Mapping the Du Bois Philadephia Negro

Common Names

2007-02-13T16:08:00.000-05:00

These were the most popular names for the last 120 households in the census.

Women:
Mary
Annie
Elizabeth
Margaret
Catherine

Men:
John
William
James
Thomas
Charles

Current activities

2007-02-06T20:48:00.000-05:00

This week I visited the Mutter Museum and I enjoyed seeing the different displays. The display I liked most was the section that featured foreign objects that were swallowed by people. Some of the common objects were pins and pebbles. I wondered if any of the seventh ward residents had gone to the hospital because they swallowed a pin or pebble.

A few weeks ago, I saw the film documentary Strange Fruit, which was about Billy Holiday’s life and the history behind the song Strange Fruit. The song was about lynching and how the dead bodies swaying from the tree branch were like strange fruit. The images shown in the film were disturbing with vivid images of lynching.

On a lighter note, my current activities as the Public Outreach Coordinator have been planning the Du Bois Birthday Party on February 23^,2007. One of the ideas is to have a Du Bois cutout for our guests to take pictures next to him. The place of the party is yet to be determined but there will be a photo cake of Du Bois.

Another upcoming activity is that I will visit the two partner high schools in mid-February. I am currently trying to find old photographs from the early 1900s of Philadelphia and Philadelphians. In addition, I thought of some ideas to get students interested in learning about the seventh ward. One activity titled “The day of the life of” will involve students by having them pick a person from the census and describe what that individual likes and does for fun.

Lastly, I went to the Van Pelt library and checked out the Anthology of Black Music. The music had different themes such as faith, blues and some children songs. I was familiar with one song, which was Pick a Bale of Cotton.

Du Bois on NPR

2007-01-31T20:48:00.000-05:00

A freelance reporter who does work for NPR interviewed me two weeks ago. He came to talk about a report on the need for supermarkets in Philadelphia that I worked on several years ago. He looked me up before the interview and saw the reference to the Mapping Du Bois project. Of course, I couldn't help myself but talk about that as much as the supermarket study.

His piece ran on NPR's show "Day to Day" today. He framed the piece with the Du Bois map of the Old Seventh Ward. All and all, the piece was quite generous. I was really excited that he was able to work the Du Bois material in so well. You can hear the broadcast and see the write-up (including a piece of the original Du Bois map) on the NPR website:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7097476

Downtown Du Bois Mural Proposal Accepted

2007-01-29T13:13:00.000-05:00

I quote from a letter I received from the Mural Arts Program:

"Congratulations! Your mural proposal for "Mapping the Du Bois Philadelphia Negro" project has been approved by the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. During this application cycle, we were fortunate to receive over 50 applications from community leaders and organizations to paint murals in neighborhoods throughout the city. Among them, we found your application among the most compelling. We are anticipating your project to start anytime within the next fiscal year of July 1, 2007-June 30, 2008."

Thoughts on the census

2007-01-24T16:40:00.000-05:00

May part of the census is the last 120 households and I also would use Ancestry.com for getting the census data and also re-checking information. I As I greet these people from the seventh ward in my mind, I cannot help but imagine how they looked, talked, what they liked and disliked. I wonder if I would have been friends with some of the girls my age or what my occupation would have been in Philadelphia. I also wonder how married couples met and how women deal with the loss of their children.

Among the households, there are several women who gave birth to more children than the number of their children that are alive at the time of the census. One woman, I remember is Anna Kearney who lives on 2411 Lombard, she gave birth to 14 children and only seven children are alive. I can only imagine what sadness she feels loosing her children.

I wonder if the two men that are next-door neighbors walk to work together since they are both watchman. One man was from Germany and I wonder if the American let him know of his job when he moved in next door. A few houses down on 505 S. 27^th Street, there are three single women living together, one is a widow, and the other two women are sisters and are noted as single with no children. The widow gave birth to two children but only one child is living. This household makes me wonder how single women are viewed and the reasons why these two women are not married. My imagination runs wild and I think perhaps these women may have been jilted or perhaps they did not have a desire to marry.

Another curiosity finds me as I discover that on Tanney Street two men from Ireland came together to the U.S. and both share the same profession of nursing. These two men live as boarders in the same household. I wonder how long they have known each other and have been friends.

Later on as I make way down 505 Tanney Street, I find there are stepchildren in a household, two stepdaughters and a stepson in a family with two young children. This particular household catches my attention because I think this is the first family that is not nuclear. I wonder if the older daughter has to stay home to help her mother take care of her younger siblings. Another curiosity is where is her biological father? She did not have a job and I wonder if that family has the same dilemmas step families face today. The stepson was not in school and does not have a job. Did he help with the children too? The youngest stepdaughter who is 12 years old is in school. I wonder if the stepchildren get along with their two younger siblings and with their stepfather.

Visit to Historical Society of Pennsylvania

2007-01-11T16:56:00.000-05:00

I made my first trip to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. What a nice place to conduct research. I looked at the annual reports of the College Settlement Association from the mid-18900s and early 1900s. It was the leaders of the Settlement Association who wanted a study of blacks living in the Old Seventh Ward, and Du Bois lived at the Settlement House for the first year he was in Philadelphia.

The Settlement records make a few brief references to Du Bois and his study, but they seem to have given it relatively little attention. Some of the material that I found particularly interesting included:
--A study on the dietary habits of people living in Philadelphia (and one other city). The author, who received a fellowship from the Settlement to conduct the research, complained about people buying inferior food at the nearby stores;
--Report of the kitchen and coffee house, which was a sort of soup kitchen. The Settlement House offered "penny lunches" to neighborhood children. Clearly, the ladies at the Settlement House made connections between nutrition and health and physical and moral well-being.
--Stories about individual children who came to the Settlement House and caused trouble (nothing that a good hug and some discipline couldn't fix, though).

I am hoping to work with HSP to raise money so we can digitize some of these records. The primary sources provide such rich descriptions and photographs of life in the Seventh Ward. I will also be reviewing the scrap books maintained by Susan Wharton that describe a lot of the activity at the Settlment House. Eventually, I hope this research will form the basis of a paper about the intersection of housing, health, and social service/social work, and research activities inthe late 1890s.

Murals and Other Updates

2006-11-16T08:47:00.000-05:00

The lack of blog entries over the last two months should not be taken as a sign that all is quiet on the Du Bois front. Several of us have been hard at work on a number of things:

1. Anne Garcia, our public outreach coordinator, submitted our application yesterday to the Mural Arts Program for a mural of Du Bois at 6th and Rodman Streets. We had a successful community meeting two days before that, at Mother Bethel AME Church, with representatives from all four of the neighborhood associations in that area. They have all been supportive, as have been Mother Bethel, ODUNDE, the fire station (next to the mural wall) and the property owner. We have also contacted McCall Elementary and the leader of the after school program at Starr Playground about including the kids in the mural process. They, too, were encouraging. We will hear in January whether our application has been accepted.

2. Our quest for a mural of Du Bois on campus make front page news in Tuesday's Daily Pennsylvanian.

http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/media/storage/paper882/news/2006/11/14/News/Up.Against.A.Wall-2457967.shtml?norewrite200611160844&sourcedomain=www.dailypennsylvanian.com I met with the university architect a week ago and he was suprisingly interested in our request. I am not too optimistic that this will ulimately be successful, but the effort is generating some good conversation about art at Penn.

3. I learned yesterday that we are receiving a grant from the on-campus Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars program's Research and Education fund to collect and analyze health data for the Du Bois study area and time period. The data will include vital stats (births & deaths), contagious disease, hospital admissions records, newspaper articles, and whatever else we can find. Thanks to Brandon and Eric for their good work this summer which helped secure this grant.

4. We are hard at work cleaning the 1900 census data we collected this summer. That process should be done in the spring.

5. Erika Service, a new member of our team, is working on a documentary of the project and Du Bois' study. Let us know if you have suggestions.

