Ohio History Journal

HENRY L. TAYLOR

 

On Slavery's Fringe: City-Building and

Black Community Development in

Cincinnati, 1800-1850

 

Scholars of the antebellum black urban experience have ignored

the issue of the relationship between the city-building process and

the development of the black community. Most studies of the ante-

bellum black experience published since Leon Litwack's North of

Slavery have instead focused on legal aspects of racial discrimina-

tion, the relationship between race and politics, the establishment

of black utopian communities, and the role of blacks in the abolition-

ist movement.¹ Then, in 1971, Theodore Hershberg published his

"Free Blacks in Antebellum Philadelphia: A Study of Ex-Slaves,

Free-Born, and Socio-Economic Decline." In this work, Hershberg

called for the development of a "scheme of conceptualization,"

based on an urban perspective, to study the antebellum black experi-

ence. He argued that a link existed between the urban environment

and human behavior, and that many of the problems faced by

 

 

 

 

 

 

Henry L. Taylor is Assistant Professor of History in the Department of History and

Black Studies at The Ohio State University. He wishes to thank these departments, as

well as the university's College of Humanities and the Graduate School, and the

Smithsonian Institution for their generous support. He also wishes to thank Vicky

Dula, his research assistant, and members of the Cincinnati Urban Studies Project

without whom this study would not have been possible.

 

1. Leon Litwick, North of Slavery (Chicago, 1961); Arthur Zilversmit, The First

Emancipation (Chicago, 1967); William and Jane Pease, Black Utopia (Madison, 1963);

Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionist (New York, 1970); Carter G. Woodson, "The Ne-

gro in Cincinnati Prior to the Civil War," Journal of Negro History, 1 (January, 1916),

1-22; Richard Wade, "The Negro in Cincinnati," Journal of Negro History, 39 (Janu-

ary, 1954), 43-55; John Bracey, Jr., August Meier and Elliott Rudwick (eds.) Blacks in

The Abolitionist Movement (Belmont, Calif., 1970); Robert A. Warner, New Haven Ne-

groes: A Social History (New Haven, 1940); E. Horace Fitchett, "The Traditions of the

Free Negro in Charleston, South Carolina," Journal of Negro History, 25 (April, 1940),

139-52; August Meier and Elliott Rudwick (eds.), The Making of Black America, Vol. 1:

The Origins of Black America (New York, 1976).

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6                                                      OHIO HISTORY

 

blacks could be attributed to the processes of urbanization, industri-

alization, and immigration, occurring in a setting of racial inequality.²

In subsequent works on antebellum blacks in Philadelphia, Hersh-

berg and his associates at the Philadelphia Social History Project

(PSHP) firmly established the importance of an urban perspective in

understanding the history of antebellum blacks. In "A Tale of Three

Cities," the last of the PSHP studies on the black urban experience,

Hershberg and the PSHP also began to explore the relationship over

time between the city-building process and black community devel-

opment.³

Following Hershberg, several other scholars employed an urban

scheme of conceptualization in their studies of the antebellum black

experience. Yet, these scholars, for the most part, focused on tradi-

tional social history themes rather than the relationship between

city-building and black community development. For example, Leo-

nard P. Curry, in The Free Black in Urban America, 1800-1850, com-

pared the black experience in eastern, western, northern, southern,

early-developing and late-developing, and small and large cities, but

he did not investigate the role that the urban land-use structure and

the pattern of building development played in determining the loca-

tion of blacks within the city and the types of housing made availa-

ble to them.⁴

Likewise, James Horton's study of the effect of demographic and

economic conditions in Boston, Buffalo, and Cincinnati on race rela-

tions and the role of the mulatto in black society does not explore the

more complex issues of the relationship between the structure and

form of the city and social stratification within the black community.⁵

Ira Berlin's Slaves Without Masters has also made a significant contri-

 

 

 

2. Theodore Hershberg, "Free Blacks in Antebellum Philadelphia: A Study of

Ex-Slaves, Freeborn, and Socio-Economic Decline," Journal of Social History, 5 (Win-

ter, 1971-1972), 183-209.

3. Theodore Hershberg, Alan N. Burstein, Eugene P. Erickson, Stephanie W.

Greenberg, and William L. Yancey, "A Tale of Three Cities: Blacks, Immigrants, and

Opportunity in Philadelphia, 1850-1880, 1930, 1970," The Annals, 441 (January, 1979),

55-81; Theodore Hershberg and Henry Williams, "Mulattoes and Blacks: Intra-group

color Differences and Social Stratification in Nineteenth-Century Philadephia," in

Theodore Hershberg (ed.), Philadelphia: Work, Space, Family, and Group Experience

in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1981), 392-434; Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr., John

Modell, Theodore Hershberg, "The Origins of the Female-Headed Black Family:

The Impact of the Urban Experience," in Hershberg (ed.), Philadelphia, 435-60.

4. Leonard P. Curry, The Free Black in Urban America, 1800-1850: The Shadow of a

Dream (Chicago, 1981).

5. James Horton, "Shades of Color: The Mulatto in Three Antebellum Northern

Communities," Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, 8 (July, 1984), 37-59.

