Overview

In the years immediately after the Civil War, tens of thousands of former slaves deposited millions of dollars into the Freedman’s Bank. African Americans envisioned this new bank as a launching pad for economic growth and self-determination. But only nine years after it opened, their trust was betrayed and the Freedman’s Bank collapsed. Fully informed by new archival findings, historian Justene Hill Edwards unearths a major turning point in American history in this comprehensive account of the Freedman’s Bank and its depositors. She illuminates the hope with which the bank was first envisioned and demonstrates the significant setback that the sabotage of the bank caused in the fight for economic autonomy. Hill Edwards argues for a new interpretation of its tragic failure: the bank’s white financiers drove the bank into the ground, not Fredrick Douglass, its final president, or its Black depositors and cashiers. A page-turning story filled with both well-known figures like Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Jay and Henry Cooke, and General O. O. Howard, and less well-known figures like Dr. Charles B. Purvis, John Mercer Langston, Congressman Robert Smalls, and Ellen Baptiste Lubin. Savings and Trust is necessary reading for those seeking to understand the roots of racial economic inequality in America.

Full Product Details

9781324073857

Table of Contents

Reviews

"""Savings and Trust, in beautifully written and accessible prose, is a must-read that offers crucial context for understanding the economic plight of formerly enslaved people after the Civil War, racial capitalism, the racial wealth gap, and contemporary calls for reparations."" -- Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, author of They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South ""A gripping read. Justine Hill Edwards’s Savings and Trust tells the heartbreaking story of the impact that the Freedman’s Bank collapse had on Black wealth building at a time during the Reconstruction period when newly freed Black Americans could least afford to absorb it. What began as an unqualified good would become an origin story for subsequent iterations of anti-Black race discrimination perpetrated by the banking industry."" -- Dorothy A. Brown, author of The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans—and How We Can Fix It ""In her gripping and elegantly written account of the Freedman’s Bank, Justene Hill Edwards illuminates the extent to which the insidious backlash to Reconstruction resonates with us today. An essential read for anyone concerned about racial and economic justice."" -- Marcia Chatelain, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America ""This is a revealing history of banking innovation and experimentation, the financial acuity of Black men and women, corruption among powerful trustees, and the failure of Congressional oversight that feels all too familiar in our own era of bank failures, governmental dysfunction, and financial malfeasance. Justene Hill Edwards argues convincingly that the Freedman’s Bank debacle that lost millions of dollars earned and saved by hardworking, self-sacrificing, recently enslaved people is another little-known cause of the contemporary racial wealth gap."" -- Tiya Miles, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake ""The failure of the Freedman’s Bank, so damaging to Black Americans’ hopes through no fault of their own, has never been explained as fully or fairly as it is in this eloquent book. Justene Hill Edwards, with careful research and deep compassion, finally sets the accounts straight by assigning debt and credit to their proper places."" -- Edward L. Ayers, author of American Visions: The United States, 1800–1860 ""This tragic history originates the American racial wealth gap in which, again and again, Black people accumulate wealth, only to have it stolen from them. This book, as essential as it is heartrending, offers a fundamental understanding of American history’s entanglement of racism and capitalism."" -- Nell Irvin Painter, author of I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays ""Deeply researched and powerfully argued, Savings and Trust shows how, at the dawn of emancipation, Black aspirations for an expansive freedom were undermined by the greed and thieving of their purported white Republican allies. Little known and short-lived, the Freedman’s Bank nonetheless cast a long and dark shadow over the prospects for racial equality and justice in the United States."" -- Steven Hahn, author of Illiberal America: A History ""Devastating to Black depositors and communities, the collapse of the Freedman’s Bank created generations of distrust and helped lay the foundation for the racial wealth gap that remains today. With vivid prose and extensive research, Justene Hill Edwards’s account is a disturbingly relevant reminder that financial disasters do not simply happen. They are made."" -- Joshua D. Rothman, author of The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America ""Savings and Trust offers a fresh look at the remarkable ascent and tragic downfall of the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company. In this well-researched, brilliantly analyzed, and compellingly told account, Justene Hill Edwards brings to life the dramatic expansion of America’s racial wealth gap with a focus on Black resourcefulness and trust and white betrayal and plunder during Reconstruction."" -- Kidada E. Williams, author of I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War against Reconstruction"

