Sumner said, the ballot to the negro was “a
peacemaker, a schoolmaster, a protector,” soon making him a fairly good citizen,
and secured peace and order—the “political hell” through which the whites
passed being a necessary discipline which secured the greatest good to the
greatest number.[2167]
On the other hand, it may be maintained (1) that the intent of the legislation of
1865-1866 has been entirely misunderstood, that it was intended on the whole
for the benefit of the negro as well as of the white, and that it has been left
permanently off the statute book, not because the whites have been taught
better by Reconstruction, but because of the amendments which prohibit in
theory what has all along been practised (hence the gross abuses of peonage);
(2) that the theoretical rights of the negro have been no inducement to grant
him actual privileges, and that these theoretical rights have not proven so
permanent as was supposed before the disfranchising movement spread
through the South; (3) that the generation after Reconstruction is more
irreconcilable than the conservative leaders who were put out of politics in
1865-1867—that the latter were willing to give the negro a chance, while the
former, able, radical, and supported by the people, find less and less place for
the negro; (4) that if the blacks were united, so were the whites, and in each
case the advantage may be questioned; (5) that the value of the negro church
is doubtful; (6) that as in politics, so in education, the negro has no
opportunities now that were not freely offered him in 1865-1866, and the
school system is not a product of Reconstruction, but came near being
destroyed by it; (7) that negro free labor is not as efficient as slave labor was,
and the negro as a cotton producer has lost his supremacy and his economic
position is not at all assured; (8) that the whites have acquired new leaders, but
the change has been on the whole from conservatives to radicals, from friends
of the negro to those indifferent to him. In short, a careful study of conditions
in Alabama since 1865 will not lead one to the conclusion that the black race in
that state has any rights or privileges or advantages that were not offered by
the native whites in 1865-1866.
For the misgovernment of Reconstruction, the negro, who was in no way to
blame, has been made to suffer, since those who were really responsible could
not be reached; so politically the races are hostile; the Black Belt has had, until
recently, an undue and disturbing influence in white politics; the Federal official
body and the Republican organization in the state have not been respectable,
and the growth of a white Republican party has been prevented; the whites
have for thirty-five years distrusted and disliked the Federal administration
which, until recent years, showed little disposition to treat them with any
consideration;[2168] the rule of the carpet-bagger, scalawag, and negro, and the
methods used to overthrow that rule, weakened the respect of the people for
the ballot, for law, for government; the estrangement of the races and the
social-equality teachings of the reconstructionists have made it much less safe
than in slavery for whites to reside near negro communities, and the negro is
more exposed to imposition by low whites.
In recent years there have been many signs of improvement, but only in
proportion as the principles and practices that the white people of the state
understand are those of Reconstruction are rejected or superseded. To the
northern man Reconstruction probably meant and still means something quite
different from what the white man of Alabama understands by the term. But as
the latter understands it, he has accepted none of its essential principles and
intends to accept none of its so-called successes.
In destroying all that was old, Reconstruction probably removed some abuses;
from the new order some permanent good must have resulted. But credit for
neither can rightfully be claimed until it can be shown that those results were
impossible under the régime destroyed.

APPENDIX I

PRODUCTION OF COTTON IN ALABAMA. 1860-1900

(a) Typical black counties with boundaries unchanged. (b) Typical white
counties.

