The Philadelphia Negro. W. E. B. Du Bois
Chapter XIII. The Negro Criminal
37. History of Negro crime in the city
38. Negro crime since the war
39. A special study in crime
40. Some cases of crime
Chapter XIV Pauperism and Alcoholism
41. Pauperism
42. The drink habit
43. The causes of crime and poverty
Chapter XV The Environment of the Negro
44. Houses and rent
45. Sections and wards
46. Social classes and amusements
Chapter XVI. The Contact of the Races
47. Color prejudice
48. Benevolence
49. The intermarriage of the races
Chapter XVII. Negro Suffrage
50. The significance of the experiment
51. The history of Negro suffrage in Pennsylvania
52. City politics
53. Some bad results of Negro suffrage
54. Some good results of Negro suffrage
55. The paradox of reform
Chapter XVIII. A Final Word
56. The meaning of all this
57. The duty of the Negroes
58. The duty of the whites
Appendix A. Schedules used in the house-to-house inquiry
Appendix B. Legislation, etc., of Pennsylvania in regard to the Negro
Appendix C. Bibliography
SPECIAL REPORT ON NEGRO DOMESTIC SERVICE IN THE SEVENTH WARD.
Historical note by Tera Hunter
I. Introduction
II. Enumeration of Negro domestic servants
Recent reform in domestic service
Enumeration
III. Sources of the supply and methods of hiring
Methods of hiring
Personnel of colored domestic service
IV. Grades of service and wages
Work required of various sub-occupations
V. Savings and expenditure
Assistance given by domestic servants
Summary
VI. Amusements and recreations
VII. Length and quality of Negro domestic service
VIII. Conjugal condition, illiteracy and health of Negro domestics
Conjugal condition
Health statistics for domestic servants
IX. Ideals of betterment
INDEX
I. Map of Seventh Ward, showing streets and political divisions
INTRODUCTION TO THE 1996 EDITION OF THE PHILADELPHIA NEGRO
Elijah Anderson
The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study by W.E.B. DuBois was originally published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 1899. One of the first works to combine the use of urban ethnography, social history, and descriptive statistics, it has become a classic work in the social science literature. For that reason alone it is an important study that deserves to be read by students of sociology and others interested in the development of the discipline in particular or in American intellectual history in general. W.E.B. DuBois is a founding father of American sociology, but, unfortunately, neither this masterpiece nor much of DuBoiss other work has been given proper recognition; in fact, it is possible to advance through a graduate program in sociology in this country without ever hearing about DuBois. It is my hope that this reprint edition will help rectify a situation undoubtedly rooted in the racial relationships of the era in which the book was first published.
This fine book, however, is no mere museum piece. Both the issues it raises and the evolution of DuBois's own thinking—which can be traced between the lines—about the problems of black integration into American society sound strikingly contemporary. Among the intriguing aspects of The Philadelphia Negro are what it says about the author at the time, about race in urban America at the time, and about social science at the time, but even more important is the fact that many of his observations can be made—in fact are made—by investigators today. Indeed, the sobering consequences of America's refusal to address the race problem honestly, which DuBois predieted almost a hundred years ago, now haunt all Americans with a renewed intensity 130 years after emancipation. The enduring relevance of DuBois's analysis would thus argue for a reexamination of his work.
DuBois himself was a complex, fascinating man whose background shaped his point of view for The Philadelphia Negro. To appreciate fully his perspective, it is necessary to understand his early life, particularly his sheltered childhood, the unconventional way—for a black child—he was raised, and his introduction as a young man into the social and racial realities of American life.
William Edward Burghardt DuBois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a small but prosperous mill town in the Berkshire Mountains. The few blacks in the area worked mostly as domestics in homes or summer resorts, while the factory jobs were held by Irish, German, and Czech Catholics. His father exited young DuBois's life before he turned two, and his mother supported the family with the help of well-to-do town residents, who provided both odd jobs and outright charity, eventually including a rented house much nicer than she could have afforded on her own. The opportunity to mix with the elite of the town, whose sons in general accepted him as their playmate, allowed DuBois to consider himself at least marginally a part of upper-class society while separating him from the children of immigrant mill laborers, whose social position was actually much nearer his own. He was thus able to grow up feeling more privileged than oppressed. By his own account a child of “keen sensitiveness,” he encountered relatively little discrimination, partly because he was able to avoid situations in which he sensed discrimination might occur and partly because his superior intellectual capabilities were genuinely admired. At the same time, he absorbed the culture of proper New Englanders and learned to be reserved in his thoughts and emotions and decorous in his comportment. This “habit of repression” later hampered his relations with more gregarious members of his own race.
DuBois attended the local high school, taking the college preparatory course as suggested by the principal, Frank Alvin Hosmer, who went on to become president of a missionary college in Hawaii; his school books, which had to be purchased, were, at Hosmer's request, paid for by the mother of one of his wealthy friends.1 And odd jobs were again found, for DuBois himself this time, enabling him to earn outside school hours some of the income