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THE PHILADELPHIA NEGRO AND THE CANON OF CLASSICAL URBAN THEORY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2015

Kevin Loughran
Kevin Loughran*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Northwestern University
*
*Corresponding author: Kevin Loughran, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University, 1810 Chicago Avenue, Evanston, IL, 60208. E-mail: k.loughran@u.northwestern.edu
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Abstract

This paper outlines the urban theory of W. E. B. Du Bois as presented in the classic sociological text The Philadelphia Negro. I argue that Du Bois’s urban theory, which focused on how the socially-constructed racial hierarchy of the United States was shaping the material conditions of industrial cities, prefigured important later work and offered a sociologically richer understanding of urban processes than the canonized classical urban theorists—Weber, Simmel, and Park. I focus on two key areas of Du Bois’s urban theory: (1) racial stratification as a fundamental feature of the modern city and (2) urbanization and urban migration. While The Philadelphia Negro has gained recent praise for Du Bois’s methodological achievements, I use extensive passages from the work to demonstrate the theoretical importance of The Philadelphia Negro and to argue that this groundbreaking work should be considered canonical urban theory.

Keywords

RaceCitiesUrbanSociologyDu BoisClassicalTheory
Type
State of the Discipline
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , Fall 2015 , pp. 249 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © Hutchins Center for African and African American Research 2015 

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