The Philadelphia Negro

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 sociological problems present in the African American community. It was the first 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 gathered information for the study in the period between August 1896 and December 1896. In conducting his research, Du Bois went house to house and conducted personal interviews with each individual head of household. Du Bois combined his data with census data to analyze the social and economic conditions of African Americans in Philadelphia. Du Bois discusses his methods:

Contents

• A legacy of courage w e b du bois and the philadelphia negro
• W e b dubois speaks socialism and the american negro full
• Contemporary recognition
• References

In a house-to-house investigation there are, outside the attitude of the investigator, many sources of error: misapprehension, vagueness and forgetfulness, and deliberate deception on the part of the persons questioned, greatly vitiate the value of the answers; on the other hand, conclusions formed by the best trained and most conscientious students on the basis of general observation and inquiry are really inductions from but a few of the multitudinous facts of social life, and these may easily fall far short of being essential or typical.

Du Bois' use of horizontal bar graphs is an early example of the use of information graphics in the social sciences.

Du Bois' use of graphs and statistics represents a bold effort on his part to infuse the field of sociology with aspects of quantitative science. This departure from abstraction is significant because much of Du Bois' previous work relies upon carefully crafted rhetoric. Here, the charts engage a different type of rhetoric – a visual rhetoric. The visual graphics and statistics speak for themselves; in doing so, they afford Du Bois a more explicit, visceral forum for expression of his political project. The Philadelphia Negro also makes extensive use of footnotes, which Du Bois frequently uses to editorialize or provide background information on individual subjects interviewed.

On many occasions after the publication of the study, Du Bois made reference to his strained relationship with the African American community in Philadelphia. In his final autobiography, Du Bois states that "the colored people of Philadelphia received [him] with no open arms" and contends that his experiences conducting the study "taught him that merely being born in a group, does not necessarily make one possessed of complete knowledge concerning it."