Reconstruction era removed civilian governments in the South, and placed the former Confederacy under the rule of the U.S. Army. The army conducted new elections in which the freed slaves could vote, while whites who had held leading positions under the Confederacy were temporarily denied the vote and were not permitted to run for office. In ten states, coalitions of freedmen, recent black and white arrivals from the North (carpetbaggers), and white Southerners who supported Reconstruction (scalawags) cooperated to form Republican biracial state governments. They introduced various reconstruction programs including: funding public schools, establishing charitable institutions, raising taxes, and funding public improvements
A Trip to the Moon Star Film Company, where the film was assigned the catalogue number 399–411 and given the descriptive subtitle "Pièce à grand spectacle en 30 tableaux". In France, black-and-white prints sold for 560, and hand-colored prints for 1,000. Méliès also sold the film indirectly through Charles Urban's Warwick Trading Company in London. Many circumstances surrounding the film—including its unusual budget, length, and production time, as well as its similarities to the 1901 New York attraction—indicate that Méliès was especially keen to release the film in the United States. Because of rampant film piracy, Méliès never received most of the profits of the