Even in "Freedom's Birthplace"! the Development of Boston's Black Ghetto, 1900-1940. (Volumes I and II) (Racial) Attitudes, Residential Segregation, Race Relations; Massachusetts).

Abstract

In recent years, a number of studies have examined black ghetto development in large urban centers of the northern United States. They have largely related the forces which built these ghettos to the massive in-migrations of southern blacks during the early twentieth century. Meanwhile, a major theme of black history has described the period from the 1890's to World War II as the "nadir" for black Americans since emancipation. Although primarily associated with the South, the deterioration in race relations was national and even international. Due to the chronological coincidence of the massive northward migrations and the deterioration in race relations, their relative impacts on ghetto development have been impossible to assess in those cities studied thus far. Boston did not experience any massive in-migration of blacks during the early twentieth century but preliminary analysis indicated that there was a dramatic increase in residential segregation from 1900 to 1940. Therefore, Boston offered an opportunity to analyze the reasons why the ghetto developed in the absence of massive in-migration. This study demonstrates that a black ghetto--as defined in terms of residential segregation--emerged by 1940 in Boston by applying a new technique for measuring segregation to block level residential data derived from vital statistics records (1900 to 1940) and the United States Census (1940 to 1970). It explores eight possible explanations for black ghetto development in Boston and concludes that the deterioration in race relations was the most important one. It attempts the difficult task of tying the change in white attitudes to the change in black conditions and explores the theory of that connection in some detail. The study concludes that the early twentieth century deterioration in white attitudes had a significant effect on blacks living in Boston where few blacks arrived during the period and where conditions were genuinely "good" during the preceeding era. It argues that this factor should be given more credence in the development of black ghettos in other cities--even those where the ghetto emerged during the "Great Migration"-- and in general American urban and social history as well.