Citizens in the Making: Reform and African American Politics in the Urban North at the End of the 19th Century

Time: 12:00 p.m.

Place: 2U Conference Room, Room 2019, Claire Fagin Hall

Information: nhistory@nursing.upenn.edu or 215-898-4502

Abstract: In Philadelphia, among the narrow alleys and crowded homes of the city's poorest neighborhoods, African American residents met white Republican leaders and reformers head-on in a struggle to define the meaning of black citizenship in the late 19th century. The encounters between Northern reform organizations and working class black residents have been considered mostly from the perspective of white and black middle-class activists. By conflating black politics at the end of the 19th century with middle-class values, historians have largely missed the activities of African Americans involved in the political machines of the urban North.