• 2
 

On Slavery's Fringe                                          7

 

bution to the literature on the free black community; nevertheless,

even though much of Berlin's work necessarily focuses on the black

urban experience, it is social, not urban, history.⁶

On the other hand, geographer John P. Radford, in his study of

race, residence, and ideology in antebellum and mid-nineteenth cen-

tury Charleston, South Carolina, made a significant contribution to

the literature on the relationship between city-building and black

community development in a Southern city with a history of slavery.⁷

By examining the ideological components of spatial change, Radford

raises the question-as does Richard C.Wade's Slavery in the Cities:

The South, 1820-¹⁹⁶⁰⁸-of the relationship between urban policy and

black community development in the mid-nineteenth century. Al-

though Radford's study sheds light on the critical nexus between

city-building and black community development during the antebel-

lum period, Charleston was a pre-industrial city with a slow pace of

development and a slave population, and these characteristics limit

the usefulness of the study in terms of developing an understanding

of midwestern and northeastern cities.

Kathleen Conzen's "Patterns of Residence in Early Milwaukee,"

although it does not discuss black residential patterns in particular,

nevertheless presents a methodological approach that can be used to

study the relationship between city-building and the formation of

black social areas in the antebellum city. This study also provides

critical insight into the linkages between city structure, social proc-

esses, and the spatial distribution of the city's subpopulations, in-

cluding African-Americans.⁹ In this important study, Conzen exam-

ines the relevancy of contemporary ecological models to the study of

the antebellum city by analyzing the role that socioeconomic status,

family structure, and ethnicity played in the formation of Milwau-

kee's antebellum neighborhoods. She concludes that a mixture of

chance, site characteristics, economic status, and the locational re-

quirements imposed on ethnic groups by their occupational charac-

teristics can be used to explain the initial location of Milwaukee's

ethnic-economic social areas. Such areas, she argues, then ex-

 

 

 

6. Ira Berlin, Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South

(New York, 1974).

7. John P. Radford, "Race, Residence, and Ideology: Charleston, South Carolina

in the Mid-century," Journal of Historical Geography, 2, 4 (1976), 329-46.

8. Richard C. Wade, Slavery in the Cities: The South, 1820-1860 (New York, 1964).

9. Kathleen Neilo Conzen, "Patterns of Residence in Early Milwaukee," in Leo F.

Schnore (ed.), The New Urban History: Quantitative Explorations by American Histori-

ans (Princeton, 1975), 145-83.

• 3
 

8                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

panded along sectoral lines unless stopped by entrenched groups or

physical obstacles, and set the framework within which the city has

evolved. 10

Unfortunately, few scholars have followed the lead of Radford

and Conzens. Therefore, even though knowledge of the black urban

experience has increased since Hershberg's pioneering studies,

much remains to be learned about the complex relationship between

the city-building process and black community development. This

paper will examine the impact that city-building had on the develop-

ment of Cincinnati's free black community during the antebellum pe-

riod.

Black Cincinnati, the first large-scale black urban community to

form in the Northwest Territory, emerged at the onset of the city-

building process, in a community without a local history of slavery.

Located on the fringe of slavery, Black Cincinnati, because of the

critical role it played in the underground railroad and the abolitionist

movement,¹² became one of the most important antebellum black

communities in the country. Cincinnati thus provides a unique oppor-

tunity to study the relationship between the free black community

and the city-building process at a crucial early stage of development.

The first part of the paper presents an examination of the evolution

of commercial Cincinnati's land-use structure, and the second part

presents an analysis of the process through which blacks were spa-

tially incorporated into the commercial city, as well as an analysis of

the role of race relations and other factors in the development of the

black community.

 

The Physical City: Land-Use Structure and Pattern of

Building Development, 1800-1850

 

A basic knowledge of the physical structure of the city, including

its pattern of land-use and building development, is crucial to under-

standing the manner in which blacks were spatially incorporated into

the city and the particular problems which they faced in adapting to

the urban environment. Cincinnati evolved as a thriving commercial

center with a distinctive Southern flavor. Its population included

 

 

10. Ibid., 182.

11. The Northwest ordinance barred the transplanting of the slave system into the

region east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River. Charles Hickok, The Negro

in Ohio, 1802-1870 (New York, 1976), (reprint of dissertation, Western Reserve Universi-

ty, 1896).

12. David Gerber, Ohio and the Colorline (Urbana, 1976).

• 4
 

On Slavery's Fringe                                                9

 

large numbers of Southern whites, and the city served as a major

commercial and financial center for Southern planters.¹³ Its location

450 miles downstream from Pittsburgh also made Cincinnati a bus-

tling frontier town and an early transportation hub for steamboat traf-

fic. The city grew rapidly during the first half of the nineteenth cen-

tury, and by 1850 Cincinnati had become the "Queen City of the

West," the sixth-largest city in the United States, the fourth-largest

manufacturing city in the country, and the leading commercial and

manufacturing city in the Allegheny region.14 This was Cincinnati's

golden age.

