Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780231183918)

Between 1888 and 1930, African Americans opened more than a hundred banks and thousands of other financial institutions. In Banking on Freedom, Shennette Garrett-Scott explores this rich period of black financial innovation and its transformative impact on U.S. capitalism through the story of the St. Luke Bank in Richmond, Virginia: the first and only bank run by black women.

Banking on Freedom offers an unparalleled account of how black women carved out economic, social, and political power in contexts shaped by sexism, white supremacy, and capitalist exploitation. Garrett-Scott chronicles both the bank's success and the challenges this success wrought, including extralegal violence and aggressive oversight from state actors who saw black economic autonomy as a threat to both democratic capitalism and the social order. The teller cage and boardroom became sites of activism and resistance as the leadership of president Maggie Lena Walker and other women board members kept the bank grounded in meeting the needs of working-class black women. The first book to center black women's engagement with the elite sectors of banking, finance, and insurance, Banking on Freedom reveals the ways gender, race, and class shaped the meanings of wealth and risk in U.S. capitalism and society.

Author: Shennette Garrett-Scott
ISBN-10: 0231183917
ISBN-13: 9780231183918
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Language: English
Published: 05/07/2019
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 9.00h x 5.90w x 0.80d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 04/15/2019
Library Journal 05/01/2019 pg. 105
Choice 09/01/2019