County 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900

bales bales bales bales bales
Autauga 17,329 7,965 7,944 10,431 14,348
Baker (Chilton) —— 1,360 3,534 6,233 9,932
Baldwin 2,172 87 638 1,663 531
Barbour (a) 44,518 17,011 26,063 33,440 29,395
Bibb 8,303 3,973 4,843 5,216 6,535
Blount (b) 1,071 950 4,442 9,748 11,449
Bullock —— 17,972 22,578 30,547 31,774
Butler 13,489 5,854 11,895 18,200 21,147
Calhoun 11,573 3,038 10,848 11,504 11,554
Chambers 24,589 7,868 19,476 27,276 30,676
Cherokee (b) 10,562 1,807 10,777 11,870 12,767
Choctaw (a) 17,252 6,439 9,054 13,586 13,091
Clarke (a) 16,225 5,713 11,097 16,380 16,594
Clay (b) —— 1,143 4,973 8,250 10,459
Cleburne (b) —— 873 3,600 5,389 5,035
Coffee (b) 5,294 2,004 4,788 11,791 16,747
Colbert —— 3,936 9,012 3,956 9,234
Conecuh (b) 6,850 1,539 4,633 8,167 9,801
Coosa 13,990 3,893 8,411 10,141 11,370
Covington (b) 2,021 689 1,158 2,740 5,969
Crenshaw (b) —— 4,638 8,173 13,442 18,909
Cullman (b) —— —— 378 5,268 9,374
Dale (b) 7,836 4,273 6,224 16,259 17,868
Dallas (a) 63,410 24,819 33,534 42,819 48,273
De Kalb (b) 1,498 205 2,859 4,573 9,860
Elmore (b) —— 7,295 9,771 16,871 18,458
Escambia —— 605 94 462 1,131
Etowah (b) —— 1,383 6,571 8,482 11,651
Fayette (b) 5,462 1,909 4,268 6,141 9,128
Franklin 15,592 2,072 3,603 2,669 6,047
Geneva (b) —— 420 1,112 7,158 9,813
Greene (a) 57,858 9,910 15,811 20,901 23,681
Hale —— 18,573 18,093 28,973 28,645
Henry (b) 13,034 7,127 12,573 23,738 27,281
Jackson (b) 2,713 2,339 6,235 5,358 5,602
Jefferson (b) 4,940 1,470 5,333 4,829 7,044
Lamar (Sanford) (b) —— 1,825 5,015 6,998 10,118
Lauderdale 11,050 5,457 9,270 5,156 9,708
Lawrence 15,434 9,243 13,791 9,248 12,541
Lee —— 11,591 13,189 18,332 22,431
Limestone 15,115 7,319 15,724 8,093 14,887
Lowndes (a) 53,664 18,369 29,356 40,388 39,839
Macon (a) 41,119 11,872 14,580 19,099 20,434
Madison 22,119 12,180 20,679 13,150 20,842
Marengo (a) 62,428 23,614 23,481 31,651 38,392
Marion (b) 4,285 463 2,240 4,454 6,309
Marshall (b) 4,931 2,340 5,358 8,118 13,318
Mobile 440 317 1 24 116
Monroe (a) 18,226 6,172 10,421 15,919 17,101
Montgomery (a) 58,880 25,517 31,732 45,827 39,202
Morgan (b) 6,326 4,389 6,133 6,227 9,313
Perry (a) 44,603 13,449 21,627 24,873 29,690
Pickens (a) 29,843 8,263 17,283 18,904 21,485
Pike (b) 24,527 7,192 15,136 25,879 34,757
Randolph (b) 6,427 2,246 7,475 10,348 17,148
Russell (a) 38,728 20,796 19,442 20,521 21,174
Shelby (b) 6,463 2,194 6,643 7,308 10,193
St. Clair (b) 4,189 1,244 6,028 7,136 9,411
Sumter (a) 36,584 11,647 22,211 25,768 31,906
Talladega 18,243 5,697 11,832 15,686 21,563
Tallapoosa (b) 17,399 5,446 14,161 20,337 24,955
Tuscaloosa 26,035 6,458 11,137 13,008 20,041
Walker (b) 2,766 928 2,754 3,211 4,746
Washington 3,449 1,803 1,246 2,030 2,213
Wilcox (a) 48,749 20,095 26,745 32,582 35,005
Winston (b) 352 205 568 1,464 3,686
Totals 989,955 429,482 699,654 915,210 1,093,697