Cincinnati's functional land-use structure in the commercial era re-

flected the city's trading base and therefore differed markedly from

the land-use structure of the earlier colonial city, and from that of the

industrial metropolis which would begin to take form after 1850. The

city initially formed along the river bottom, near the site of the public

landing. By 1819, Cincinnati occupied a one-half square mile area and

contained approximately 1,890 structures, including 887 commercial,

manufacturing, food-processing, and warehousing enterprises.¹⁵ Al-

though some functional specialization is discernible in the city's

land-use structure in this early period, the land-use pattern more re-

sembled an overlapping mosaic of commercial, industrial, transporta-

tion, and residential uses of land.

At this point it should be emphasized that it was the primitive

state of transportation technology which limited the size of Cincinna-

ti. Factories and other commercial establishments were not free to lo-

cate just anywhere; they were tied to the city center and the water-

front. Likewise, since this was a walking city and since workers had

to live within walking distance of their places of employment, well-

defined residential areas spatially separated from business and in-

dustry could not emerge during this early period. These were the

 

 

 

 

 

13. John D. Barnhart, "Sources of Southern Migration into the Old Northwest,"

Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 22 (June, 1935), 59-62; Barnhart, "The Southern

Influence in the Formation of Ohio," Journal of Southern History, 3 (February, 1937),

28-42; Richard N. Campen, Ohio: An Architectural Portrait (Chagrin Falls, Ohio,

1973), 14-23.

14. Charles Cist, Cincinnati in 1851 (Cincinnati, 1851), 13; Richard C. Wade, The

Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities, 1790-1830 (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), 161-

202; Zane L. Miller, Boss Cox's Cincinnati: Urban Politics in the Progressive Era (New

York, 1968), 5.

15. B. Drake and E. D. Mansfield, Cincinnati in 1826 (Cincinnati, 1827), 28; Charles

Cist, Cincinnati in 1841 (Cincinnati, 1841), 40-42.

• 5
 

10                                                          OHIO HISTORY

 

technological constraints within which commercial Cincinnati

grew. 16

Functional specificity in land use developed over time, however,

and by 1850 a mature commercial land-use configuration had

emerged. The four basic components of this land-use structure were

the central business district, the manufacturing belt, the transporta-

tion network, and the residential structure (see Figures 1-4).

 

The Central Business District (CBD)

 

The CBD formed the heart of commercial Cincinnati, extending

from the Ohio River to Sixth Street, and from Race Street on the west

to Broadway on the east.¹⁷ Six hundred thirty-nine establishments

were identified within the CBD, representing sixteen categories of

central business functions: wholesale, retail, manufacturing and arti-

sans, professional service, financial institutions, administrative estab-

lishments, religious and educational institutions, hotels and board-

ing houses, private dwelling units, warehouses, personal service and

entertainment, and multi-purpose establishments (engaging in whole-

sale, retail, and manufacturing activities).18

 

 

 

16. James E. Vance, Jr., "Housing the Worker: Determinative and Contingent Ties

in Nineteenth Century Birmingham," Economic Geography, 43 (April, 1967), 343-59;

Vance, "Housing the Worker: The Employment Linkage as a Force in Urban Struc-

ture," Economic Geography, 42 (October, 1966), 294-325, cited in Conzen, "Patterns of

Residence in Early Milwaukee," 148.

17. C. S. Williams, Cincinnati Guild and Business Director of 184849 (Cincinnati,

1850); Cist, Cincinnati in 1851, 71-73, 44-48, 151. The addresses of businesses, insur-

ance companies, wholesale houses, banks, warehouses, and principal industries were

taken from these sources and their locations used to delimit the boundaries of the

CBD. An important source for the study of the Cincinnati CBD is a collection of de-

tailed maps derived from the census and the city directories, prepared under the

guidance of Professor Samuel Noe of the University of Cincinnati, College of Design,

Architecture, and Art. Professor Noe's students prepared a series of 65 manuscript

maps on various aspects of Cincinnati's recreational, institutional, and economic life, for

1800, 1825, 1850, 1875, 1900, 1920, 1940, and 1960. Samuel V. Noe, Jr., "Manuscript

Maps of Cincinnati," Class Project, U.C. College of Design and Architecture, 1968. The

Martin Fire Insurance maps also proved extremely valuable in our analysis of the CBD.

Fire insurance maps were prepared by underwriters for accurate and detailed informa-

tion about the buildings that they were insuring. The Martin maps identified sixteen

different types of structures, according to building materials and configuration. The

maps also show the location and configurations of buildings, stores, dwelling units

above stores, public institutions, churches, and factories. See W. H. Martin, Map of

Cincinnati For Insurance Companies and Real Estate Agents, Vols. 1 and 2 (Cincinnati,

1855). See also William Pullen, Map of the Business Portion of Cincinnati, 1863 (Cincin-

nati, 1863).

