ISSR Seminar | Before The Philadelphia Negro: Black Residential Patterns in the Late Nineteenth Century [1]
Thursday, February 2, 2017 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
107 Bartlett Hall | UMass Amherst
Although some scholars treat racial residential segregation in Northern cities as a twentieth-century phenomenon, this luncheon seminar presents evidence that black-white segregation was already high and rising by 1880 in Philadelphia. Urban sociologist and recent director of the research initiative on Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences John Logan (Brown University) draws on data from the Philadelphia Social History Project and other new sources to study trends in this city as far back as 1850 and extending to 1900, a time when DuBois had completed his epic study of The Philadelphia Negro. Segregation of “free Negroes” in Philadelphia was high even before the Civil War but did not increase as the total and black populations grew through 1900. Geocoded information from the full-count data from the 1880 Census makes it possible to map the spatial configuration of black residents in fine detail. At the scale of the street segment, segregation in that year was extraordinarily high, reflecting a micro-pattern in which many blacks lived in alleys and short streets. Although there was considerable class variation in the black community, higher-status black households lived in areas that were little different in racial and class composition than those of lower-status households.
Professor Logan's talk is co-sponsored by the ISSR Scholars Program, Department of Sociology (College of Social and Behavioral Sciences), and Center for Student Success Research (College of Education). A light luncheon will be served. We kindly request your registration to help us plan for a successful event.