"""Savings and Trust, in beautifully written and accessible prose, is a must-read that offers crucial context for understanding the economic plight of formerly enslaved people after the Civil War, racial capitalism, the racial wealth gap, and contemporary calls for reparations."" -- Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, author of They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South ""A gripping read. Justene Hill Edwards’s Savings and Trust tells the heartbreaking story of what began as an unqualified good and would become an origin story for subsequent iterations of anti-Black race discrimination perpetrated by the banking industry."" -- Dorothy A. Brown, author of The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans—and How We Can Fix It ""In her gripping and elegantly written account of the Freedman’s Bank, Justene Hill Edwards illuminates the extent to which the insidious backlash to Reconstruction resonates with us today. An essential read for anyone concerned about racial and economic justice."" -- Marcia Chatelain, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America ""This is a revealing history of banking innovation and experimentation, the financial acuity of Black men and women, corruption among powerful trustees, and the failure of Congressional oversight that feels all too familiar in our own era of bank failures, governmental dysfunction, and financial malfeasance. Justene Hill Edwards argues convincingly that the Freedman’s Bank debacle that lost millions of dollars earned and saved by hardworking, self-sacrificing, recently enslaved people is another little-known cause of the contemporary racial wealth gap."" -- Tiya Miles, National Book Award–winning author of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake ""The failure of the Freedman’s Bank, so damaging to Black Americans’ hopes through no fault of their own, has never been explained as fully or fairly as it is in this eloquent book. Justene Hill Edwards, with careful research and deep compassion, finally sets the accounts straight by assigning debt and credit to their proper places."" -- Edward L. Ayers, author of American Visions: The United States, 1800–1860 ""This tragic history originates the American racial wealth gap in which, again and again, Black people accumulate wealth, only to have it stolen from them. This book, as essential as it is heartrending, offers a fundamental understanding of American history’s entanglement of racism and capitalism."" -- Nell Irvin Painter, author of I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays ""Deeply researched and powerfully argued, Savings and Trust shows how, at the dawn of emancipation, Black aspirations for an expansive freedom were undermined by the greed and thieving of their purported white Republican allies. Little known and short-lived, the Freedman’s Bank nonetheless cast a long and dark shadow over the prospects for racial equality and justice in the United States."" -- Steven Hahn, author of Illiberal America: A History ""Devastating to Black depositors and communities, the collapse of the Freedman’s Bank created generations of distrust and helped lay the foundation for the racial wealth gap that remains today. With vivid prose and extensive research, Justene Hill Edwards’s account is a disturbingly relevant reminder that financial disasters do not simply happen. They are made."" -- Joshua D. Rothman, author of The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America ""Well-researched, brilliantly analyzed, and compellingly told, Savings and Trust brings to life the dramatic expansion of America’s racial wealth gap with a focus on Black resourcefulness and trust and white betrayal and plunder during Reconstruction."" -- Kidada E. Williams, author of I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War against Reconstruction ""In lucid prose, Justene Hill Edwards tells the tragic history of the rise and fall of the Freedman’s Bank in a devastating, page-turning saga of predation, plunder, and trust betrayed."" -- W. Caleb McDaniel, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America ""Following a rogue’s gallery of bankers and politicians, Justene Hill Edwards deftly investigates a monumental financial crime. Savings and Trust is a significant contribution to the long and shameful history of America’s racial wealth gap."" -- Claudio Saunt, author of Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory ""Justene Hill Edwards give us the first modern and comprehensive history of the Freedman’s Bank, beautifully capturing the hopes of its African American depositors after emancipation and their betrayal by speculators, feckless allies, and racist opponents. A brilliant, riveting, and timely book."" -- Manisha Sinha, The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction 1860–1920 ""Savings and Trust is a crucial piece of the story of the racial wealth gap and the financial violence that produced it with such devastating consequences into the present."" -- Stephanie McCurry, author of Women’s War: Fighting and Surviving the American Civil War ""Savings and Trust is a work of restorative justice, boldly holding accountable those who tragically privileged self-interest over the possibility of a just and equitable interracial democracy after the Civil War."" -- Martha S. Jones, Johns Hopkins University, author of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All ""In Justene Hill Edwards’s hands, the Freedman’s Bank’s story is about much more than economics. With elegant prose and the flair of a master storyteller, she captures the promises of Reconstruction and their betrayal, which dashed the lives of Black Americans who dared to trust in the prospect of change and left the United States with a toxic legacy that persists today."" -- Laura F. Edwards, author of Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing and the Hidden History of Power in the Nineteenth-Century United States ""By mining through Congressional records and financial documents, Black newspapers and organizational minutes, dusty ledgers and dizzying appendices, Justene Hill Edwards in electrifying prose tells the heartbreaking story of the Freedman’s Saving and Trust Bank and the origins of the racial wealth gap."" -- Jim Downs, author of Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine ""In lucid, unsparing prose, Justene Hill Edwards’s story of shattered dreams and betrayed ideals resonates far beyond the era of Reconstruction, raising timely questions about the origins of the racial wealth gap, while delivering a warning about the risks that unregulated capitalism poses to all Americans."" -- Dylan C. Penningroth, author of Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights ""A passionate, patient, and poignant retelling of the betrayal of the Freedman’s Bank. Savings and Trust leaves us with an unavoidable truth: any racial reckoning in America must atone for the federal government’s systematic betrayal of Black people’s trust in its institutions, ideals, and promises."" -- Destin Jenkins, author of The Bonds of Inequality: Debt and the Making of the American City"

Author Information

Justene Hill Edwards is an associate professor of history at the University of Virginia and the author of both Unfree Markets and a forthcoming Norton Short on the history of inequality in America. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available