18. Williams, Cincinnati Guide and General Business Directory for 184849; Cist,

• 6
 

On Slavery's Fringe                                                      11

 

A high degree of internal spatial differentiation was found to exist

within the 1850 CBD.¹⁹ The CBD was found to consist of two dis-

tinct areas of functional activity, which also coincided with key topo-

graphical features of the city. The first area, a wholesale-finance dis-

trict which also contained some manufacturing activity, developed on

the city's lower bank, along the waterfront and the public landing

(see Figure 3). Approximately 84 percent of the wholesale houses, 81

percent of the warehouses, 57 percent of the financial institutions,

and over 50 percent of the factories in the CBD were located in the

wholesale-finance district, between Pearl Street (just south of Third)

and the wharf, close to the terminus of Miami-Erie Canal and the

public landing, where the steamboats loaded and unloaded.²⁰ This

area also formed part of the manufacturing belt; and the central wa-

terfront district also contained the dwelling units of a large number of

wage-earners and transients who worked along the waterfront.²¹

Proximity to the city's major transportation facilities was the deci-

 

 

 

Cincinnati in 1851, 71-73, 44-48, 151; Pullen, Map of the Business Portion of Cincinnati,

1863. To determine the pattern of land-use within the central business district, a list of

639 establishments was selected from the Williams and Cist business directories, and

the locations of these establishments were then mapped. The locations were then

studied to determine the degree of internal spatial differentiation which existed within

the central business district. The boundaries of the CBD were based on a 1863 map of

the business portion of the city by William Pullen. To determine the relationship be-

tween the boundaries established by Pullen and the 1850 boundaries, a comparison

was made between the businesses obtained from the 1850 data and the 1863 Pullen

map. More than 85 percent of the businesses identified from the 1850 data base were

still in existence when Pullen constructed his map. The high persistence rate suggests

that the boundaries used in this study are accurate.

19. The findings of this study are not in accord with David Ward's conclusions

about CBD growth. Ward argues that the CBDs of North American cities experienced

only minimal internal differentiation of activities between 1840 and 1870. Ian Davey and

Michael Doucet, along with Martyn J. Bowden, however, did find surprisingly high

levels of internal specialization within the CBD in their studies. It is also apparent from

my findings that, in contrast to Gideon Sjoberg's pre-industrial city, commerce, rather

than religious and government agencies, dominated Cincinnati's central core. David

Ward, Cities and Immigrants: A Geography of Change in Nineteenth Century America

(New York, 1971); Ian Davey and Michael Doucet, Appendix One, "The Social Geog-

raphy of a Commercial City," in Michael B. Katz, The People of Hamilton, Canada

West: Family and Class in a Mid-Nineteenth-Century City (Cambridge, Mass., 1975),

319-42; Martyn J. Bowden, "Growth of the Central Districts in Large Cities," in Leo F.

Schnore (ed.), The New Urban History (Princeton, 1975), 75-109; Gideon Sjoberg, The

Pre-Industrial City: Past and Present (New York, 1960).

20. These proportions are based on 639 CBD establishments that were derived

from the city directories.

21. Martin, Maps of Cincinnati for Insurance Companies; United States Bureau of

the Census, Seventh Census of the United States: Manuscript Census for Cincinnati and

Hamilton County (National Archives Microfilm M432), Rolls 687-88, Reels 3-4, pp.

1-543; 1-467.

• 7
 

12                                             OHIO HISTORY

sive factor in the locational decisions of the wholesale houses, ware- houses, and factories in the CBD. Over 96 percent of the banks, bro- kers, and insurance companies were located along Third Street, strategically located between the wholesale, warehouse, and factory district, and the retail district, which was located between Fourth and Sixth Streets and along Western Row, on the city's upper bank. Retail shops, hotels, administrative institutions, and professional and personal service establishments formed the focus about which the land-use pattern was organized in the retail district, with churches, elite private dwelling units, and educational and entertainment cen- ters situated on the district's outer fringe. The upper bank location made the retail district's establishments easily accessible to the city's well-to-do residents, travellers, and shoppers. The clustering together of related activities in the CBD produced

• 8
 

On Slavery's Fringe                                                      13

 

the appearance of a polynuclear core.²² A further agglomeration ef-

fect was also observed within the central waterfront district, where

produce and flour commission merchants, wholesale grocers, whole-

sale dealers in tobacco, cigars, and ready-made clothing, bankers,

brokers, and insurance companies formed distinct clusters. A similar

clustering effect was observed in the retail district.²³

 

The Manufacturing Belt

 

In commercial Cincinnati, separate industrial and business districts

were clearly distinguishable, despite a certain degree of overlap.

From the beginnning of the city-building process, manufacturing ac-

tivities were primarily concentrated just to the east of the CBD, be-

tween Broadway and the base of Mt. Adams, and north of the

CBD's retail district, from    Fifth Street to North Canal Street. Sec-

ondary zones of industrial activity emerged in the central waterfront

district and in the West End, but the East End industrial district re-

tained its dominant position throughout the commercial period.²⁴

The three industrial clusters formed a crescent-shaped manufactur-

ing belt that extended from North Canal Street, along the river bot-

tom, to John Street in the West End.²⁵ A marked tendency toward

 

 

22. These findings support the theory of a polynuclear central area as first advanced

by Richard Hurd and Robert Haig, and later by Bowden. Richard M. Hurd, The

Principles of City Land Values (New York, 1903), 56-88; Robert M. Haig, Major Eco-

nomic Factors in Metropolitan Growth and Arrangement, Vol. 1, Regional Survey, New

York: Regional Plan of New York, 1927, 19-44, cited in Bowden "Growth of the Central

Districts in Large Cities," in Schnore (ed.), The New Urban History, 75-109. These

scholars argue that the central districts are a collection of districts, each made up of

competitive, complementary, and auxiliary activities. The clustering together of related

activities in the CBD produced the appearance of a polynuclear core. In other words,

similar business establishments clustered together, forming homogenous clusters of

"like" businesses. For example, within the central waterfront district the produce and

flour commission merchants, wholesale grocers, wholesale dealers in tobacco, cigars,

and ready-made clothing, bankers, broker, and insurance companies formed distinct

clusters, even though they shared the same spatial margin. A similar clustering effect

was observed in the retail district.

