Description
Book SynopsisCongress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands - more commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau - in March 1865. Upon its creation this temporary federal agency assumed the Herculean task of overseeing the transition from slavery to freedom in the war-torn South.
Trade Review"Farmer-Kaiser's contribution adds to our understanding of where conflicting philosophies in terms of class, geography, race, and gender collided in the Reconstruction-era South." -Civil War Monitor "This work is essential for understanding not only the Fredmen's Bureau's policies but also the plight of black women in the first years of emancipation." -Virginia Magazine "Farmer-Kaiser's contribution to the literature is significant in that she is the first scholar to examine in a book-length study how the polities of the Freedmen's Bureau were shaped by gender ideologies." -H-Net Reviews "Freedwomen and the Freedmen's bureau is well researched and written... Mary Farmer-Kaiser has produced an important work that furthers our understanding of the complexities of the Reconstruction era." -Southwestern Historical Quarterly "Overall, this is a first-rate work that is long overdue in Reconstruction historiography." -- -Rebecca A. Kosary University of North Carolina at Charlotte "Mary Farmer-Kaiser's much-anticipated and excellent new book, Freedwomen and the Freedmen's Bureau, offers the first systematic examination of what she calls 'the gendered nature of bureau work.' In masterful fashion, she explores the work of the Freedmen's Bureau as an institution while simultaneously placing the former slaves, women in particular, at the center of her analysis. In doing so, she convincingly demonstrates, in refreshingly clear and jargon-free prose, that issues of gender are essential to any understanding of the bureau and of emancipation. -- -John C. Rodrigue Stonehill College, author of Reconstruction in the Cane Fields: From Slavery to Free Labor in Louisiana's Sugar Parishes, 1862-1880 "Farmer-Kaiser made extensive use of field office records and the commissioner and assistant commissioner records for Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, chosen for quality and the geographic, demographic, and economic diversity they presented." -American Historical Review
