W.E.B. Du Bois' Urban Sociology: Reflections on African American Quality of Life in Philadelphia

• Main Author: Robert A. Wortham
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: North Carolina Sociological Association 2008-06-01
• Series: Sociation Today
• Subjects: Du Bois; urban sociology; city survey; urban succession; African American
• Online Access: http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v61/dubois2.htm

W.E.B. Du Bois' The Philadelphia Negro ([1899], 1996) is a classic work in urban ecology and urban ethnography. In this small area social study, Du Bois demonstrates how an understanding of the properties of social structure provides a framework for discussing African American quality of life in an urban setting. Relying on extensive use of census data, a survey of Philadelphia's Seventh Ward and ethnographic description, Du Bois utilizes methodological triangulation to specify how Philadelphia's urban inequality is a function of race and class, a point which is also made in Wilson and Taub's 2006 study on neighborhood transition in Chicago. Du Bois anticipates the work of Park, Burgess and McKenzie as he comments on the movement of groups in and out of slum areas, and he provides evidence which suggests that the Seventh Ward functioned as an African American economic enclave. In addition to being a seminal thinker in the development of scientific sociology in the U.S., Du Bois is also one of urban sociology's pioneering figures.