The Negro at Work in New York City: A Study in Economic Progress

by George Edmund Haynes

[17] Vide Hoffman, The General Death Rate of Large American Cities, 1871-1904, in Quarterly Publications of the American Statistical Association, new series, vol. x, no. 73, March, 1906. Mr. Hoffman says: "While the general death-rate is of very limited value for the purpose of comparison in the case of different localities, it is, I am satisfied, after a very careful investigation and much experience, of quite considerable value in making local comparison of the present health conditions with the past."

[18] Op. cit., pp. 5-8. The cities are Baltimore, 1871-1904; New Orleans, 1871-1904; District of Columbia, 1876-1904; Louisville, Ky., 1890-1904; Memphis, Tenn., 1876-1904.

[19] Op. cit., pp. 7-8. (Italics are mine.)

[20] In the Biennial Report of the Board of Health of New Orleans, La., 1906-1907, this diagram of Mr. Hoffman is reproduced with the following comment: ([p. 113]) "The colored mortality has not only been excessive, but has borne no relation whatever to the white mortality curve, being on the ascending scale at times when the white mortality was clearly on the decrease." A comparison with Mr. Hoffman's words about the two death-rates quoted above and a glance at the curves supply sufficient commentary upon this biased view.

[21] Mortality Among Negroes in Cities, Atlanta University Pubs., no. 1, (Atlanta, Ga., 1896), p. 51; vide pp. 21-25; and 2nd ed., 1903, pp. 11-15.

[22] Annual Reports of the Health Department of the City of Richmond, Va., 1906, p. 22; 1907, p. 34; 1908, pp. 39-40.

[23] Cf. Ray Stannard Baker, in American Magazine, Feb. and March, 1908, and Following the Color Line, (New York, 1909), pp. 54-55.

[24] For a large body of facts and opinions on this point see Atlanta University Pubs., no. 8, pp. 64-79; 108-110; 154-190. Personal observation during residence of the past twelve years in Louisville, Ky., Memphis and Nashville, Tenn., Atlanta, Ga., Chicago, and New York, and during visits to Baltimore, Md., Washington, D.C., Norfolk and Richmond, Va., Savannah and Augusta, Ga., Chattanooga, Tenn., Birmingham and Mobile, Ala., New Orleans, La., and smaller cities has afforded the author of this essay considerable opportunity to know at first-hand this phase of Negro city life.

[25] Atlanta University Pubs., no. 9, Notes on Negro Crime: Crime in Cities, by M.N. Work (Atlanta, Ga., 1904), pp. 18-32; cf. pp. 49-54. Vide also Kellor, Experimental Sociology, pp. 250 ff.

[26] Op. cit., p. 22.