6. We'll be submitting grant proposals to do 3D GIS work and further research on black churches (with Dr. Stephanie Boddie who specializes in this area) in December.

7. We have a website www.mappingdubois.com but I have not provided much content yet, so it's just the front page (although it looks pretty spiffy, in my mind). We'll be migrating the blog to that website rather than staying on blogspot some time in the future.

Enough updates for now. Look for more in January.

Finding Some Voices of Ordinary People from the Seventh Ward Through Court Case Testimonies

2006-08-31T14:09:00.000-04:00

Currently I am working on creating some poems out of court case testimonies I found at the Philadelphia City Archives. I got the idea for this because a poet named Charles Reznikoff made poetry out of testimonies he found in volume 1 of the Reporter series, in two volumes: Testimony 1885-1890 Recitative, and Testimony Volume 2: 1885-1915. Although he was writing in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the time period of the court cases used for the poems was 1885-1915.

So anyway, early in the project, I was frustrated by the lack of direct quotes and narratives from people who lived in the Seventh Ward. I decided that Reznikoff had a good idea, and that I would be able to get a sizable amount of direct dialogue from testimony transcripts. While the Reporter Series offer lengthy summaries of court cases, the brittle, tome-like testimony transcripts at the City Archives are word-for-word.

Although almost every case I have read is a murder case, and I was worried about finding stories having only to do with crime, there is a great deal to be gleaned from these testimonies. I have found an interracial couple (a black man and a white woman), a scuffle probably resulting from class differences between several African Americans during a Republican parade down Lombard Street in the Seventh Ward, a witness in a murder trial who was a waiter and lived on the Seventh Ward, an accidental murder resulting from accusations of homosexuality, some young men who killed a little girl because they thought she was a ghost, and others.

I have been struck by how contemporary the language is, although I cannot repeat some of it here. I am in the process of converting my notes into summary/poems, but it has been difficult because I think about the audience (high school students) and I am unsure how to convey the shifting witness perspectives and differing stories, the levels of interpretation that occur, while making a unified narrative. There have been some interesting twists, and unexpected acquittals, and I have found that many of these cases read like small mystery stories, so hopefully the poems will convey my enthusiasm.

Penny Lunches and the Meaning of Charity

2006-08-31T14:00:00.000-04:00

I was looking through the Starr Centre pamphlet at HSP, and I was struck by a statement Susan Wharton made in her essay about penny lunches for children. The penny lunch program was originally part of the Starr Centre, but it grew to be very large (in 1895-1896 21,000+ lunches were sold), and it soon became independent, as some in the executive committee of the Starr Centre believed it took up a lot of time and energy but did not quite fit into the mission of the Centre (I find that confusing). Anyway, at the end of her essay she writes:

“Think of the free dinner given on Christmas Day. What is the result of the gift of one meal? What is the physical result of putting into the stomach food to which it is unaccustomed, and what right have we to offer what we cannot accept ourselves without lowering our self-respect? The principles underlying gifts are the same for all classes. The penny lunch is in no sense a gift. It is paid for by the pennies which the children are in the habit of bringing to school for sour balls and the like and it aims to educate and accustom the child to more wholesome food that he would have otherwise” (74).

This idea of having children pay for these services is definitely a theme in the work of the Starr Centre. People paid dues for the Coal Club, children saved money for shoes in the Shoe Club, and those in the Carpentry Club had to pay for their lessons. Wharton, in her scrapbook, and elsewhere, was concerned with the state of "charity" and believed the word needed to be rehabilitated to mean something other than the stripping away of dignity that can come with that charity.

This got me thinking about the documentaries made during the Depression, such as You Have Seen Their Faces (Caldwell, Bourke-White), and the photo Migrant Mother. I am thinking about the way that people are often depicted as without agency in order to for the author(s) to make a case about their dire circumstances. While those who lead the Starr Centre and the College Settlements did speak of the dire living conditions of the poor people they were serving, this idea of trying to make it a partnership between children or adults and the people in the Settlement or at the Starr Centre, and agency that comes with it is (to my mind) more progressive than the reinforced divide between classes which comes with certain Depression Era works which did not demand that readers identify with the subjects in the books, only that they pity them. Wharton seems to empathize with people of other classes when she writes “and what right have we to offer what we cannot accept ourselves without lowering our self-respect?” She still reinforces the distance between classes, but with compassion, not pity.

Why Did the Carpentry Club Close?

2006-08-31T13:57:00.000-04:00

In looking through a pamphlet about the Starr Centre at HSP, I found an essay about a Carpentry Club held from 1890-1895. The Starr Centre was a community service organization that began with Philadelphia’s first Progressive Working Colored Men’s Club. The Starr Centre mostly served the African American population and was located in the Seventh Ward. The Carpentry Club was for boys, and there was a small fee for each lesson, with the view of making the boys “self-respecting.” The lessons were open to black and white boys, but there were certain nights reserved only for African Americans. The boys helped build parts of Stuart Memorial Church, such as a library desk, cellar steps, benches in the kitchen, etc. They each earned 5 cents an hour for the work, and made about $61 total. Instructor A. Whitehead’s notes on the boys:

G.C.S sent home for misconduct and laziness on the 28th of February. Reported on the third of March, and has been very steady since.
W.M. is doing remarkably well, is very steady and attentive, and has the makings of a good mechanic.
W.J. has also made a marked improvement during the week; has been both steady and attentive.
A.F. and J.A. broke a light of glass by throwing sticks at one another. Would advise twenty cents apiece be deducted from their wages.
W.L., W.J., W.M., F.H.—Fined five cents each for driving screws in bench and tehn laughing when asked who did it.
W.M. is improving very rapidly and is very attentive.
F.H. is working but not able to do much on account of being a cripple.

After the church work was over “all the boys came around inquiring when they are going to work again.”

The essay concludes with this:
“In the report of 1894, it states that ‘heretofore the classes in the shop have been composed entirely of colored boys.’ White boys were also admitted this year. The shop discontinued on June 21, 1895.”

This is an interesting statement for the author to make, and I wonder how it would be read in 1900. I took it as a criticism of racism in the executive committee, and it reminds me of newspaper article I read in a book called African American History in the Press, 1851-1899. The article was from the Atlanta Constitution, and it was called “The Body in the Tree” (May 1, 1891). In it, the author writes of a man found dead,

“lodged in the forks of a tree, where it was supposed to have been left by the high waters of January last [three months ago]. The wonder is that a body, and especially a human body, could remain in an exposed position to sun, to rain and to the general elements, without corroding, or putrefaction. The verdict of the coroner’s jury was: ‘We, the jury, empaneled to hold an inquest over the dead body of a colored man (name unknown), find to the best of our knowledge and belief, the said person came to his death by accidental drowning…The verdict of the coroner’s jury, the statement of Mr. Gause himself, the facts, circumstances and surroundings—all show that this is a most extraordinary case. There are parties who think that there is some mystery connected with the finding of the body, and the circumstances certainly do partake of the mysterious. The body could not have remained in the tree for so long a time without decaying. But it was certainly found in the forks of the tree. How did it get there?”

In both of these instances, the Carpentry Club, and the body in the tree “mystery,” there seems to be a subtle protest against racism. I imagine these articles would have been read in much the same way as I have, so is this a way for the authors to protect themselves while exposing racial injustice?

1897 Health Scrapbook

2006-08-01T14:00:00.000-04:00

For my first blog entry, I would like to talk about my findings in the Health Scrapbook for 1897. This scrapbook, found at the City Archives, has actual newspaper clippings from numerous local and national papers that deal with health and medical issues. The articles tend to focus on Philadelphia health related subjects; however, some of them are on national health concerns.

While looking through the 1897 scrapbook, I noticed many interesting stories. One of these issues was on the subject of street cleaning. It seems that the city hired private companies to clean the streets to maintain its functionality and its cleanliness and in one article they did not clean the streets for weeks which lead many busy thoroughfares to be dirty and impassable. One reoccurring article that was published weekly was a report which showed how many people died each week and what they died from. This report listed many causes of death including Diphtheria, Consumption, murder, and cancer. The weekly death toll was usually around 400 people per week. Another interesting story was on the media following of the Chinese plague in 1897. Americans feared that the bubonic plague would somehow travel to the United States and cause widespread death, reminiscent of when SARS was in the media spotlight a few years ago.