APPENDIX II

REGISTRATION OF VOTERS UNDER THE NEW

CONSTITUTION
Males of Registered
Voting Age Voters
County in 1900 in 1905
White Black White Black
Autauga 1,524 2,311 1,554 35
Baldwin 2,096 991 1,390 206
Barbour 2,889 4,201 2,846 46
Bibb 2,701 1,598 2,725 59
Blount 4,401 417 3,182 —
Bullock 1,415 5,168 1,291 14
Butler 2,766 2,617 2,739 2
Calhoun 5,390 2,380 4,892 130
Chambers 3,441 3,380 3,098 28
Cherokee 3,896 702 3,004 27
Chilton 2,852 707 2,970 1
Choctaw 1,697 1,929 1,496 29
Clarke 2,652 3,103 2,485 158
Clay 3,220 393 3,501 —
Cleburne 2,565 181 2,280 —
Coffee 3,508 996 3,334 —
Colbert 2,927 2,030 2,233 22
Conecuh 2,110 1,608 2,079 7
Coosa 2,338 942 2,134 —
Covington 2,803 786 2,857 3
Crenshaw 3,062 1,156 2,982 —
Cullman 3,359 5 4,641 4
Dale 3,492 1,002 3,021 11
Dallas 2,360 9,871 2,419 52
De Kalb 4,819 226 4,388 —
Elmore 3,202 2,758 3,030 54
Escambia 1,628 821 1,676 46
Etowah 5,140 1,031 4,186 39
Fayette 2,698 338 2,563 7
Franklin 2,989 634 2,600 12
Geneva 3,355 981 2,873 30
Greene 852 4,344 739 104
Hale 1,358 5,370 1,362 92
Henry } 4,904 2,933 2,072 —
Houston } (new county) 2,757 —
Jackson 5,939 731 4,704 73
Jefferson 21,036 18,472 18,315 352
Lamar 2,715 592 2,356 7
Lauderdale 4,235 1,586 3,305 76
Lawrence 2,761 1,426 2,367 49
Lee 2,988 3,472 2,652 12
 Limestone 2,832 2,050 2,722 28
Lowndes 1,121 6,455 1,085 57
Macon 1,042 3,782 917 65
Madison 5,788 4,397 4,479 112
Marengo 2,095 6,143 2,043 302
Marion 2,735 144 2,698 25
Marshall 4,595 333 4,251 —
Mobile 7,934 7,371 7,295 193
Monroe 2,307 2,570 2,178 40
Montgomery 5,087 11,429 4,995 53
Morgan 4,987 1,713 4,506 60
Perry 1,574 5,028 1,659 90
Pickens 2,408 2,846 2,217 111
Pike 3,598 2,611 3,126 26
Randolph 3,457 978 3,363 13
Russell 1,433 3,961 1,170 191
Shelby 3,611 1,672 3,712 19
St. Clair 3,777 712 3,340 50
Sumter 1,391 5,304 1,244 57
Talladega 3,934 3,814 3,303 81
Tallapoosa 4,185 2,056 4,166 33
Tuscaloosa 5,100 3,413 4,153 165
Walker 4,582 1,351 4,894 1
Washington 1,386 1,179 1,339 53
Wilcox 1,686 5,967 1,522 41
Winston 1,884 3 1,833 1
Totals 224,212 181,471 205,278 3,654

Number of whites of voting age not registered, estimated at 45,000.

Number of blacks of voting age not registered, estimated at 190,000.
Foreign whites of voting age, 8082.
Number of whites registered but unable to comply with other requirements for
voting, estimated at 60,000.
INDEX
Abolition sentiment in Alabama, 10.

Agriculture, during the war, 232;

since the war, 710-734.

Alabama, admitted to Union, 7;

secedes, 36;
readmitted, 547.

Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad, 591-600.

American Missionary Association and negro education, 459, 462,

463, 617, 620.

Amnesty proclamation of President Johnson, 349;

published by military commanders in Alabama, 409.

Amusements during the war, 241.

Andrew, Bishop, and the separation of the Methodist church, 22.

Anti Ku Klux, 690.

Anti-slavery sentiment in Alabama, 10.

Applegate, A. J., lieutenant-governor, 736.

Army, U. S., and the civic authorities, 410;

in conflict with Federal court, 414;
relations with the people, 417-420;
used in elections, 694-701, 746, 756, 789, 794.

Athens sacked by Colonel Turchin, 63.

Bacon used to influence elections, 785.

Banks and banking during the war, 162.

Baptist church, separation of, 22;

declaration in regard to the state of the country, 222;
during Reconstruction, 639;
relations with negroes, 642.

“Barbour County Fever,” 709.

Bingham, D. H., mentioned, 346, 350, 402;

in convention of 1867, 526;
in Union League, 557.

Birney, James G., mentioned, 10.

