Overview

This book offers the definitive history of how formerly enslaved men and women pursued federal benefits from the Civil War to the New Deal and, in the process, transformed themselves from a stateless people into documented citizens. As claimants, Black southerners engaged an array of federal agencies. Their encounters with the more familiar Freedmen's Bureau and Pension Bureau are presented here in a striking new light, while their struggles with the long-forgotten Freedmen's Branch appear in this study for the very first time. Based on extensive archival research in rarely used collections, Dale Kretz uncovers surprising stories of political mobilization among tens of thousands of Black claimants for military bounties, back payments, and pensions, finding victories in an unlikely place: the federal bureaucracy. As newly freed, rights-bearing citizens, they negotiated issues of slavery, identity, family, loyalty, dependency, and disability, all within an increasingly complex and rapidly expanding federal administrative state—at once a lifeline to countless Black families and a mainline to a new liberal order.

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9781469671024

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Reviews

"Administering Freedom is an exceptional piece of scholarship -- a story both fascinating and largely untold . . . . superb.""--Matthew E. Stanley, Jacobin"

"Administering Freedom is an exceptional piece of scholarship -- a story both fascinating and largely untold . . . . superb.""--Matthew E. Stanley, Jacobin A compellingly told history of state power that displays how newly freed people contributed to the centralization of state bureaucracy. . . . [A] worthwhile and enlightening contribution to the post-Reconstruction period and the legal history of freedpeople.""-Journal of Southern History In an important, engaging, and well-researched book, Dale Kretz makes a valuable contribution to this scholarship and offers a distinctive, innovative perspective on African Americans' long battle for full citizenship.""-Journal of American History"

Author Information

Dale Kretz received his Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis and worked as a history professor for five years before leaving academia to become a labor representative. He lives in Los Angeles with his family.

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