The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study

by W. E. B. Du Bois

Overview

2017 Reprint of 1899 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition software. The Philadelphia Negro is a sociological study of African Americans in Philadelphia written by W. E. B. Du Bois. Commissioned by the University of Pennsylvania and published in 1899 with the intent of identifying social problems present in the African American community, it was the first sociological case study of a black community in the United States and one of the earliest examples of sociology as a statistically based social science. Du Bois began to gather information for the study in August 1896. He deduced that, "the Negro problem looked at in one way is but the old-world questions of ignorance, poverty, crime, and the dislike of the stranger." He supports these claims with a statistical breakdown of the lives of African-Americans, their neighborhoods, incomes, etc. More than one hundred years after its original publication, The Philadelphia Negro remains a classic work. It is the first, and perhaps still the finest, example of engaged sociological scholarship—the kind of work that, in contemplating social reality, helps to change it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684221400
Publisher:	Martino Fine Books
Publication date:	08/21/2017
Pages:	558
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.61(h) x 1.13(d)
Lexile:	1310L (what's this?)

About the Author

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963) was an American sociologist, socialist, historian and civil rights activist who served as editor of the NAACP's journal Crisis. His seminal works include The Souls of Black Folks; Black Reconstruction in America; and Dusk of Dawn, among many others.

Elijah Anderson is the Sterling Professor of Sociology and of African American Studies at Yale University.

Editorial Reviews

Booknews

"What made Du Bois's study remarkable in its day was its rejection of prevailing assumptions of inherent racial differences, thus bearing on issues much wider than those indicated by its title. It is also notable as a thoroughly modern piece of social research. The problems faced by Philadelphia's blacks, he argued, had nothing to do with their supposed racial proclivities, but derived from the way they had been treated in the past and their relegation in the present to the most menial and lowest-paying jobs."

Times Literary Supplement

"A century ago, Du Bois published The Philadelphia Negro, a work now recognized as a sociological classic. He developed a highly detailed portrait of black social life in Philadelphia. Part of the legacy of his analysis has lost the theoretical holism which linked structural issues of the economy and labor market dynamics to more social psychological and microsocial issues of prejudice and interpersonal discrimination. Sociology would do well to revisit the model Du Bois established."

The Annals of the American Academy of Political an Lawrence D. Bobo

"A credit to American scholarship. . . . It is the sort of book of which we have too few, and of which it is impossible that one should have too many."

May 1900 from the Yale Review

"A credit to American scholarship. . . . It is the sort of book of which we have too few, and of which it is impossible that one should have too many."—from the Yale Review, May 1900

"What made Du Bois's study remarkable in its day was its rejection of prevailing assumptions of inherent racial differences, thus bearing on issues much wider than those indicated by its title. It is also notable as a thoroughly modern piece of social research. The problems faced by Philadelphia's blacks, he argued, had nothing to do with their supposed racial proclivities, but derived from the way they had been treated in the past and their relegation in the present to the most menial and lowest-paying jobs."—Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher