Most policies adopted by states require bureaucracy to implement their provisions. This paper examines how bureaucratic capacity affects policy reach and consequences. Our focus is the US Freedmen’s Bureau, a vital component of Reconstruction after the Civil War that exemplified many aspects common to service delivery and bureaucratic administration. Using an original dataset that provides the most comprehensive portrait of the Freedmen’s Bureau assembled to date, we link the distribution, organization, and personnel arrangements of Bureau offices to local socioeconomic outcomes. We find that the Freedmen’s Bureau had positive effects for both Black and white residents of counties that hosted offices. Moreover, these effects were moderated by office longevity and personnel arrangements. The effects persisted through at least 1940, though the magnitude attenuated for Blacks and increased for whites. The findings suggest the federal government played a larger, and more successful – albeit unequal – role in citizens’ lives than commonly believed.