For my feature article I will be writing about Philadelphia’s no spitting policy of which I found while looking through this scrapbook which will be coming out shortly. Thanks for reading!

More Stemons, Less of Me

2006-07-28T16:41:00.000-04:00

So today is my last day working for Amy. I did a little writing this morning working on a "feature" on James S. Stemons. For most of this week I was at HSP looking through the JSS papers, specifically his correspondence. The coolest stuff was from the years 1906 and 1907 when Stemons edited two different newspapers, the Courant and the Pilot. He was a very confident writer and lecturer, who thought he didn't get enough credit for what he was doing. Stemons wanted to make both of these papers national known, and in fact did get some of his editorials published in black newspapers in Chicago and Richmond. Furthermore, he caught the attention of figures like Booker T. Washington and William Jennings Bryan. Washington wrote a letter to Stemons agreeing with one of his editorials and even said that he always reads Stemons' newspaper. Ironically Stemons disliked many of these national figures, like Washington (and maybe Du Bois, but he doesn't mention him), and called them "the Big Bugs" and called Washington specifically a "pet god". Stemons disliked them mostly because he felt they were holding him down from prominence, wanted to see him fail, and thought they were jealous of his possible successes. But that should not get in the way of Stemons' writings, which were actually very good, maybe overlooked, and interesting in the context of Philadelphia. His best essay was written in 1897 and basically enumerated, two years before Du Bois, the problem with keeping blacks out of industrial work. Throughout his life he waited, worked as a janitor, worked at Willow Grove Park (close to my hometown of Horsham) and found other jobs that paid poorly for anyone, especially an educated man like Stemons.

Thanks Amy, for having me work with everyone. Good luck and I hope to see some cool stuff on the web in a couple of years.

The Wharton Scrapbook, and "The American Negro" Lecture Series

2006-07-28T15:12:00.000-04:00

In looking through Susan Wharton’s scrapbook of activities related to the College Settlement between 1894 and 1901, I came across a section devoted to a series of six lectures given at the College of Physicians shortly after the publication of The Philadelphia Negro. Wharton saved a small information pamphlet about the lecture series, and it is interesting to see that while it is acknowledged that the genesis of the series is The Philadelphia Negro, the actual title of the series is “The American Negro” and in the newspaper articles Wharton has saved, the book is not mentioned (nor is DuBois, most of the time). Using “The American Negro” both allowed people to neglect to mention his book, and also made the series open to several Southern white men who garnered quite a bit of coverage.

In the description of the series, one of the central issues is formulated in this way: “What are the ways in which his adjustment to our society has worked out?” (Italics mine). It is interesting to see the way in which African Americans were considered “them” by the (supposedly progressive) authors of the pamphlet, and thus excluded from the category “American.” The information about DuBois’s lecture (written by DuBois?) contains similar wording, although—importantly—the pressure is placed on white people and not black people: “Can the American people rise to the moral decency of treating the underdeveloped races which are in their power with a sacred regard to the best interests of those races?” This reminded me that African Americans were not thought of as Americans, although sometimes referred to as Afro-Americans (I am thinking of the book The Work of Afro-American Women, by Gertrude Bustill, 1908), and I wonder to what extend this was either internalized, or what kinds of decisions DuBois had to make word-wise when speaking to a white, or mixed race audience (as many black people attended the lectures).

Finding these clippings exclusively from Wharton’s scrapbook is getting selective information, so I am not certain whether Glenn and Blair (the men from the South) did get a lot of coverage or whether she was more interested in coverage of them, or whether these were the articles that came out of the newspapers she subscribed to. This extends to the information I have found about DuBois in her scrapbook. For example, in one article about the lecture series, from a newspaper called City & State, the author neglects to even list DuBois among the lecturers, even though he states that there are six and mentions only five.

While Wharton does include several clippings from the African American newspaper the Christian Recorder, there is little mention of DuBois even in these, and no record of the speech he gave, other than its title – “The Negro in the South and in the North” – and in the pamphlet of the lecture series, where there is a summary of the talk. So for now I will focus on Glenn, Blair, and the reaction to their lectures in an article from the Christian Recorder. G. R. Glenn was the State School Commissioner in Georgia at the time of the lecture, and he focused on education for this particular event. One of his main questions was “what are the mistakes in [the black man’s] education? How can we right his wrongs?” Another, with regard to wage-earning power: “how far is the white man ahead of [the black man]?” According to newspaper reports, Glenn stressed that black people needed whites to “teach them right from wrong” (City & State), and that in order for white people to “save the colored race” black and white children needed to “learn respect for honest toil” (Philadelphia Press). This sentiment was echoed by Blair, who in his speech declared that black people must be taught right from wrong, that it was a mistake for black people to be taught higher subjects such as Latin and mathematics before “they were ready to understand” and that instead, black people “must be taught to appreciate the dignity of labor.” It is not difficult to see the awful contradiction in teaching black people about “the dignity of labor.” Blair goes on to state that,

Slavery was a curse to the white people of the South, but in many respects
it was a blessing to the negro. When slavery was abolished upon the negro was
thrust the rights of citizenship, before he was ready for it or desired it.
(Philadelphia Press)

Yet in this newspaper article the reporter describes as uncomfortable and crowded a picture Blair drew of a house black people in the South lived in at the time, while he quotes Blair as saying “the negro is the happiest people on the face of the earth, no thought of morrow, brightly colored clothing, and they are natural musicians.” Here, perhaps, the reporter is attempting to undermine the authority of Blair. As I read through the clippings, I had been thinking about the Northern reaction to the Blair and Glenn lectures, as well as African American reaction to the lectures, and this was the first instance I could find of an attempt to undermine the authority of what they were saying in any of the white newspapers.

In one article from the Christian Recorder about the lecture series (the only Wharton included on the subject), the reporter comments on the real motives of these Southerners speaking to Northerners about the issues facing black people (to convince them that black people did not deserve an equal education but could only “understand” menial labor), as well as remarking on the mixed race audience, and the “cold reactions” from the Northern audiences. the author first capitalizes “Negro,” and also puts “the Negro Problem” in quotation marks, which was helpful for me in that I saw the subtle ways in which racism was being fought in the Christian Recorder through placing calling attention to the way in which words and phrases were used by whites in order to assert white racial superiority. However, even in the 21st century I have seen this phraseology used, such as in the title of a 2006 seminar held by the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, addressing “Native American Problem” instead of something like “Issues Facing American Indians.”

So what I am really interested in are the stories of ordinary people in the Seventh Ward at the time of The Philadelphia Negro. However, they are buried beneath layers of racism in the sources I have found so far, which considered African Americans as subjects and not agents—their stories unimportant--coupled with the difficulties in finding records of the African American newspapers of the day.

Stemons and College Settlement

2006-07-19T15:27:00.000-04:00

Over the last week or so I've found a lot of great stuff at the HSP. Yesterday I was looking through a scrapbook in the "Family Service of Philadelphia Records", which was basically a scrapbook about the College Settlement of Philadelphia and the College Settlement movement from 1894-1900 and found lots of great newspaper articles, flyers about events, and essays. One particular article that stuck out was an article titled "Enjoyed the Music" with the subtitle "an audience of whites and blacks, children and adults - good work accomplished in the summer by the settlement". There was no date on the article, but it refers to St. Mary's street, so it was probably right around 1895. This article, and the scrapbook in general, answered some of the questions I had about entertainment in the 7th ward around 1900. I found out that both blacks and Russian Jews were at this particular performance, many of the blacks danced during the waltzes, the CSA was hosting a dance/supper afterwards for their youth groups and that free concerts would be happening every Wednesday night from 7-9pm. I also found out the a CSA youth group was arranging a performance of the opera "Pinafore", there was a Junior Settlement baseball team, and every week the CSA sent 10 kids to a country house in Rosedale, near Kennett Square, as a getaway type of thing.

