Ghettos and Jobs in History

This article examines how residence in racially segregated neighborhoods affected the job prospects of African American men in the late 1910s. The analysis focuses on one northern city—Cincinnati, Ohio. The evidence comes from a new longitudinal dataset containing information on individuals linked from the 1920 census to World War I selective service registration records. The results indicate that black male residents of Cincinnati’s west end ghetto held occupations similar to those of black men in other Cincinnati neighborhoods and experienced similar rates of upward occupational mobility. Surprisingly, black men in the west end experienced lower rates of downward occupational mobility than did black men in other parts of the city.

[1]  Karen Ferguson.  Historical Roots of the Urban Crisis: African Americans in the Industrial City, 1900–1950 , 2002 .

[2]  T. Maloney.  Migration and Economic Opportunity in the 1910s: New Evidence on African-American Occupational Mobility in the North , 2001 .

[3]  R. Margo,et al.  RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION AND SOCIOECONOMIC OUTCOMES: WHEN DID GHETTOS GO BAD? , 2000 .

[4]  W. Collins.  African-American Economic Mobility in the 1940s: A Portrait from the Palmer Survey , 2000 .

[5]  Edward L. Glaeser,et al.  The Rise and Decline of the American Ghetto , 1997, Journal of Political Economy.

[6]  P. Wosh,et al.  Guide to federal records in the National Archives of the United States , 1998 .

[7]  Susan B. Carter,et al.  Historical statistics of the United States on CD-ROM : colonial times to 1970 , 1997 .

[8]  K. Phillips.  “But It Is a Fine Place to Make Money”: Migration and African-American Families in Cleveland, 1915–1929 , 1996 .

[9]  M. Sobek.  Work, Status, and Income: Men in the American Occupational Structure since the Late Nineteenth Century , 1996 .

[10]  H. Taylor,et al.  Race and the city : work, community, and protest in Cincinnati, 1820-1970 , 1995 .

[11]  E. Glaeser,et al.  Are Ghettos Good or Bad? , 1995 .

[12]  W. Sundstrom.  The Color Line: Racial Norms and Discrimination in Urban Labor Markets, 1910–1950 , 1994, The Journal of Economic History.

[13]  Douglas S. Massey,et al.  Migration segregation and the geographic concentration of poverty. , 1994 .

[14]  W. Wilson.  The Ghetto Underclass: Social Science Perspectives , 1993 .

[15]  Paul E. Peterson,et al.  The Urban Underclass. , 1992 .

[16]  James E. Rosenbaum,et al.  Employment and earnings of low-income blacks who move to middle-class suburbs , 1991 .

[17]  John D. Kasarda,et al.  Urban Industrial Transition and the Underclass , 1989 .

[18]  Robert B. Fairbanks.  Making Better Citizens: Housing Reform and the Community Development Strategy in Cincinnati, 1890-1960 , 1988 .

[19]  Christina D. Romer.  World War I and the postwar depression A reinterpretation based on alternative estimates of GNP , 1988 .

[20]  W. Wilson,et al.  The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass, and Public Policy. , 1988 .

[21]  J. Chambers.  To Raise an Army: The Draft Comes to Modern America , 1990 .

[22]  H. Taylor.  The Use of Maps in the Study of the Black Ghetto-Formation Process: Cincinnati, 1802–1910 , 1984 .

[23]  Daniel Nelson,et al.  Managers and Workers: Origins of the New Factory System in the United States , 1975 .

[24]  Marvin E. Fletcher,et al.  The Unknown Soldiers: Black American Troops in World War I , 1974 .

[25]  S. Thernstrom,et al.  The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880-1970. , 1964 .

[26]  Stella Stewart.  Demobilization of manpower, 1918-19 , 1944 .

[27]  A. Edwards.  A Social-Economic Grouping of the Gainful Workers of the United States , 1933 .