Editorial: Trying to preserve post-Civil War data

Thursday, Oct. 19, 2000 | 10:11 a.m.

It is encouraging that a bipartisan push is under way in Congress to preserve post-Civil War records kept by the U.S. Freedmen's Bureau, which from 1865 to 1872 aided blacks in making the transition from slavery to freedom. The Freedmen's Bureau records are deteriorating, which has prompted legislation to save and catalog them.

In addition to being an important genealogical resource, Henry Wiencek of the Virginia Foundation of the Humanities tells the Associated Press that the Freedmen's Bureau also collected detailed information about living conditions for both blacks and whites. Unlike the well-documented period of the Civil War, there isn't as much known about Reconstruction, heightening the records' importance.

It's estimated that it would cost about $1.5 million to microfilm the 1.3 million pages of records, which is a small price to pay for ensuring that such a critical part of this nation's history is preserved.

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