Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal

In her first book, Garrett-Scott, assistant professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Mississippi, expertly explores the financial lives of black women from just before the Civil War to the beginning of the New Deal. She traces the women’s involvement—as owners, employees, and customers—in organizations ranging from formal banks to burial organizations, mutual aid groups, and secret societies. Garrett-Scott argues that women “played essential roles in blacks’ efforts to use finance to carve out possibilities within U.S. capitalism and society” and, in the process, “forged their own definitions of economic opportunity and citizenship.” Garrett-Scott highlights institutions including the Freedman’s Bank, a short-lived post–Civil War bank created to help freed slaves and black veterans, and the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank opened in Richmond, Va., by powerful businesswoman Maggie Lena Walker to give black Americans access to loans and protection from the racism encountered in other banks. Garrett-Scott also explores how, in the 20th century, banks in general presented opportunities for black women to work in finance. This recovery of one aspect of black women’s history will appeal to scholars as well as those with a serious interest in the history of finance and women’s history. Illus. (May)