W. E. B. Du Bois and Elijah Anderson - The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study

"The Philadelphia Negro" was originally published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 1899. One of the first works to combine the use of urban ethnography, social history, and descriptive statistics, it has become a classic work in the social science literature. Both the issues the book raises and the evolution of DuBois's own thinking about the problems of black integration into American society sound strikingly contemporary. Among the intriguing aspects of "The Philadelphia Negro" are what it says about the author, about race in urban America and about social science at the time, but even more important is the fact that many of DuBois's observations can be made--in fact are being made--by investigators today...."The Philadelphia Negro" is the first, and perhaps still the finest, example of engaged sociological scholarship--the kind of work that, in contemplating social reality, helps to change it....In his introduction to this edition, Elijah Anderson traces DuBois's life before his move to Philade