In other parts of the scrapbook I found flyers about musical performances, free lectures, open classes (for a small fee), and club meeting times. One flyer advertised the opera "Indiana" (by Audran), which was to be performed at the Walnut St Theater on Tuesday May 28th 1895. This was a benefit to the CSA held by the Philadelphia Music Club and was open to all. I had been investigating things like opera, theater, and music, and found it all in one with this flyer in the scrapbook. I also found lots of other theater posters in Frank Dumont's minstrelsy scrapbook. Dumont bought the 11th St Theater in 1895, but had lots of posters from performances from the early 1880s. These posters were huge, attention grabbing, and fairly descriptive of the performances, but a lot of them did not have dates. One of the featured acts included a character called "a Lombard St belle" and another act was called the "Jaybird's Excursion" and was about a black family's trip to the Jersey shore.

I found a lot of other stuff too, but won't go into describing it: minutes from CSA meetings that mention Du Bois, articles and editorials about a series of lectures corresponding to the release of Du Bois' book, two essays by James S. Stemons (still haven't found the box I was looking for) about industrial rights for blacks in the North (similar to what Du Bois talks about) and some information about his newspaper "the Pilot", and a poem to O.V Catto that was read to students (I think) at the Institue for Colored Youth after his death.

Searching the web for digital histories....

2006-07-10T11:33:00.000-04:00

Over the past few weeks, as I have explored many a digital history website, I have come to some conclusions - best practices if you will - that I think should inform the eventual design of the Philadelphia Negro site. These "best practices" concern two important balancing points that almost all of the sites I viewed struggle to work out (some with more success than others). First, digital history sites must be INTERACTIVE and encourage SELF-DISCOVERY, but they must also PROVIDE GUIDANCE. Particularly, with map-based projects, the best sites allow the user to play - to manipulate the maps as he pleases, to zoom (with a reference map), to pan, to turn data layers on and off, to change view points and angles, and to manuever through the maps from a pedestrian or bird's eye perspective. Likewise, the best map-tools allow users to select their own data queries and/or selectively click on data points to learn more about the specific elements that interest them. Outside of maps, individual exploration can be facilitated through intricate search functions and organized topical layouts which cater to each user's specific inquiries and efficiently direct him to information of interest. The best sites, however, know not to leave the user completely to his own devices. Rather, they offer an overview for the project - an introduction explaining its purpose, the questions it seeks to answer, and a summary of its content - to any user who wants such guidance. The content summary is particularly important as it familiarizes the user with the subject matter and important themes, and explains the historical narrative that the site works to convey. Such a background piece must serve as a launch pad, not a replacement, for users' individualized investigations and as a supplement to, not instead of, primary sources of information. Its aim is to orient the user and help him digest the primary data so that he comes away with a coherent story of historical change. This leads into the second balancing point - the importance of having, on one hand, COMPLEX and VARIED primary data but, on the other, of telling a UNIFIED narrative. The best sites offer an incredible breadth of primary information in multiple mediums, but they maintain their coherence by organizing their content around a managable number of focal themes. Similarly, they help users connect disparate information through physical web linkages, content comparisons, and through the use of a consistent underlying framework for organizing the data. These frameworks work best when they are directly related to the site's desired narrative - i.e. if the project is telling a story of spatial change then using a geographic interface as the site's organizing feature makes sense or using a timeling if the project is telling a story of change over time. Thus, the most important thing for the eventual Philadelphia Negro site, I would say, is to tell an unambiguous narrative but to do so in an exciting, interactive way that combats passivity.

Census and HSP

2006-07-07T15:15:00.000-04:00

Over the course of the week I found four black caterers, one black cateress, two black policemen and one interracial couple, with the husband being a white Irish immigrant and the wife a black Virginian. Four of the caterers lived on the 1300 block of Rodman and of the three who were the head of household, all were paying a mortgage on their owned property. The other caterer lived on the 1300 block of Lombard and was renting. I also came across a black nurse who was the head of his household. This surprised me because I had thought the nurses' position was gender specific until the last couple of decades. There were also three instances in which a female was initially named the head of household and her husband was listed as "husband". But in each of these instances "head" was replaced by "wife" and husband was replaced with "head" in what looked to be someone correcting things on the census at a later point. Either the females really weren't the head of household, or someone making corrections didn't want a woman to be the head of household. In one of these cases, the female's occupation was listed as "lodging house", while her husband had no occupation listed. So it seems as if labelling her as the "head" would in fact not be a mistake, but it was certainly changed. Alson, Mary and Anna keep coming up as the most frequent names for females.

Yesterday I went to the Historical Society of PA (HSP) and was trying to look through the papers of James Samuel Stemons, who edited two black newspapers in the first decade of the 1900s. Unfortunately the box of papers I wanted couldn't be found anywhere in the whole building. I did find some other insightful writings and flyers, but the meat of his activity as a black intellectual in Philadelphia is in the missing box, so hopefully it turns up.

Preparing a database

2006-07-05T21:44:00.000-04:00

Significant numbers of fire insurance records have been collected by the team for buildings in the Rossetti study area. These records document building conditions at the time the policies were purchased. In order to prepare these records for use in a 3D virtual model, we've created an Access database to capture a variety of different building details. These include: dimensions, # of stories, policy owner, policy date, building materials, #buildings on each property, building use, and other descriptive elements.

Most of the records collected to date have been entered into the database, with additional records to be gathered and entered in the coming weeks. Once entered, we'll investigate various modeling tools and possible applications of the data.

Past and Present Meet on Camac Street

2006-06-30T07:33:00.000-04:00

Yesterday afternoon I met with someone who lives on South Camac Street who did extensive historical research on his block. He'd been everywhere we have been--Historical Society, Historical Commission, Temple Urban Archives, Archives--and had collected very similar data. But instead of just looking at 1900, he collected information for multiple decades, through the 1930 census. He put this all together in a report that he shared with neighbors, HSP, and others.

Best of all, though, was his story about meeting the woman who lived in his home in the early 20th century. He is white and the woman who was literally born in his house in 1913 was African American. That story represented exactly what I'd like this project to do: honor the history of the old 7th ward, bring people together to talk about how the city has changed. There are so few remaining signs of what that area was like during DuBois time. Rather than retelling his story here, I'd like to find a way to incorporate oral histories into our Mapping DuBois website. As Tim pointed out, these are real people who lived, and currently live, in the 7th ward. Being able to map the patterns in the census data will be cool, but being able to tell stories about life at the turn of the century is really the goal. The census data and all the other archival data, photographs, and newspaper articles we are collecting should help us tell those stories.

So who actually lives in the 7th ward?

2006-06-28T14:11:00.000-04:00

In today's census data, I found a black physician named John McDougal who lived at 1319 Lombard, a 19 year old named Cato Thornton, two black caterers living on the 300 blcok of Juniper St, and a third black/white married couple. McDougal caught my attnetion as the first black doctor I've seen in the census records and he may be one of the 5 newly practicing doctors , as Du Bois notes, who's business was doing failry well. Cato Thornton's name seems like it could be an homage to Octavius Catto, as Thornton was born only 10 years after Catto was murdered.

Finding these very specific types of people in the census has got me to go back and compare Du Bois' data with the data I am finding. For instance, a black/white married couple that I found had been married for 9 years, with the husband being an immigrant from Africa in 1890 and the wife being born in Rhode Island to parents from England and Scotland. I unsuccessfully tried to find this couple in Du Bois' "intermarriage of the races" data. In response to Amy's post, the website could be used to understand change in the ward between Du Bois and the census, to get an idea of who was going in and out, why they were moving/leaving, and what types of people and ideas were coming in.