23. C. S. Williams, Cincinnati Guide and General Business Director for 184849; Cist,

Cincinnati in 1851; and Pullen, op. cit.

24. Oliver Farnsworth, The Cincinnati Director (Cincinnati, 1819); B. Drake and E.

D. Mansfield, Cincinnati in 1826.

25. Noe, Cincinnati Maps, 1850; Martin, Map of Cincinnatifor Insurance Companies.

To determine the pattern of industrial land-use in antebellum Cincinnati, a list of the

principal industries in the city were selected from the 1819, 1826, and 1850 Cincinnati

directories and their locations mapped. In addition, the industrial locations on the

Samuel Noe maps and other Cincinnati land-use maps were also studied, to determine

the pattern of industrial location within the city.

• 9
 

14                                          OHIO HISTORY

agglomeration among related industries was observed throughout the manufacturing belt. Cincinnati was hemmed in by the Ohio River on the south, and by steep hills on the east and north, so that its topography made the Queen City one of the most congested cities in antebellum America. Because of the limited space, residential land use was intermingled

• 10
 

On Slavery's Fringe                                           15

 

with the factories, warehouses, wholesale houses, and financial and

other institutions, with some dwelling units even located above ware-

houses and other commercial facilities. The manufacturing belt also

contained the boarding houses and hotels which housed unskilled

workers and the city's transient population, with most of these struc-

tures located along the river bottom in the East End industrial dis-

trict.²⁶

 

Transportation

 

Transportation was the key to economic growth and development

in the commercial city, and the steamboat, the railroad, and the ca-

nal claimed key sections of land in Cincinnati's crowded landscape.

Thousands of steamboats loaded and unloaded each year at the

public landing, which occupied about ten acres of land along the

southeastern corner of the waterfront, directly across from the

mouth of the Licking River. The public landing represented the fo-

cus of the land-use structure in the central portion of the city, as busi-

nesses and manufacturers sought to keep the cost of moving goods

and materials to and from the loading docks to a minimum, and ho-

tels and boarding houses were attracted by the large transient popu-

lation associated with river trade.²⁷

The canals and the early railroad development followed the paths

of level land through the city's valleys and along the river bottom.

The first industrial development along the canals developed at key

loading points. The Miami-Erie Canal also had a major effect on the

location of industry in the East End because of the water power it

generated.²⁸ The East End industrial district was also the site of the

rail terminals for the rail lines which ran through the Deer Creek val-

ley, with the lines terminating near the public landing. There was no

link between the rail lines in the East End and the lines entering the

city from the west along the Whitewater Canal, which terminated in

the West End. The West End rail development would become more

important in a later period.²⁹

 

 

 

26. Martin, Map of Cincinnati for Insurance Companies.

27. See L. Gauthier, Jr., Geography of Transportation (Englewood Cliffs, 1973);

Edgar Hoover, The Location of Economic Activity (New York, 1948).

28. Cist, Cincinnati in 1841, 78.

29. See the map that shows the location and extent of railroad development in

Cincinnati at mid-century; E. Mendenhall, Map of Cincinnati, Newport, and Covington,

1855 (Cincinnati, 1855). For a detailed history of the relation between the railroads

• 11
 

16                                                    OHIO HISTORY

 

Race, Ethnicity, and Occupation in the Functionally

Heterogenous Land Use Structure

 

Three factors undergird the evolution of Cincinnati's antebellum

residential land-use structure. First, the primitive stage of transporta-

tion technology and the need for workers to live close to their places

of employment limited the amount of land accessible for residential

development. Thus, throughout the period, residential, business, in-

dustrial, and transportation land-use shared the same landbase. Sec-

ond, even though the lower classes were underrepresented in some

areas and the upper classes were overrepresented in others, and even

though ethnic and racial groups tended to cluster together, residen-

tial land-use was still basically heterogeneous. Finally, socioeconomic

status, occupation, ethnicity, and race were the primary determinants

of who lived where in the commercial city.

Cincinnati's residential land-use structure evolved through two

fairly distinct periods of growth and development in the commercial

era. In the first period, between 1800 and 1830, residential, commer-

cial, and industrial land uses overlapped and were tightly inter-

mixed, as dwelling units shared scarce urban space with retail shops,

religious and educational institutions, warehouses, and wholesale

houses, and crowded up alongside the factories, railroad tracks, and

canals.³⁰ Housing conditions were extremely crowded. As early as

1815, for example, it was reported that "the ratio of ten persons to a

dwelling was certainly no exaggeration."³¹ Acute housing shortages

in the city were reported not only in boom times but also in hard

times such as the depression of the 1820s.³²

Because of the limited urban space and the chronic housing short-

ages, the boundaries defining the residential areas of the different

groups in Cincinnati's otherwise highly stratified society were indefi-

nite and ambiguous. Although there was an observed tendency for

the different ethnic groups to live together in small clusters, no single

ethnic group in this early period was found to dominate (at densities

 

 

and the physical development of Cincinnati, see Carl Condit, The Railroad and the

City: A Technological and Urbanistic History of Cincinnati (Columbus, Ohio, 1977).

