46 THE FREEDMEN’S SAVINGS BANK 
tobacco, and maxims of economy such as, “Save 
your dimes and buy you a home or a farm.” 
GOOD RESULTS 
As a factor in Negro education there was then 
probably nothing better than this literature and 
the bank it represented and the good effects were 
soon observed. Many Negroes, who a few 
months before had been slaves, began to save 
and make deposits. It became the fashion to 
have a bank account, no matter how small. 
Sums were received from five cents up, and on 
deposits of $1.00 or more interest was paid semi- 
annually at the rate of six per cent. Of course 
the deposits of a year were not much larger than 
the withdrawals, but according to bank officials 
the money drawn out was often spent intelli- 
gently. The Negro would put money into the 
bank during the summer and fall to be used in 
the winter and spring when supplies were scarce. 
Thrift was encouraged; many saved in order to 
purchase homes, or to purchase farm stock and 
implements. Less money was spent for whiskey 
and for articles of worthless finery so dear to the 
African heart. The Negroes who had bank books 
were less easily swindled by the multitude of 
sharpers who came to teach them the ways of 
freemen. Many years later Booker T.Washington 
declared: “No work was ever undertaken for the 
benefit of the Freedmen more laudable in its pur- 
pose or more designed to assist a people who had 
just come out of slavery to get on their feet.” 
7 Booklets, etc. Freedmen’s Savings Bank, 1867-1872. See Appendix. 
pp. 144-146. 
8 Washington, Story of the Negro, 11, p. 214. See also Brawley, Short 
History of the American Negro, p. 126.