Another thing we could do is to "map" events from 1895 to 1900 and show the addresses of the people involved in things like the corruption of the 1896 city elections. Or we could map the members of certain churches, clubs, teams, or families. While at HSP I came across a list of the members of the American Negro Historical Society along with their addresses in 1904. They could be "mapped" and info about the ANHS could be talked about on t he same page. So those are my rambling ideas as I'm trying to imagine browsing through the future website.

7th Ward Hall of Fame?

2006-06-28T11:01:00.000-04:00

Why not? Why not have a 7th ward hall of fame? We can nominate historical figures, like O.V. Catto, Fanny Jackson Coppin, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and William Dorsey as well as living people who have some connection to the history or present of the 7th ward. This might include Charles Blockson, who has a fantastic collection of African American History at Temple and who has been very generous with his time and suggestions to our team members, and other archivists and librarians who anyone studying the 7th ward should know.

Think Big

2006-06-27T20:05:00.000-04:00

Today I met with folks from Avencia and the Cartographic Modeling who will help give life to the census records, health data, historical maps, photographs, newspaper articles, and research findings we assemble. They represent signficant technical skills, but more importantly they are people who can think BIG. They encouraged us to imagine all the types of products that visitors to our website will want rather than to be constricted by any existing models of how interactive GIS maps could organize our materials. So rather than having an interactive mapping system that gives access to all our 1900 US Census data and separate links on our website to primary source material, we might imagine ways to combine that. We were joined by a teacher from Easter High School (Camden County, NJ) who challenged us to keep high school students in mind--students who might struggle reading The Philadelphia Negro and have limited attention spans.

So, what will our users want to do? Look up individual addresses and families. Build fictional worlds and characters around historical people and places. Conduct queries to identify patterns (where do the Irish immigrant woman working as domestics live?) or test specific ideas (are female-headed households more likely in areas that DuBois called "vicious and criminal"?). Create slide shows, skits, and displays using recordings, newspaper accounts, stories, and photographs. Learn about GIS and print pretty maps. Help me out here. What else can you imagine?

Census

2006-06-26T16:25:00.000-04:00

Today I found 3 people whose last name was Blockson, and they caught my attention because Charles Blockson (at Temple, see post from the 21st) told me that his ancestors lived in the 7th ward and were from Delaware and Maryland. These Blocksons were from Delaware and lived at 930 Lombard St. I can't say that they're his relatives, but there's a possiblity. I also found a second black and white couple, with the husband being black and the wife white. Surprised that I've found two of the 11 or so that Du Bois mentioned in a couple of days.

Ups and downs

2006-06-21T19:17:00.000-04:00

Ill start off with some interesting census data. I've found a black policeman (one of few) who lived on Ninth St (if I remember correctly) and a widowed white woman with a black daughter living on a street with mostly black neighbors. From what DuBois says, she was probably treated with hostility by the surrounding black families, and looks to be separated from the white community. It's also very telling to see that a mother and daughter are separately labelled as "white" and "black". The classification of the daughter as black surely had big social reprecussions and left her disadvantaged for the rest of her life, when in fact she was only half black.

Lately I've been scouring Philadelphia for photos of anything that happened int he 7th ward during the 1890s. But I keep coming up short. The Temple photos are great, but we need more than that (especially since someone already found them!). I talked with Charles Blockson at Temple and thought I would find some pictures in his collection, but he said he didn't have any pictures earlier than 1936. Talking to him though was way more interesting than finding any photographs. We talked about track (he ran in high school and college, and I run), local high school sports, the relationship status of my professors at Haverford, and of course about black history, and I found that his knowledge is practically inexhaustible in that field. When I told him what I was looking for he kept saying that there were so many things racing through his head that he wanted to tell me about. And he did give me a lot of advice, information and direction.

So today, I tried to put all of that to use. I went to the Atwater Kent Museum, but found out that research costs $40 an hour (yikes), and that I need to make an appointment. So then I ventured to the Library Company, on the advice of Mr. Blockson, but came up mostly empty handed there as well. The woman helping me could only find one picture of the 7th ward , and it was from 1886, so a little out of our time, but it was the best we could manage. I literally tried every search word I could think of, but didn't find anything useful. But there's still plenty of places to check, so I have my work cut out for me.

Seventh Ward Pictures

2006-06-16T09:07:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went to the Urban Archives at Temple and found some pretty interesting stuff. Also, the staff there was very friendly and helpful. I started off looking through some news clippings under the subject "blacks", but didn't find anything that went back as far as we needed. I then moved on to their collection of photographs from the Philadelphia Housing Association and found a lot of good stuff (which I think hasn't been looked at yet, I could be wrong though). Their collection was indexed by both date and street address, which was very convenient. In the collection I found an album of photographs taken by the Octavia Hill Association, which was buying (I think) properties in the "Rosetti study area" right around 1900. In total, I found about 10 pictures of houses and people around 7th St, Lombard, Rodman, Perth, and Naudain. I was actually pretty excited to see what the area I've been looking at via the census really looked like, and think these pictures would be a great addition to the website when that is being worked on. The Urban Archives can provide digital images, and they're also making copies of them for me to pick up at some point. To get them on the website we'll have to look at the copyright stuff, which they seemed to be pretty strict about with regards to reproducing the images. I aslo wanted to look at the old Evening Bulletin editions, but didn't have enough time yesterday, so I will try to do that today. The Charles Blockson African American Collection is also worth looking further into at some point.

News Articles about Taking the Census

2006-06-15T10:44:00.000-04:00

Last week I went to the Free Library to see what newspapers they have available. I asked the librarian at the desk to pull a random month from 1900 of the Philadelphia Press. Wouldn't you know it, I start looking at the roll of microfilm for June and I find articles about the 1900 Census, which is apparently when it was taken.

Among other interesting facts found:

1) 1106 people were involved in the Philadelphia census, including thirty-two overseers and fifteen “specials” who collected data at "the penitentiary, almshouse, Girard College, hospitals and like institutions."

2) The census was taken in fifteen days, and enumerators (census takers) were paid by number of names they registered. If some enumerators completed their districts faster than others, they were assigned to help in districts that had slower enumerators.

3) Chinatown presented a major difficulty for collecting data.

Overall, it seems that the enumerators had a significant challenge on their hands in collecting all this data. People were not always friendly and did not want to give accurate information. I typed up the following article, which I found to be very interesting.

Note that two enumerators were discharged after being found drunk on the job. No wonder their hand writing is so poor.
-----------------------------------

"Will Arrest Census Hater"
Philadelphia Press
June 1900

That period in the life of a census enumerator wherein patience ceases to be a virtue was reached in this city yesterday when Supervisor Beaston resolved to take action upon the complaints of the enumerators and cause the arrest of a wealthy and influential resident for refusing to give desired information. The citizen, who will probably be arrested to-morrow morning, has not only positively declined to answer the questions of the enumerator, but states that he has already informed the authorities at Washington of the stand he has taken and intends to test the right of the Government to extract from him information relating to his private affairs. This man has already retained counsel.

Hereafter, arrests of persons refusing to answer the enumerators’ questions may become frequent. In reply to a general complaint on this score, sent to Washington by Supervisor of the Census Beaston, Director of the Census Merriam wrote the following letter to Mr. Beaston yesterday.

“In reply to your favor of the 6th inst., regarding cases of persons refusing to answer enumerators’ questions. I desire to say you are at first to exhaust every possible means of obtaining information required in an amicable manner. You might try o get it from the neighbor. After you have tried every other method and failed, you may proceed before the United States District Attorney for your district.”

Yesterday Supervisor Beaston was compelled to appear in person before a prominent Chestnut Street business man before he could get the information which had been refused two enumerators. Fifty divisions were completed yesterday, making a total of 110. During the day two enumerators were taken from their work in an intoxicated condition and discharged. Enumerator David Watt of the Eighth Ward was nearly knocked off a doorstep by a woman who slammed the door in his face when he asked her how old she was. In the fortieth Ward a local belle in order to find out the age of a rival in the vicinity, approached the enumerator and asked how old her rival was.