30. See the maps that show the growth of Cincinnati's territorial boundaries be-

tween 1830 and 1850. R. H. Rickey, Map of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, 1850); William

Woodruff, The Plan of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, 1829); Gideon Sjoberg, The Preindustrial

City: Past and Present (New York, 1960).

31. Daniel Drake, Natural and Statistical View of Picture of Cincinnati (Cincinnati,

1815), 169-70.

32. Cist, Cincinnati in 1841, 40; Western Spy, March 17, 1921; Thomas S. Berry,

Western Prices Before 1861: A Study of the Cincinnati Market (Cambridge, 1943), 7-14.

• 12
 

On Slavery's Fringe                                            17

over 80 percent) any large residential area. In addition, it is important to note that although German and Irish immigrants and African- Americans were overrepresented in certain residential areas, they could nonetheless be found living in every section of the city.33 During the second part of the commercial era, between 1830 and 1850, the city's already crowded population rose from 24,831 to 115,438. The existing residential areas in the early land-use structure could not accommodate the new demand for residential land and     33. Cist, Cincinnati in 1851, 44-48; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Seventh Census: Pop- ulation (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1851), 810-33. The U.S. Census and immigration records specify only country of origin, not ethnic or even linguistic identity, so that the data indicating a large concentration of "Germans" in a given area is actually rather misleading in sociological terms. This was first pointed out to me by

• 13
 

18                                                      OHIO HISTORY

 

housing.³⁴ Expansion to the east was blocked by the hills, and the

city already filled even the flood plain along the Ohio River. There

were only two adjacent areas available for the development of hous-

ing for Cincinnati's growing population.³⁵ Large numbers of German

immigrants, together with smaller numbers of other nationalities, set-

tled in the area across the Miami-Erie Canal. This comparatively low-

cost residential area became known as Over-the-Rhine.³⁶ A diver-

gent group composed primarily of lower- and middle-class German

immigrants and native whites settled in the area between Sixth and

Liberty, west of John Street, in the West End, where they overran

farms, factories, and cemeteries.³⁷

Enormous diversity existed among Cincinnati's German-born pop-

ulation. Germany had no frontier: its territory was open from all di-

rections. Natural boundaries such as rivers and mountain ranges

within Germany created a strong sense of particularism in the various

sections of the country which accentuated the cultural and linguistic

differences among the people.³⁸ William Ebenstein, in his work The

German Record: A Political Portrait, discussed this relationship be-

tween political geography and the cultural diversity among German

people. This lack of frontiers is reflected, to a certain degree, in Ger-

man life and civilization. Schleswig-Holstein resembles Denmark in

some ways. East Prussia is a part of the Slav plains of Eastern Europe.

Austria shares some of the characteristics of Italy and the Balkans. In

some cities this is even more conspicuous. Breslau or Konigsberg re-

sembles Warsaw or Prague. Vienna is permeated with the atmos-

phere of Milan and Budapest, and has even a slight touch of Buchar-

est and Constantinople.³⁹

 

 

Zane Miller, Department of History, University of Cincinnati. Further, the "Irish" im-

migrants probably included ethnic Scots and English who came to this country after a

period of settlement in Ireland. The point is that one must be very careful in inter-

preting census data on ethnicity. For a further discussion of ethnic diversity, see

Stephen G. Mostov, "A Jerusalem on the Ohio: The Social and Economic History of

Cincinnati's Jewish Community, 1840-1875" (Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University,

1981).

34. Cist, Cincinnati in 1851, 45; see the map that shows the 1830 city, Mendenhall,

op. cit.

35. See the maps that show the growth of Cincinnati between 1830 and 1850. Wood-

ruff, The Plan of Cincinnati; "Plan for the City of Cincinnati," in Cincinnati Directory

for the Year 1842 (Cincinnati, 1842); M. T. O. Gould, Cincinnati, Covington, and New-

port, 1846) (Cincinnati, 1846); R. H. Rickey, Map of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, 1850).

36. Cist, Cincinnati in 1851, 71-73.

37. U.S. Manuscript Censusfor Cincinnati, Rolls 690, Reel 6, pp. 1-798; Cist, Cincin-

nati in 1851, 44.

38. William Ebenstein, The German Record: A Political Portrait (New York, 1945), 9.

39. Ibid., 9.

• 14
 

On Slavery's Fringe                                        19

Added to these differences were the cultural influences of the vari- ous foreign nationals who lived among the Germans. For example, millions of Poles lived in Prussia, and tens of millions Magyars, Czechs, Slovaks, Croates, Poles, and Italians lived in Austria.40 Thus, although large numbers of "Germans" were concentrated in the Over-the-Rhine district, the great ethnic diversity among the German immigrants precluded the formation of an ethnic ghetto dur- ing this early period.41 Thus, even though the city expanded during this period, the residential areas maintained their heterogenous character.42   40. Ibid., 24. 41. The issue of German diversity and its relationship to the formation of residential areas in the antebellum city was usually ignored by historians. Conzen, "Patterns of Residence in Early Milwaukee," 173-82. 42. Cist, Cincinnati in 1850, 44-46.

