Betsy Newman
Betsy Newman is a documentary filmmaker and web content developer at SCETV, where she has produced more than a dozen documentaries and two immersive interactive websites. Her films have been broadcast nationally and have won a Telly, a CINE Golden Eagle Award and a Southeast EMMY. For more than a decade she was Co-National Coordinator of the U.S. Office of the International Public Television Conference (INPUT). In 2016 she received the South Carolina Governor's Award in the Humanities. She has written numerous successful proposals to state humanities councils and has been awarded several grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, including for Reconstruction 360 (www.reconstruction360.org) and Between the Waters: Hobcaw Barony Website Project (www.betweenthewaters.org).
Stories
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The First Vote - Freedwoman | Reconstruction 360
July 03, 2023The wife of one of the Black voters has joined her husband for this historic event. Women saw enfranchisement of Black men as a gain for the entire race and encouraged men to adhere to the wishes of the family in voting. They often accompanied their husbands to the polls and... -
The First Vote - White U.S. Army Soldier | Reconstruction 360
June 26, 2023At this polling station, U.S. Army soldiers are serving as poll workers, since the state of Virginia is under federal military rule. In 1867, the Radical Republicans, now in control of Congress, passed the Reconstruction Acts, dividing all the seceded states except Tennessee... -
The Black Codes - Landowner | Reconstruction 360
June 05, 2023Like most former Confederates, this landowner resents the authority of U.S. Army officers and the Freedmen’s Bureau. Fearful that their agricultural economy would collapse without the free labor of the enslaved, white elites were determined to take back self-rule and control... -
The Black Codes - Freedwoman | Reconstruction 360
May 29, 2023The wife of the jailed freedman has come to the jail to support her husband in his contract dispute with the white landowner. In 1865 and 1866, following the example of Northern Blacks, freedpeople in the South held protests against racist laws such as the Black Codes... -
The Black Codes - Freedman | Reconstruction 360
May 22, 2023The Black man in this jail cell has been locked up for refusing to sign a labor contract. Under the Black Codes he is considered a vagrant. Freedpeople had to sign labor contracts to work for whites, or be convicted of vagrancy and fined. Reconstruction 360 uses a 360 degree... -
The Black Codes - The Pink Palace | Reconstruction 360
May 15, 2023This scene was shot inside the Orangeburg County Jail, also known as the Pink Palace, in Orangeburg, South Carolina. The jail was built in 1860 with offices on the first floor and cells for prisoners on the second floor. Reconstruction 360 uses a 360 degree video platform as...