“Can’t tell you. It’s against the rules. Very sorry.”

“Oh, pshaw,” cried the young lady in her disappointment. “You know how old I am; is she any older than I?”

“She’s no younger,” answered the enumerator.

“Oh, thanks,” cried the happy woman as she rushed off.

Since the census work began there have been 160 changes among the enumerators. Eleven women still continue to act as census takers.

Update on our Collective Progress

2006-06-14T14:50:00.000-04:00

To date, we have collected 1900 US Census data on almost half of the 4,500 parcels in the DuBois study area. That represents a pretty tremendous effort by a bunch of people—thank you all. We still have many weeks more of that data collection, but we should be done by the end of July. We are excited about other discoveries around town. One of the directories that Tim found at the Free Library lists people by occupation with an address that we hope is their work address. This will allow us to cross-check the census occupation designations AND potentially to map where people lived and worked. Josiah has found some great address-level health data (births, deaths, contagious disease, hospital records) at the City Archives. We are only part-way through our search for historical photographs, but what we’ve found (mostly at Temple Urban Archives) has been great—especially the photograph of a very Victorian looking lady from Octavia Hill Society and the “friendly rent collector” posing with a black family. We are also collecting fire insurance policies and other building-specific data for a small part of the DuBois study area (7th to 8th Streets, South to Addison/Minster, our “Rossetti Study Area”) that we hope to recreate in 3D GIS as a pilot. We are excited to look at the William Dorsey scrapbooks out at Cheyney University later this month and to look more carefully at the records we have identified and to start piecing together stories using these primary sources over the rest of the summer.

Du Bois or DuBois?

2006-06-14T14:48:00.000-04:00

I go back and forth on this own. There seems to be little doubt that W.E.B DuBois wrote his name "Du Bois" with a space. Much of the material I've found honors that, but not all. In its 1996 reprinting of The Philadelphia Negro, Penn Press went with "DuBois." Aesthetically, I find the spaceless version so much more pleasing. The one place where we have gone with "Du Bois" instead of "DuBois" is on the posters that Julie created for us. I just don't like the space; I feel like I could get lost in there. But who are we to mess with his name? What next, we start pronouncing it differently (say the French version, du-bwah, rather than DuBois' own pronounciation, Du-boys)? We need to sort this out by the time we launch our website. Speaking of which, looks like www.mappingdubois.com will be our URL. Nothing there yet, but we've reserved it (thank you, Eric).

Vicious/criminal and Newspapers

2006-06-09T15:24:00.000-04:00

I was reading through the section on criminality in the 7th ward and the anecdotal evidence from newspapers a police station at 8th and Lombard is mentioned. This is probably the station that I came across in the census earlier in the week. Two detectives are mentioned as working at the station, detectives Bond and O'Leary, and at least detective O'Leary seems to fit the mold of the Irish cop as Anna has been finding quite frequently.

Also, yesterday at the meeting Jordane mentioned some similarities between Baltimore and Philadelphia, that, now I think about it, I could see in the Baltimore newspaper (African American) I looked at earlier in the week. In one issue from 1896 I cam across an article on the front page titled "Negrophobia". This title grabbed my attention for its uniqueness and interesting spin on race questions. Rather than an article about the "Negro Problem" or "Negro Question", and an implication of some racial shortcoming, the author makes disliking blacks a problem of the beholder. It becomes a phobia and a perversion, rather than "the ways things should be". This is the kind of article I imagine being written in black Philadelphia newspapers from around 1900, unfortunately I haven't been able to locate any of them yet! The newspaper also contained a report from Georgia about a lynching/burning. The lynched man was literally taken out of a courtroom trail by a white mob and hanged and burned outside of the courtroom . Lastly, the African American used a slogan on the front page right under the paper's name reading: "Published in the interest of the Race." Hopefully we'll be able to locate records of Philly papers that show the same kind of urgency and intriguing black thought that a few front pages of the Baltimore paper showed me.

two cool sites

2006-06-07T21:24:00.000-04:00

I stumbled on a great website today developed by high school students and teachers in Beverly, MA. Essentially they did a lot of the same work we are doing. They collected census and property data for two neighborhoods in Boston in order to learn something about black life in the Antebellum era. They seem to have a number of talented teachers and staff working on this and to have developed great partnerships with local archives and special collections, but they've done this with little money. They got help from the Beverly GIS Department so there are some canned maps. Best of all, the project is all about getting high school kids to work with primary data.

http://www.primaryresearch.org/bh/intro.php

Another site that several people on our team have found useful is the Department of Records site showing street name changes. It was created by Roberth Cheetham and Avencia, Inc. Best of all, Avencia is the group that will develop our online mapping application (they are a talented bunch). This site also shows how far-sighted Dept. of Records Commissioner Joan Decker is. She's provided funding for this as well as the historical photo browser.

http://www.phillyhistory.org/HistoricStreets/

Who knew that my street, Larchwood, was originally Lombard (makes sense). The name changed in 1903, which is around the time most of the houses on my block were built.

School Overcrowding

2006-06-07T08:14:00.000-04:00

For those of you that complain about school overcrowding today, check out these attendance rates at "Colored Public Schools," circa 1844:
School Teachers Enrolled Average Attendance Student:Teacher RatioBird (6th & Lombard), boys 4 228 208 57:1Bird (6th & Lombard), girls 4 352 293 88:1Bird (6th & Lombard), primary 3 183 150 61:1Robert Vaux Coates 2 136 93 68:1West Phila Oak Street 2 97 78 49:1Corn Street 1 47 32 47:1Frankford 1 31 25 31:1Holmesburg 1 25 19 25:1Banneker, Paschalville 1 32 15 32:1
Can you imagine 88 students with one teacher?
And, much like today, DuBois discussed that Black females had higher attendance rates than males and also attended school longer. Females completed school at 17, while males were complete at 16.

Country of origin

2006-06-06T10:14:00.000-04:00

Tim's post got me thinking...

I also found a number of people from the West Indies, although most only listed that they were from the West Indies and not specific countries. I also found several people listed as being from Africa. I found it interesting that the enumerators only listed the continent or region of origin for Blacks from other countries, but listed the specific country for Europeans (and also for Asians, but that's because they hadn't assigned them a race yet). The sad thing is that this still happens today, in a day and age where our president thinks Africa is a "beautiful country!"

Marriage rates

2006-06-06T09:56:00.000-04:00

I found the Philadelphia Negro book provides a much more nuanced understanding of the marital issues of the 1890s. In reviewing the census reels, I found a substantial number of the women were listed as widowed (a number roughly on par with the marriage rate). I also found several people who were listed as married, but had no spouse residing in the household. I had initially assumed this was due to migration, but found otherwise in reviewing the work. He discussed abandonment and separation from spouses. While few people actually were legally divorced, 6.1 percent were listed as permanently separated from their spouse. However, according to DuBois, that number is substantially higher than that rate. He found that many women listed their marital status as widowed instead of abandoned, and that another sizable number listed themselves as single following their abandonment. Thus, it is interesting how many of the social conditions that are condemned today as a new problem occurred even in the 1890s, but were hidden under another guise.

However, I do find some of DuBois' arguments problematic.

First, he engages in a blaming the victim narrative, in which he states that "[t]he lax moral habits of the slave regime still show themselves in a large amount of cohabitation without marriage." Thus, rather than acknowledging that the circumstances of slavery, such as forced sale of families, abuse, and a high mortality rate, preclude marriage, he blames the slaves for their inability to marry.

However, he goes on to contradict themselves, lauding slaves for marrying while they're still teenagers, and condemning Blacks of the 1890s for waiting until they're in their 20s and 30s to marry.

