Freedman’s Savings and Trust Bank Passbook and Dividend Repayment Records

This dataset contains bank transaction and dividend records for the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Bank, which operated between 1865 and 1874 in the United States and served primarily newly freed, formerly enslaved people. The branch locations ranged from New York to Shreveport and from St. Louis to Jacksonville. The data consists of two parts: a random sampling of about 500 passbooks, which contain transaction data, and a record of all dividend repayments to account holders following the dissolution of the bank. The latter dataset contains over 40,000 observations. The result is a robust picture of ending account balances and deposit/withdraw activity for the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Bank.