Before Harlem : The Black Experience in New York City Before World War I /
Sacks, Marcy S.
Before Harlem : The Black Experience in New York City Before World War I / Marcy S. Sacks. - 1 online resource (240 p.) : 8 illus. - Politics and Culture in Modern America .
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. The Most Fatally Fascinating Thing in America -- Chapter 2. Purged of the Vicious Classes -- Chapter 3. To Check the Menacing Black Hordes -- Chapter 4. Jobs Are Just Chances -- Chapter 5. The Anxiety of Keeping the Home Together -- Chapter 6. Negro Metropolis -- Notes -- Index -- Acknowledgments
restricted access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec
In the years between 1880 and 1915, New York City and its environs underwent a tremendous demographic transformation with the arrival of millions of European immigrants, native whites from the rural countryside, and people of African descent from both the American South and the Caribbean. While all groups faced challenges in their adjustment to the city, hardening racial prejudices set the black experience apart from that of other newcomers. Through encounters with each other, blacks and whites, both together and in opposition, forged the contours of race relations that would affect the city for decades to come.Before Harlem reveals how black migrants and immigrants to New York entered a world far less welcoming than the one they had expected to find. White police officers, urban reformers, and neighbors faced off in a hostile environment that threatened black families in multiple ways. Unlike European immigrants, who typically struggled with low-paying jobs but who often saw their children move up the economic ladder, black people had limited employment opportunities that left them with almost no prospects of upward mobility. Their poverty and the vagaries of a restrictive job market forced unprecedented numbers of black women into the labor force, fundamentally affecting child-rearing practices and marital relationships.Despite hostile conditions, black people nevertheless claimed New York City as their own. Within their neighborhoods and their churches, their night clubs and their fraternal organizations, they forged discrete ethnic, regional, and religious communities. Diverse in their backgrounds, languages, and customs, black New Yorkers cultivated connections to others similar to themselves, forming organizations, support networks, and bonds of friendship with former strangers. In doing so, Marcy S. Sacks argues, they established a dynamic world that eventually sparked the Harlem Renaissance. By the 1920s, Harlem had become both a tragedy and a triumph-undeniably a ghetto replete with problems of poverty, overcrowding, and crime, but also a refuge and a haven, a physical place whose very name became legendary.
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
In English.
9780812239614 9780812203356
10.9783/9780812203356 doi
African American neighborhoods--History.--New York (State)--New York
African American neighborhoods--History.--New York (State)--New York
African Americans--Economic conditions.
African Americans--New York (State)--New York--Economic conditions.
African Americans--19th century.--New York (State)--New York--Social conditions
African Americans--20th century.--New York (State)--New York--Social conditions
African Americans--Social conditions.
African Americans--Economic conditions.--New York (State)--New York
African Americans--Social conditions--New York (State)--New York--19th century.
African Americans--Social conditions--New York (State)--New York--20th century.
City and town life--History.--New York (State)--New York
Community life--History.--New York (State)--New York
Inner cities--History.--New York (State)--New York
American Studies.
HISTORY / United States / 19th Century.
African Studies. African-American Studies. American History. American Studies.
305.89607307
Before Harlem : The Black Experience in New York City Before World War I / Marcy S. Sacks. - 1 online resource (240 p.) : 8 illus. - Politics and Culture in Modern America .
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. The Most Fatally Fascinating Thing in America -- Chapter 2. Purged of the Vicious Classes -- Chapter 3. To Check the Menacing Black Hordes -- Chapter 4. Jobs Are Just Chances -- Chapter 5. The Anxiety of Keeping the Home Together -- Chapter 6. Negro Metropolis -- Notes -- Index -- Acknowledgments
restricted access http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec
In the years between 1880 and 1915, New York City and its environs underwent a tremendous demographic transformation with the arrival of millions of European immigrants, native whites from the rural countryside, and people of African descent from both the American South and the Caribbean. While all groups faced challenges in their adjustment to the city, hardening racial prejudices set the black experience apart from that of other newcomers. Through encounters with each other, blacks and whites, both together and in opposition, forged the contours of race relations that would affect the city for decades to come.Before Harlem reveals how black migrants and immigrants to New York entered a world far less welcoming than the one they had expected to find. White police officers, urban reformers, and neighbors faced off in a hostile environment that threatened black families in multiple ways. Unlike European immigrants, who typically struggled with low-paying jobs but who often saw their children move up the economic ladder, black people had limited employment opportunities that left them with almost no prospects of upward mobility. Their poverty and the vagaries of a restrictive job market forced unprecedented numbers of black women into the labor force, fundamentally affecting child-rearing practices and marital relationships.Despite hostile conditions, black people nevertheless claimed New York City as their own. Within their neighborhoods and their churches, their night clubs and their fraternal organizations, they forged discrete ethnic, regional, and religious communities. Diverse in their backgrounds, languages, and customs, black New Yorkers cultivated connections to others similar to themselves, forming organizations, support networks, and bonds of friendship with former strangers. In doing so, Marcy S. Sacks argues, they established a dynamic world that eventually sparked the Harlem Renaissance. By the 1920s, Harlem had become both a tragedy and a triumph-undeniably a ghetto replete with problems of poverty, overcrowding, and crime, but also a refuge and a haven, a physical place whose very name became legendary.
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
In English.
9780812239614 9780812203356
10.9783/9780812203356 doi
African American neighborhoods--History.--New York (State)--New York
African American neighborhoods--History.--New York (State)--New York
African Americans--Economic conditions.
African Americans--New York (State)--New York--Economic conditions.
African Americans--19th century.--New York (State)--New York--Social conditions
African Americans--20th century.--New York (State)--New York--Social conditions
African Americans--Social conditions.
African Americans--Economic conditions.--New York (State)--New York
African Americans--Social conditions--New York (State)--New York--19th century.
African Americans--Social conditions--New York (State)--New York--20th century.
City and town life--History.--New York (State)--New York
Community life--History.--New York (State)--New York
Inner cities--History.--New York (State)--New York
American Studies.
HISTORY / United States / 19th Century.
African Studies. African-American Studies. American History. American Studies.
305.89607307