I further take issue with his notions on marriage. He discussed how Black girls no longer married in their teens and waited until they were in their 20s or 30s to marry, if they did at all. He stated that "[s]o sudden change in marriage customs means grave dangers, as shown by the fact that forty-five of the married couples under forty were permanently weparated and 239 women were widowed." Thus, he makes a claim based on little factual basis, without exploring any extraneous or intervening variables. To make the assertion that waiting to marry inherently causes divorce is a reach at best, and separation likely existed in any period, whether or not it was widely acknowledged, and can occur in any marriage, regardless of any circumstances. Further, I found it humorous that he made a connection between later marriage and widowhood, because all married individuals will eventually become widows if they remain married, whether it's after a short or long marriage. These assertions seem a stretch at best and egregious at worst.

Prisoners, the vicious and criminal

2006-06-05T22:13:00.000-04:00

Today I came across a group of people labelled as "prisoners". They were at the very end of one census taker's data group, right before a new person began recording, and were transcribed from some other form, according to the census. I was pretty confused by this group as they had no addresses, no ages, no place of origin...just their names. Anna suggested that they were prisoners somewhere in the area I was looking and she found a district police station at 732 Lombard St, and I was just finishing up with people on the 800 block of Lombard. Two of the prisoners were women, only two of about twelve were white, the others black, and they were all around 30 years old. Later as a group we talked about who the vicious and criminal people, according to Du Bois, actually were. Most of the black people I have come across between 7th and 8th streets and south of Addison have been gainfully employed, or at least said they were. I haven't seen any houses that caught my eye as being related to prostitution or any other sort of illegal activities. It might require going back to the data and doing a more thorough investigation of the people and their activities rather than simply recording them.

I came across three interesting immigrants: one from Bermuda, one whose parents were from Cuba, and one from Africa. I also found one caterer, but can't recall if he was black or white, but it's probably worth looking back at to see if it fits Du Bois' understanding of successful, black caterers.

Enumerator Directions

2006-06-02T20:07:00.000-04:00

A few interesting things from the directions for enumerators:

In cases where two or more families dwell in one dwelling place, like a tenement or apartment house, the best test for deciding the number of families is the number of separate tables. Each family usually, though not always, has its own meals. (I found this interesting, as several of the addresses listed separate heads, but many times, households had entire families (husband, wife, and children) listed as boarders or lodgers.

In the case of families reported "out" at the first visit, but enumerated at a later visit, no spaces should be left blank on the population schedule for the entries concerning the members of such a family, as you can have no knowledge, in most cases, of the number of members constituting the family, and hence of the number of lines to be left blank. The enumeration of the family is to be made on that sheet of the population schedule on which you are at work on the day when the information concerning such family is finally obtained by you. (Thus, this explains why some addresses are listed several times at different points on the reel, as the census taker is out obtaining information about individuals missed previously).

If two or more persons share a common abode as partners, write "head" for one and "partner" for the other or others.

Color or race.—Write "W" for white; "B" for black (negro or of negro descent); "Ch" for Chinese; "JP" for Japanese, and "In" for Indian, as the case may be.

In case the persons speaks Polish, as Poland is not now a country, inquire whether the birthplace was what is now known as German Poland or Austrian Poland, and enter the answer accordingly as Poland (Ger.), Poland (Aust..), or Poland (Russ.). (It had not occurred to me that Poland was not a country at this time, which is why it struck me as odd that many individuals on the census were listed as being from Russia-Poland, or Russ-Pold).
Naturalization.—If the persons is a native of the United States, leave the column blank. If he was born abroad, and has taken no steps toward becoming an American citizen, write "Al" (for alien). If he has declared his intention to become an American citizen and taken out his "first" papers, write "Pa" (for papers). If he has become a full citizen by taking out second or final papers of naturalization, write "Na" (for naturalized). The question of naturalization (column 18) applies only to foreign-born males 21 years of age and over. It does not apply to foreign-born minors, to foreign-born females, or to any person, male or female, who was born in the United States, either of native or foreign parentage.
In reporting occupations avoid the use of general or indefinite terms which do not indicate the kind of work done. You need not give a person’s occupation just as he expresses it. If he can not tell intelligibly what he is, find out what he does, and describe his occupation accordingly. Endeavor to ascertain always the kind of work done, and so state it.

Months not employed.—The object of this question is to get the number of months (or parts of months) in the census year (June 1, 1899, to May 31, 1900) during which each person having a gainful occupation was not employed. for those who have no gainful occupation, leave the column blank. (I had previously thought this category referred to how many of the previous consecutive months an individual was unemployed, rather than how many months out of the calendar year an individual was unemployed. Thus, this explained why every teacher I enumerated reported between 2-6 months of employment).

Can read.-Write "Yes" for all persons 10 years of age and over who can read any language, and "No" for all other persons of that age who can not read in any language. For persons under 10 years, leave the column blank. (While this is listed as for age 10 and over, I saw many kids as young as five reported as able to read and write).

A person who boards in one place and lodges in another should be returned as a member of the family where he lodges.

Some more thoughts

2006-06-02T19:25:00.000-04:00

A few thoughts I’m pondering:

I wonder about the accuracy of the Blacks’ ages, as those over 40 years of age generally did not know their precise birthday and were essentially guessing about their age and birthday.

I’m also interested in the differential between females and males. Interestingly, there was a substantially larger number of females relative to males in every time period prior to 1900, in every major northern city. This was due to the exclusion of Black males from industrial occupations. Thus, the majority of available occupations for Blacks were in the service sector, and there were substantially more occupations available suitable for women (waitress, child’s nurse, housemaid, etc.) than males (coachman, waiter, etc.). While these number failed to account for the homeless populations, which were predominantly male, there was still a huge disparity in female and male populations.

I was surprised to encounter five divorced individuals so far (and it is listed as a category on the census). I have been attempting to imagine the sort of circumstances that would lead to a divorce prior to 1900, as even as late as the 1960s, divorces were wholly unacceptable and even the most horrific cases of abuse rarely led to divorce. Thus, I would be really intrigued to uncover the circumstances of these marriages that were ceased by divorce.

I found several households where the race of family members was changed. Most typically, a family member was listed as White, and that was crossed out and changed to Black by the census taker. I wonder how many of the racial categories were accurate and how one can really define accuracy with the absurdity of categorization under the one drop rule. In this period, so many “Black” people with primarily European ancestors “passed” and “became” White and if it is indistinguishable whether you actually have an African ancestor, how can one determine that you do? Since DuBois reported that there were actually several mixed race marriages at this time, I wonder if there was any incidence of Blacks married to Whites who were mistakenly reported as Black by census takers who assumed they were Black based on their marriage to Blacks.

Also, in reviewing the census reels, I found the names of the enumerators, so I would be interested in looking into the backgrounds of the census takers and the inherent biases they brought into the process.

Early feminists?

2006-06-01T09:06:00.000-04:00

I noticed that several of the housewives listed their occupation as "Housework." I just found that amusing...

First HSP Experience

2006-05-30T19:28:00.001-04:00

A large aspect of the MDPN project is gathering descriptions of the housing in the 7th Ward so that it can be easily displayed on the final website. Amy and Cathy have decided to gather this data from a small part of the 7th Ward first, in order to see how we should go about it. The test area is between 7th and 8th, South and Addison.

To start gathering the housing data, Cathy recommended going to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, located at 1300 Locust. Tim and I went there today and looked at old fire insurance records. The records provide a description (and sometimes a photo or floorplan) of specific properties. The process for looking up the properties is somewhat slow, as you are only allowed to request three property records at a time, and it can take them up to 30 minutes to retrieve the records.

Today we tried to gather a few sample properties so that we know what kind of data we have with which to work. While the process for retrieving the data is slow, it is also pretty exciting, because you get to handle original hand-written documents, most of which are from the 19th century.

We made some photocopies so that everyone could see the way the data works. While photocopies are not practical longterm (50 cents a page adds up), the ones we made provide a good way of gauging the data at this point in the game. I scanned in the photocopies and will upload them to my personal penn account so everyone can see. The files are too big right now to upload/download but I should be able to get them up on Wednesday.