• 15
 

20                                                        OHIO HISTORY

 

Cincinnati's Antebellum Residential Areas

 

By 1850, five distinct residential areas were clearly defined within

Cincinnati's land-use structure: (1) the central waterfront district, (2)

the East End, (3) the West End, (4) the central core, and (5) the

Over-the-Rhine district (see Tables 1 and 2).⁴³

The central waterfront residential area was situated along the wa-

terfront and was lodged within the wholesale-finance district, along

with about 84 percent of the wholesale houses, 81 percent of the

warehouses, 57 percent of the financial institutions, and over 50 per-

cent of the factories. Over 20,000 people, including 964 blacks, lived

along the waterfront in dwelling units that were located above the

commercial establishments, in the alleys, and sandwiched in among

the commercial buildings. This was a low-income area, where large

 

 

TABLE 1

Residential Land-Use Structure in

Antebellum Cincinnati

 

Section                Wards                                  N                         % Total

Central Waterfront                             4, 6                             20,587                 17.8

East End                                             9, 1, 3                         25,281                 21.8

West End                                           8                                 14,424                 12.5

Central Core                                       2, 5, 7                         22,841                 19.8

Over-the-Rhine                                  10, 11, 12                   32,368                 28.0

Total                                                                            115,438

 

Source: Charles Cist, Cincinnati in 1851. Cincinnati: W. H. Moore

and Co., p. 44.

 

 

43. A two-step procedure was used to determine the location of the different resi-

dential areas and to delimit their boundaries. An examination of the 1850 manuscript

census made it possible to pinpoint the residential concentrations of the different

races, ethnic groups, and social classes. At this point, a correlation between the vari-

ous population concentrations and the city's ward boundaries was observed. By mak-

ing slight adjustments, the residential boundaries of the different residential areas

were made to correspond with the ward boundaries, thus making it possible to do

both macro- and micro-level analysis of the residential areas. Rather than create artifi-

cial and arbitrarily selected residential areas, the goal of this project was to identify

the city's actual residential areas, delimit their boundaries, and then analyze their in-

ternal structure. For a detailed description of this approach, see Henry Taylor, "The

Use of Maps in the Study of the Black Ghetto-Formation Process, Cincinnati, 1802-

1910," Historical Methods, 17 (Spring, 1984), 44-58.

• 16
 

On Slavery's Fringe                                               21

 

numbers of unskilled laborers, including disproportionately large

numbers of Irish and blacks, lived. The residential environment was

characterized by large numbers of wooden tenements, chronic

flooding, high levels of air pollution, and the "hustle and bustle" of

life along the waterfront.⁴⁴

The East End was the heart of the city's manufacturing district,

terminus of the Miami-Erie Canal, and the site of the public landing,

where thousands of boats loaded and unloaded each year. More

than 25,000 people lived in this residential area, including 1,351

African-Americans. About 80 percent of the East End blacks lived on

the upper bank, while a disproportionate number of Irish lived along

the river bottom, to the east of the Miami-Erie Canal.⁴⁵ Yet, no eth-

nic ghettoes existed in the East End. Even in the heavily black popu-

lated Bucktown section, whites outnumbered blacks almost two to

one.⁴⁶ At the base of the East End, near the public landing, was the

transient population of canal and railroad gangs, wagoners, adventur-

ers, and the notorious rivermen, whose rough and boisterous behav-

ior was responsible for a large part of the area's crime rate.⁴⁷ The

East End was a very low-amenity residential area, despite the impor-

tance of the waterfront and the manufacturing district in the economy

of the commercial city.

In the West End the city's brickyards, and brickmasons, carpen-

ters, cabinetmakers, painters, plasterers, paperhangers, and lumber

dealers were overrepresented in the West End residential area. Large

numbers of shoe- and bootmakers lived there as well, along with a

smaller number of engineers, merchants, physicians, and lawyers.

Twelve percent of the city's population, including 14,328 whites and

96 blacks, lived in the West End in 1850.48

The Over-the-Rhine district, located in the northern section of the

city, was the only residential area in Cincinnati in which frame dwell-

ings outnumbered brick structures. Cincinnati biographer Charles

 

 

44. Cist, Cincinnati in 1851, 44; U.S. Manuscript Census for Cincinnati, Rolls 687,

688, 689, Reels 3-6, pp. 165-360, 262-467, 231-453. The central waterfront area was with-

in the city's flood plain, and 40 percent of the dwelling units were constructed of wood.

Most of the brick structures located in the area were commercial structures, and people

most often lived in frame dwellings. Cist, Cincinnati in 1851, 21-73; Martin, Map of

Cincinnati for Insurance Companies.

45. Cist, Cincinnati in 1851, 44, U.S. Manuscript Census for Cincinnati, Rolls 687-

689, Reels 3, 6, pp. 1-165, 361-543, 799-1053.

