Reconstruction and True Womanhood . At the end of the Civil War (1865) Congress acted quickly to pass legislation that would free enslaved peoples, provide them with citizenship rights and guarantees, and protect them in their efforts to become full participants in American social, economic, and civic life. One such act was the creation of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, referred to most commonly as the Freedmen's Bureau, in March of 1965. Author Mary Farmer-Kaiser is one of few historians to explore how women interacted with the Bureau, not just men, in the postbellum South. In her 2010 book she introduces her topic in this way: Not long after the Civil War's end, a "poor colored woman," as Freedmen's Bureau commissioner Major General Oliver Otis Howard would later remember the former slave, made her way to the offices of the War Department in Washington D.C. Once there, she sought every bit of the freedom that her recen

recent emancipation promised. Having heard about a "bureau" being created for freedpeople as the Civil War ended, she requested one for herself. Telling federal officials in the nation's capital that "she had been a long time in want of a bureau" and that "she understood that there was one there waiting for her," the freedwoman attempted to take advantage of the federal government's generosity - or perhaps to carry away what she believed was her just due for years of work as a slave - by claiming this much-desired bequest. [She mistakenly believed the "bureau" was a piece of bedroom furniture.] Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands - more commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau - in March 1865. And while it would not provide former slaves with the dressing table this freedwoman wanted, the new bureau did accomplish a great deal before being officially dismantled in 1872. Upon its creation the short-lived and unprecedented federal agency assumed the Herculean task of overseeing the transition from slavery to freedom in the immediate postemancipation South. It became the embodiment of the triumphant North in a defeated South, and its agents the very face of federal authority. The job of the men who served its ranks was, as Georgia Freedwoman Susan McIntosh put it some years later, "to get things to going smooth after the war." And even as it would fail at this formidable charge, the bureau stood at the center of Reconstruction and played a critical role in shaping how more than four million men, women, and children defined and enjoyed their lives and labors as freedpeople. Farmer-Kaiser, Mary. Freedwomen and the Freedmen's Bureau : Race, Gender, and Public Policy in the Age of Emancipation. Bronx: Fordham University Press, 2010. Accessed September 8, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central Freedmen's Bureau Agent for Taylor County, Georgia, to the Georgia Freedmen's Bureau Assistant Commissioner Butler Taylor Co. Ga. February 12′′ 1867 Colonel, I have the honor to report the following case and to ask your approval or disapproval of my acti on. On the first day of January 1867, Lethe, freedwoman, contracted to work for a planter during the year. Since the date of her contract she has married. Her husband applies for permission to take her away from the service of her employer on the ground that the act of marriage gives him the full control of his wife, that when married all her rights were merged in his. and therefore it is claimed, – by the legal advisors of the freedman, – that his wife is no longer bound by her contract. I have denied his ri ght to the full services of his wife till she has fulfilled her contract made previous to marriage, and have decided that marriage does not warrant a violation of a labor contract. My predecessor informs me that when freedmen produced evidence of marriage he annulled the contracts of their wives if they so elected. Very Respectfully Your Obt Serv't Jerome B Davenport Jerome B Davenport to Col. C C Sibley, 12 Feb. 1867, Unregistered Letters Received, series 632, GA Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of Refugees , Freedmen, & Abandoned Lands, Record Group 105, National Archives. “The Asst Com'r directs me to reply that your action in the case of the freedwoman Lethe is Approved,” an adjutant informed Davenport on February 15. “The contract she made with her employ er is none the less binding because of her marriage.” (Capt Eugene Pickett to J. B. Davenport, Esqr, 15 Feb. [1867], vol. 16, p. 43, Press Copies of Letters Sent, series 625, GA Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, & Abandoned Lands, Recor d Group 105, National Archives.) *****instructions**** ***.In your initial post, describe and explain the account in your own words: who is involved and what are the circumstances under which this particular women is interacting with the Freedmen's Bureau? If you are having trouble with some of the words or abbreviations used, you can say as much and then provide your best understanding (you can also reach out to others in class looking at the same account and see what they understand - feel free to use the General Course Questions forum!). What was the outcome (if known) of this interaction? Do you think the Freedmen's Bureau or acting agent adequately addressed the issue presented? Why or why not? Lastly, begin to connect this interaction to the larger trends in women's social lives after the Civil War. How do we fit the experiences of freedwomen within the context of True Womanhood (see Godey's Lady's Book in chapter 4) or within the growing labor movement of women working in manufacturing or industry? What are the differences and what are the similarities? FOCUS ON THIS PART OF THE PDF