Freedwomen and the Freedmen's Bureau : Race, Gender, and Public Policy in the Age of Emancipation / Mary J. Farmer-Kaiser.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Farmer-Kaiser, Mary J., Author.

Series:

Reconstructing America

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (256 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Fordham University Press, [2022]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Established by congress in early 1865, the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands—more commonly known as “the Freedmen’s Bureau”—assumed the Herculean task of overseeing the transition from slavery to freedom in the post–Civil War South. Although it was called the Freedmen’s Bureau, the agency profoundly affected African-American women. Until now remarkably little has been written about the relationship between black women and this federal government agency. As Mary Farmer-Kaiser clearly demonstrates in this revealing work, by failing to recognize freedwomen as active agents of change and overlooking the gendered assumptions at work in Bureau efforts, scholars have ultimately failed to understand fully the Bureau’s relationships with freedwomen, freedmen, and black communities in this pivotal era of American history.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Abbreviations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: ‘‘a long time in want of a bureau’’

1. ‘‘that the freed-women . . . may rise to the dignity and glory of true womanhood’’: The Men, Purpose, and Gendered Freedom of the Freedmen’s Bureau

2. ‘‘a weight of circumstances like millstones about their necks to drag and keep them down’’: Freedwomen, Federal Relief, and the Freedmen’s Bureau

3. ‘‘The women are the controlling spirits’’: Freedwomen, Free Labor, and the Freedmen’s Bureau

4. ‘‘to put forth almost superhuman efforts to regain their children’’: Freedwomen, Parental Rights, and the Freedmen’s Bureau

5. ‘‘strict justice for every man, woman, and child’’: Gender, Justice, and the Freedmen’s Bureau

Conclusion: ‘‘the unpardonable sin’’

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Reconstructing America Series

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Mrz 2022)

ISBN:

0-8232-9163-4

OCLC:

1350686378