CARPETBAG A carpetbag was a nineteenth-century suitcase made from carpet, often brightly colored. Applied first to wildcat bankers on the western frontier, the term “carpetbagger” was a derogatory name for rootless and penniless adventurers who could carry everything they owned in a single bag. Critics of Republican administrations in the South hurled the name “carpetbaggers” at white Northerners who moved South during Reconstruction and became active in politics. The background image of bombed-out Richmond provides a reminder that one of the central tasks of the Reconstruction governments was the rebuilding of the South’s battered cities and devastated agricultural economy.
Carpetbag: Nancy Gewirz/Antique Textile Resource; background: Library of Congress.