I can think of a couple problems with this information that we'll need to be careful about:

1) The records are not necessarily from the time of the Philadelphia negro- some are significantly earlier. I looked at one today that was from 1834. Things could have changed by the time DuBois did his work, and so the description might lack significance for this project's time period.

2) Not every property seems to have a listing. However, maybe we haven't looked in the right places yet or need to look more in the next few days/weeks.

The HSP also has a considerable photo archive. While we did not have time today to look at any of the photos, I was able to look at the card catalogue that lists them, and wrote down what I found for the sample area. Some examples:

1) Image of Hospital at 7th and Lombard, Henry Philips Institute, 1920.

2) Bath house on Lombard near 8th Street, Seal of the City of Philadelphia above door, 1907.

3) 806 Lombard - robert Morris Hose House, n.d.

Occupations

2006-05-26T14:05:00.000-04:00

I found a few interesting occupations - a woman who was forelady in a mill, several actresses, etc. I also found many strippers, but I think they're stripping paint and chemicals and not anything that comtemporary strippers strip. And I discovered where all the famous Black caterers are - The 1800 block of Addison is just crawling with them! I'm interested in pursuing further the occupations and the occupational mismatch with education. I found that Blacks with professional occupations were the most likely to be unemployed whereas White professionals were the least likely. What I found interesting in reviewing the microfilm (about 3000 individuals covered so far) is that I have yet to find a Black person over the age of 6 who can't read or write! Almost all of the Whites can read and write as well. I also am intrigued by the historical analysis of the city and the incarceration rates DuBois discussed. He talked about how in the 1840s, Blacks only made up 1/33rd of the city (smallest rate in history), but more than half of incarcerated people, which shows the continuity of this trend (The majority of my personal research is based on institutional racism and disparities in the penal and judicial system).

Widows and high death rates

2006-05-24T18:14:00.000-04:00

Today I read the section of the book on the heatlh of black Philadelphians and I am definitely seeing his findings in the census material. Yesterday I came across a black woman who was 30 years old, widowed and had zero of here seven children still living. She was living with her parents and not working. Du Bois (and Anna a couple of posts down) talks about the different mortality rates between whites and blacks, and in the couple blocks of census data that I've gone through, I can really see the difference. I am starting to come across more black families, and it is shocking to see how many children have been lost in comparison to immigrants from eastern Europe. Also, piggy backing off of what Amy said about the music, I loved the "city" children's songs/games on that CD. A section of that CD recreates a minstrel show, offering an idea of what the limited forms of black popular entertainment may have sounded like and been about. I had read about two black theaters (Dunbar (later Lincoln) and Standard theaters) that probably performed these types of shows, but couldn't find out more about them.

Hambone, Hambone

2006-05-24T14:45:00.000-04:00

I was listening to "Hambone, Hambone" on the cd, "The Long Road to Freedom: An Antholog of Black Music" that Tim found at the Music Library. It features kids chanting/singing a rhyme and hitting there thighs to create a rhythm. It's part of a "city sounds" section on the cd, based on familiar sounds in the 19th century city. Kids rapping, beating on plastic buckets with sticks, and wrapping on the table with their hand and fists today seems like the modern equivalent of the "Hambone" song. We should find a way to link rap and hip hop to our research on the DuBois era. Maybe we can design teaching assignments to encourage kids to make these connections and comparisons.

As for including music and recordings in our website, I received an encouraging email from the director of Penn's music library today. He said it would be risky to post commercial recordings in their entirety, but mentioned that Amazon gets away with 30-second previews of cds on their site. That might be enough. He also suggested streaming the recordings rather than allowing people to download them. Hopefully we'll find some public domain recordings that we can include.

Idea for Section on Occupations

2006-05-24T07:46:00.000-04:00

I have been thinking about supplementary ideas that could be added to the website to make it more interesting. Perhaps it would be neat to have a section devoted to the occupations of black Philadelphians around 1900. This might include two detailed things:

1) Description and illustration of what type of work a black laywer, doctor, teacher, shopkeeper, laborer, or servant might each expect to do and with whom they would work.

2) Description of the lifestyles that people employed in each of these occupations might be able to afford given their wages.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to try to track down the specifics of a few individuals who lived in the 7th Ward and try to research their professional or working lives. DuBois mentions that there were several black newspapers being published, they might include mention of some of the more prominent members of the 7th Ward. Problems with this idea might include not being able to look through these specific newspapers and the fact that most members of the black community were probably not written about at all (laborers and servants).

It's just an initial idea, but I thought I would throw it out there. Post suggestions and comments!

Josiah

A few thoughts...

2006-05-19T20:47:00.000-04:00

A few issues that intrigued me in compiling the data (I reviewed the area from about 17th-20th & Spruce-South):

- Every married woman (Black or White) listed no occupation, whereas virtually every single or widowed woman listed an occupation.
- So much child labor, particularly among Irish immigrants!
- Elderly people appeared to primarily reside as boarders or alone, rather than with their children or other relatives.
- I wonder where the owners of all these rental properties reside.
- I'm interested in rental rates and what the disparities and renting policies were for specific blocks.
- It's quite appalling the infant mortality rate and the fact that a substantial portion of the young adult population has lost at least half of their children.
- The majority of the people had children while still teenagers.
- Virtually everyone I surveyed (1500 people so far) can read and write, with the exception of a few immigrants.
- I've found that the vast majority of servants residing in White households are White. While a few Black households have Black servants, I found so many Black servants that reside at home. It appears that many White households have White servants that live with them and Black servants that work for them but reside outside of their household.
- Migration patterns are intriguing, as Blacks are migrating from border states, such as Virginia and New Jersey, and not from the Deep South, which is the migration pattern I'm most familiar with, coming from Chicago (although this study is prior to the Great Migration)
- Virtually everyone works in the service profession!
- So many of the White households are at least second generation US citizens, but virtually all of the servants in these households are from Ireland.

DuBois on the Internet

2006-05-19T17:59:00.000-04:00

I searched the 'net for anything on DuBois and didn't come up with very much, and especially not much on the Philadelphia Negro. http://www.webdubois.org and http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/collections/dubois/index.htm have the best stuff, with the second page having some cool pictures of W.E.B in his college days, etc... When sifting through the 1900 census stuff I came across 2 Turkish immigrants and 1 Greek immigrant living next to each other (maybe toghether, I don't remember) on South Street, one French family, only two kids whose parents didn't come from the same country (Austrian/Hungarian and English/Irish), and one black clergyman. I've only seen a couple of black familes in the data so far, but it seems as if black women are more often widowed than with women of other races.

Capitalists

2006-05-19T12:51:00.000-04:00

What I found interesting in viewing the occupations of all the White women that were married to physicians and lawyers along 19th & Spruce and 19th & Pine was that so many of these wealthy White wives listed their occupation as Capitalist...

Getting our Blog up and running

2006-05-19T10:45:00.000-04:00

Thank you to whomever suggested a blog (I can't remember now, but thanks to Tim for the encouragement this week). We've been working on this research project for more than a year now, but last week marked the beginning of summer which means a lot more people are available to work on this. Our main goal this summer is to finish collecting data from the 1900 U.S. Census for all 4,000+ households within the 7th Ward that DuBois studied (in downtown Philadelphia, bounded by the Schuylkill River on west, 7th Street on east, Spruce Street to the north and South Street to the south). Yes, that's really tedious work but it's fun to see patterns start to emerge, like a clustering of Irish around 18th Street and a clustering of Russians and Eastern European immigrants around 7th Street. We've also had fun looking up some of the occupations. Who knew what a hod carrier or huckster were? Thank to Wikipedia, I now know. I think I'll keep the job I have.

hod is a tool used to carry bricks and mortar. It is a wooden box with a pole affixed underneath the box. A hod carrier is someone that has the job of climbing the scaffolding at a worksite and carrying the load in the hod to the masons.

A huckster is a seller of small articles, usually of cheap or shoddy quality, or one engaged in haggling or making petty bargains, that is, a certain type of peddler or hawker.