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The Political Economy of Segregation: The Case of Segregated Streetcars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Jennifer Roback
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics and Research Associate, Center for study of Public Choice, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia 22030.

Abstract

The introduction of segregation laws for municipal streetcars is examined. The economics of private and public segregation is analyzed first, taking note of the particular features of the streetcar industry, followed by a discussion of the contemporary debates on streetcar segregation laws in a number of southern cities. The evidence presented suggests that segregation laws were binding constraints and not simply the codification of customary practice. Furthermore, the streetcar companies were not the initiators of segregation and sometimes actively resisted it. These findings are related to several major interpretations of the origins of segregation.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1986

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References

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25 Ibid., May 23 and 24, 1900. The judge dismissed the case on the grounds that the law in question was a state law, (the city ordinance was still in the proposal stages) and that he as a municipal judge had no authority to enforce a state law

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57 Ultimately the law was declared unconstitutional because of a clause which made an exception for black nurses traveling with their charges. This was held to be class legislation. Ibid., July 26 and 30, 1905.

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