postbellum

[pohst-bel-uhm]

adjective

1. occurring after a war, especially after the American Civil War.

   postbellum reforms.

Word History and Origins

Origin of postbellum¹

First recorded in 1870–75, postbellum is from Latin post bellum “after the war”

Example Sentences

The members of this racist planter class would become marauding obstructionists, using fear and intimidation to roll back postbellum gains, scorching the earth now being carefully tended to by their former slaves.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The movie drew controversy for its depiction of postbellum plantation life and has never been released on home video or streaming as a result.

Read more on Washington Times

For a prosperous Black man in postbellum Arkansas, there are plenty of good reasons to shut out curious strangers.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The Electoral Count Act was written after a series of close presidential elections, including the hotly disputed 1876 contest between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden that ended in an infamous deal that installed Hayes, the Republican, in return for the withdrawal of federal troops from the postbellum South, marking the end of Reconstruction and the dawn of the Jim Crow era.

Read more on Washington Post

“Despite the determined efforts of the postwar Reconstruction Congress to establish civil equality for freed slaves,” the report intones, “the postbellum South ended up devolving into a system that was hardly better than slavery.”

Read more on Slate