Black Belt, during slavery, 710;

at the end of the war, 713;
share system in, 722;
decadence of, during Reconstruction, 726.

“Black Code,” or “Black Laws,” 378.

“Black Republican” party arraigned, 20.

Blockade-running, 183.

Bonded debt of Alabama, 580-586.

Bonds, of state, 580;

of counties and towns, 580, 581;
fraudulent issues, 581, 582;
of railroads, 587-607;
fraudulent indorsements, 596-606.
Boyd, Alexander, killed by Ku Klux, 686.

Bragg, W. L., Democratic campaign manager, 793.

Brooks, William M., president of convention of 1861, 28;

letter to President Davis, 112;
advocates limited negro suffrage, 388.

Brown, John, plans negro uprising in Alabama, 18.

Buchanan, Admiral Franklin, at battle of Mobile Bay, 69.

Buck, A. E., carpet-bagger, in convention of 1867, 518;

elected to Congress, 750.

Buckley, C. W., carpet-bagger, agent of Freedmen’s Bureau, 426,

437, 440, 448, 458;
in convention of 1867, 518;
elected to Congress, 737;
on Ku Klux Committee, 702;
sides with the Robinson faction, 774.

Bulger, M. J., in secession convention, 29, 31, 33, 38;

candidate for governor, 372;
in politics, 513.

Busteed, Richard, Federal judge, on Fourteenth Amendment, 394;

in Radical politics, 511, 744, 774.

Byrd, William M., “Union” leader, 15.

Calhoun Democrats, 11.

Callis, John B., carpet-bagger, agent of Freedmen’s Bureau, 426;

in Union League, 557;
 elected to Congress, 738.

Campaign, of 1867, 503-516;

of 1868, 493, 747;
of 1870, 751;
of 1872, 754;
of 1874, 782-797.

Carpet-bag and negro rule, 571 et seq.

Carpet-baggers, in convention of 1867, 517, 518, 530;

in Congress, 738, 749, 754, 761.
See also Republicans.

Chain gang abolished, 393.

Charleston convention of 1860, 18.

Churches, separation of, 21-24;

during the war, 222;
seized by the Federal army and the northern churches, 227;
condition after the war, 325, 326;
attitude toward negro education and religion, 225, 457, 641;
during Reconstruction, 636-652.

Civil Rights Bill of 1866, 393.

Civil War in Alabama, 61-78;

seizure of the forts, 61;
operations in north Alabama, 62;
Streight’s Raid, 67;
Rousseau’s Raid, 68;
operations in south Alabama, 69;
Wilson’s Raid, 71;
destruction by the armies, 74.
Clanton, Gen. James H., organizes opposition to Radicals, 508, 512;
on negro education, 625, 630;
on the religious situation, 638.

Clay, Senator C. C., speech on withdrawal from U. S. Senate, 25;

arrested by Federals, 262.

Clayton, Judge Henry D., charge to the Pike County grand jury on
the negro question, 385.

Clemens, Jere (or Jeremiah), in secession convention, 29, 34, 47;

mentioned, 64, 111;
deserter, 125, 127, 143;
advocates Reconstruction, 125, 144, 145.

Clews & Company, financial agents, 592, 596, 597.

Cloud, N. B., superintendent of public instruction, 610-632.

Cobb, W. R. W., “Union” leader, 16;

disloyal to Confederacy, 139.

Colleges during the war, 212.

Colonies of negroes, 421, 444.

Color line in politics, 779.

Commercial conventions, 25.

Commissioners sent to southern states, 46, 48.

Composition of population of Alabama, 3, 4.

Concentration camps of negroes, 421, 422, 444.

“Condition of Affairs in the South,” 311.

Confederate property confiscated, 285.

Confederate States, established, 39-42;

Congress of, 130;
enrolment laws, 92, 98;
finance in Alabama, 162-183.

Confederate text-books, 217.

Confiscation, proposed in secession convention, 48;

by United States, 284 et seq.;
frauds, 284, 290;
of cotton, 290;
of lands, 425;
supports Freedmen’s Bureau, 431;
belief of negroes in, 446, 447;
for taxes, 578.

Congress, C. S., Alabama delegation to, 130.

Congress, U. S., rejects Johnson’s plan, 377, 405;

imposes new conditions, 391;
forces carpet-bag government on Alabama, 547-552;
members of, from Alabama, 737, 749, 754, 761.

“Conquered province” theory of Reconstruction, 339.

Conscription, 92-108;
enrolment laws, 92-98;
trouble between state and Confederate authorities, 96-98.

Conservative party, 398, 401, 512.

See also Democratic party.
Constitution, of 1865, 366, 367;
of 1868, 535,
vote on, 538,
rejected, 541;
imposed by Congress, 547-552, 797;
of 1875, 797;
of 1902, 800.

Contraband trade, 189.

“Convention” candidates in 1868, 493, 530.

Convention, of 1861, 27;

of 1865, 359;
of 1867, 491, 517;
of 1875, 797.

Coöperationists, 28;
policy of, in secession convention, 30;
speeches of, 32 et seq.

“Cotton is King,” 184.

Cotton, exported through the lines, 187, 191-193;

confiscated, 290 et seq.;
agents prosecuted for stealing, 297, 413;
cotton tax, 303;
production of, in Alabama, 710-734, 804.

County and local officials during Reconstruction, 742, 743, 753, 761,
796.

County and town debts, 580, 581, 604, 605.

Crowe, J. R., one of the founders of Ku Klux Klan, 661.

Curry, J. L., M., in Confederate Congress, 131;
defeated, 134;
on negro education, 457, 467, 468, 625, 631.

Dargan, E. S., in secession convention, 29, 40, 41;

on impressment, 175.

Davis, Nicholas, in Nashville convention, 14;

in secession convention, 29, 33, 38, 54;
in Radical politics, 403, 511;
opposed by Union League, 564;
opinion of Rev. A. S. Lakin, 612.

“Deadfalls,” 769.

Debt commission, work of, 583-586.

Debt of Alabama, 580-586.

Democratic party, ante-bellum, 7 et seq.;

reorganized, 398, 401;
during Reconstruction, 748, 750, 755, 778;
Populist influence, 799.

Department of Negro Affairs, 421.

Deserters, 112-130;
outrages by, 119;
prominent men, 124;
numbers, 127.

Destitution, during the war, 196-205;

after the war, 277.

Destruction of property, 74, 253.

Disaffection toward the Confederacy, 108-130, 136, 137.

Disfranchisement of whites, 489, 524, 806;

of negroes, 801, 806.

“Disintegration and absorption” policy of the northern churches, 636.

Domestic life during the war, 230-247.

Drugs and medicines, 239.

Economic and social conditions, 1861-1865, 149-247;

in 1865, 251;
during Reconstruction, 710-734, 761-770.

Education, during the war, 212;

during Reconstruction, 579, 606-632, 684;
discussion of, in convention of 1867, 522;
of the negro, 456-468, 624.

Election, of Lincoln, 19, 20;

of 1861, 131;
of 1863, 134;
of 1865, 373-375;
of 1867, 491;
of 1868, 493, 747;
of 1870, 750;
of 1872, 754;
of 1874, 793;
of 1876, 796;
of 1880, 798;
of 1890, 799;
of 1902, 800.
Election methods, 748, 751, 754, 755.
See also Union League.

Emancipation, economic effects of, 710-734.

Emigration of whites from Alabama, 769.

Enforcement laws, state, 695;

Federal, 697.

Enrolment of soldiers from Alabama, 78-87;

laws relating to, 92, 95.

Episcopal church, divided, 24;

closed by the Federal army, 325;
loses its negro members, 646.

Eufaula riot, 794.

Eutaw riot, 686.

Exemption from military service, 101-108;

numbers exempted, 107.

Expenditures of the Reconstruction régime, 574, 575, 577.

Factories during the war, 149-162.

Farms and plantations during the war, 232.

Federal army closes churches, 226.

Federal courts and the army, 413.

Finances during the war, 162-183;

 banks and banking, 162;
bonds and notes, 164;
salaries, 168;
taxation, 169;
impressment, 174;
debts, stay laws, sequestration, 176;
trade, barter, prices, 178;
during Reconstruction, 571-606.

Financial settlement, 1874-1876, 583-586.

Fitzpatrick, Benjamin, in Nashville convention, 14;

arrested, 262;
president of convention of 1865, 360.

Florida, negotiations for purchase of West Florida, 577.

Force laws, state and Federal, 695, 697.

“Forfeited rights” theory of Reconstruction, 341.

Forsyth, John, on Fourteenth Amendment, 394;

mayor of Mobile, 430.

“Forty acres and a mule,” 447, 515.

Fourteenth Amendment, proposed, 394;

rejected, 396, 397;
adopted by reconstructed legislature, 552.

Fowler, W. H., estimates of number of soldiers from Alabama, 78, 81.

Freedmen, see Negroes.

Freedmen’s aid societies, 459.

Freedmen’s Bureau, 392, 421-470;
organization of, in Alabama, 423-427;
supported by confiscations, 431;
character of agents of, 448;
native officials of, 428, 429;
relations with the civil authorities, 427;
administration of justice, 438-441;
the labor problem, 433-438;
care of the sick, 441;
issue of rations, 442;
demoralization caused, 444;
effect on negro education, 456-468;
connection with the Union League, 557, 567, 568.

Freedmen’s codes, 378.

“Freedmen’s Home Colonies,” 422, 439, 444.

Freedmen’s Savings-bank, 451-455;

bank book, 452;
good effect of, 453;
failure, 455.

General officers from Alabama in the Confederate service, 85.

Giers, J. J., tory, 119, 147.

Gordon, Gen. John B., speech on negro education, 625.

Grant, Gen. U. S., letter on condition of the South, 311;

elected President, 747;
orders troops to Alabama, 789.

Haughey, Thomas, scalawag, deserter, elected to Congress, 488.

Hayden, Gen. Julius, in charge of Freedmen’s Bureau, 426.

Hays, Charles, scalawag, in Eutaw riot, 686;

member of Congress, 749, 754;
letter to Senator Joseph Hawley on outrages in Alabama, 786-788.

Herndon, Thomas H., candidate for governor, 754.

Hilliard, Henry W., “Union” leader, 15.

Hodgson, Joseph, mentioned, 512;

superintendent of public instruction, 631.

Home life during the war, 230-247.

Houston, George S., “Union” leader, 16;

elected to U. S. Senate, 374;
on Debt Commission, 582;
elected governor, 782, 795.

Humphreys, D. C., deserter, 126, 143, 350.

Huntsville parade of Ku Klux Klan, 686.

Immigration to Alabama, 321, 717, 734;

not desired by Radicals, 769.

Impressment by Confederate authorities, 174.

“Independents” in 1874, 781.

Indian question and nullification, 8, 9.

Indorsement of railroad bonds, 596-606.

Industrial development during the war, 149-162, 234;
military industries, 149;
private enterprises, 156.

Industrial reconstruction, 710-734, 804.

Intimidation, by Federal authorities, 789;

by Democrats, 791.

“Iron-clad” test oath, 369.

Jemison, Robert, in secession convention, 28, 29, 40, 49, 54;

elected to Confederate Senate, 134.

Johnson, President Andrew, plan of restoration, 337;

amnesty proclamation, 349;
grants pardons, 356, 410;
interferes with provisional governments, 375, 419;
his work rejected by Congress, 377, 405, 406.

Joint Committee on Reconstruction, report on affairs in the South,

313.

Jones, Capt. C. ap R., at the Selma arsenal, 152.

Juries, of both races ordered by Pope, 480;

during Reconstruction, 745.

Keffer, John C., mentioned, 506, 518, 524, 554, 737, 751.

Kelly, Judge, in Mobile riot, 481, 509.

“King Cotton,” confidence in, 184.

Knights of the White Camelia, 669, 684.
See also Ku Klux Klan.

Ku Klux Klan, causes, 653;

origin and growth, 660;
disguises, 675;
warnings, 678;
parade at Huntsville, 685;
Cross Plains or Patona affair, 685;
drives carpet-baggers from the State University, 612-615;
burns negro schoolhouses, 628;
table of alleged outrages, 705;
Ku Klux investigation, 701;
results of the Ku Klux revolution, 674.

Labor laws, 380, 381.

Labor of negroes and whites compared, 710-734.

Labor regulations of Freedmen’s Bureau, 433-438.

Lakin, Rev. A. S., Northern Methodist missionary, 637, 639, 648, 650;
in Union League, 557;
elected president of State University, 612;
Davis’s opinion of, 612.

Lands confiscated for taxes, 578.

Lane, George W., Unionist, Federal judge, 125, 127.

Lawlessness in 1865, 262.

Legislation, by convention of 1861, 49;

of 1865, 366;
 of 1867, 528;
about freedmen, 379.

Legislature during Reconstruction, 738-741, 752, 755-795.

Lewis, D. P., in secession convention, 29;

deserter, 126;
repudiates Union League, 563;
elected governor in 1872, 754.

Life, loss of, in war, 251.

Lincoln, effect of election of, 20;

his plan of Reconstruction, 336.

Lindsay, R. B., taxation under, 573-576;

action on railroad bonds, 594-600;
elected governor, 1870, 751.

Literary activity during the war, 211.

Loss of life and property, 251.

“Loyalists,” during the war, 112, 113;

after the war, 316.

McKinstry, Alexander, lieutenant-governor, assists to elect Spencer,

756-760.

McTyeire, Bishop H. N., on negro education, 457, 467.

Meade, Gen. George G., in command of Third Military District, 493;

his administration, 493-502;
installs the reconstructed government, 552.
Medicines and drugs in war time, 239.

Methodist church, separation, 22;

during Reconstruction, 637;
favors negro education, 648.

Military commissions, see Military government.

Military government, 1865-1866, 407-420;

trials by military commissions, 413-415;
objections to, 416-417.

Military government under the Reconstruction Acts, 473-502;

Pope’s administration, 473-493;
Meade’s administration, 493-502;
control over the civil government, 477, 495;
Pope’s trouble with the newspapers, 485;
trials by military commissions, 487, 498.

Militia system during the Civil War, 88-92;

during Reconstruction, 746.

Miller, C. A., carpet-bagger, agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau, 425,

426;
in convention of 1867, 518;
elected secretary of state, 737.

Mitchell, Gen. O. M., 62-65.

Mobile Bay, battle of, 69.

Mobile riot, 481, 509.

Mobile schools during Reconstruction, 617.

Moore, A. B., governor, calls secession convention, 27;

 orders forts seized, 61;
objects to blockade-running, 184;
arrested by Federal authorities, 262.

Morgan, John T., in secession convention, 29, 40, 42, 49.

Morse, Joshua, scalawag, attorney-general, 737.

Mossbacks, tories, and unionists, 112, 113;

numbers, 127.

Nashville convention of 1850, 14.

“National Guards,” a negro organization, 774.

National Union movement, 400, 401.

Negro Affairs, Department of, 421.

See also Freedmen’s Bureau.

Negro criminality, 762, 763;

negro labor, 710-734;
family relations, 763;
church in politics, 777;
women in politics, 776.

Negro education, favored by southern whites, 457, 626, 627;

native white teachers, 463;
Freedmen’s Bureau teaching, 456-468;
opposition to, 628;
character of, 464, 465, 625-630.

Negroes during the war, 205-212;

in the army, 86, 87, 205;
on the farms, 209;
 fidelity of, 210;
in the churches, 225;
home life, 243.

Negroes under the provisional government, test their freedom, 269;

suffering among them, 273;
colonies of, 421, 444;
civil status of, 383, 384;
insurrection feared, 368, 412;
not to be arrested by civil authorities, 411;
attitude of army to, 410-413;
negro suffrage in 1866, 386.

Negroes during Reconstruction, controlled by the Union League,

553-568;
first vote, 514;
in the convention of 1867, 518, 521, 530;
in the campaign of 1874, 775, 776;
negro Democrats, 777, 778;
punished by Ku Klux Klan, 682;
negro juries, 480, 745;
disfranchised, 801, 806.

Negroes, social rights of, allowed in street cars, 393;

not allowed at hotel table, 417;
demand social privileges, 522, 764, 780, 783.

Negroes and the churches, 642, 777.

Newspapers, during the war, 218;

under Pope’s administration, 485.

Nick-a-Jack, a proposed new state, 111.

Nitre making, 152.

Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com