46. U.S. Manuscript Census for Cincinnati, Roll 690, Reel 6, pp. 799-1053.

47. Wade, The Urban Frontier, 117-24; Richard Wade, "The Negro in Cincinnati,

1800-1830," Journal of Negro History, 39 (January, 1954), 43-57.

48. U.S. Manuscript Census for Cincinnati, Roll 690, Reel 6, pp. 1-798; Cist, Cincin-

nati in 1851, 44.

• 17
 

22                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

Cist indicates that at mid-century a disproportionate number of the

Queen City's 5,360 homeowners lived in the Over-the-Rhine dis-

trict.⁴⁹ About 57 percent of the residents of the area were Germans, a

large proportion of whom were skilled artisans, small shopkeepers,

printers and book merchants, tailors, hatters, shoe- and bootmak-

ers, and dry goods wholesalers. In 1850, Over-the-Rhine had 32,368

residents, or 28 percent of the city's total population, and was the sec-

ond most populous residential area in the city. Blacks comprised only

0.7 percent of Over-the-Rhine's population.⁵⁰

 

 

TABLE 2

Blacks and the Residential

Land-Use Structure in

Antebellum Cincinnati

 

% Total               % Total

N       Black                        Section

Section          Ward                               Blacks Population Population

Central Waterfront              4, 6                           964             30.8                 4.7

East End                               9, 1, 3                       1,351          42.6                 5.4

West End                             8                                 96             3.0                   0.7

Central Core                         2, 5, 7                       526             16.8                 2.3

Over-the-Rhine                   10, 11, 12                 235             1.4                   0.7

Total                                                              3,172

 

Source: Charles Cist, Cincinnati in 1851. Cincinnati: W. H. Moore

and Co., p. 44.

 

The central core residential area embraced the financial and retail

sections of the CBD, and the land area north of Sixth Street to the

Miami-Erie Canal. This location gave the residents easy access to the

retail shops, entertainment centers, educational institutions, and

churches, and also served to isolate the residents from the danger

of flooding, as well as the noise and pollution, of the waterfront-

industrial district.⁵¹ The central core was home to 19 percent of

 

 

49. Ibid., 71-73.

50. U.S. Manuscript Census for Cincinnati, Roll 691, Reel 7, pp. 1-389; Cist, Cincin-

nati in 1851, 44.

51. See Martin, Map of Cincinnatifor Insurance Companies; Pullen, Map of Business

Portion of Cincinnati.

• 18
 

On Slavery's Fringe                                         23

 

Cincinnati's population, and was a prestigious residential area where

clothing merchants, produce dealers, drygoods wholesalers, bank-

ers, newspaper publishers, real estate brokers, physicians, and simi-

lar occupational types were overrepresented. Five hundred twenty-

six of the area's 22,841 residents were black.⁵² The affluence of the

central core residential area was reflected in the high proportion (80

percent) of brick structures, in the low proportion of residents (36 per-

cent) who were foreign-born,⁵³ and in the soaring property values in

the area in the commercial era. Half of a lot at Front and Main, for

example, which had been sold in 1796 for $4, was appraised at

$50,000-$1,000 per fronting-foot-in 1859.⁵⁴ The land-rent topogra-

phy of the commercial city thus formed the base of a vertical resi-

dential mosaic, with the various overlapping layers of the residential

structure, reflecting the city's occupational and ethnic hierarchy, and

also overlaying the basic features of the city's distinctive topography.

 

Blacks and the City-Building Process

As a thriving commercial center bordering the slave South, Cincin-

nati became an ideal-if somewhat ironic-location for the establish-

ment of a free black community. Its proximity to the South made the

city relatively easy to reach, and its booming economy meant jobs

and opportunities for emancipated, manumitted, hired-out, and fugi-

tive slaves. Slaves seeking escape from bondage crossed the Ohio

River at many points, but primarily at or near Cincinnati because of

the city's large numbers of blacks and Abolitionists from whom they

could secure help.⁵⁵ To both the freedman and the fugitive from

slavery Cincinnati offered both a haven from slavery and an environ-

ment within which African-Americans could build an independent

community. By mid-century 3,172 African-Americans lived in Cincin-

nati, comprising 2.7 percent of the population.⁵⁶

 

Occupation, Class and the Residential Land-Use Structure

Scholars are generally agreed that socioeconomic status and occu-

pation were primary determinants of where people lived within the

 

 

52. Cist, Cincinnati in 1851, 44; U.S. Manuscript Census for Cincinnati, Roll 687,

Reel 3, pp. 165-360.

53. Cist, Cincinnati in 1851, 44, 70-73.

54. Cist, Cincinnati in 1859 (Cincinnati, 1860), 51; Sjoberg, The Preindustrial City,

108-44.

55. Hickok, The Negro in Ohio: 1802-1870, 158-70.

56. Cist, Cincinnati in 1851, 44.

• 19
 

24                                                        OHIO HISTORY

 

antebellum city. Not all groups, however, had equal access to the

urban labor market. Studies have indicated that native whites gener-

ally held the best jobs within the urban occupation structure, fol-

lowed by the Germans and the Irish.⁵⁷ Likewise, the location of

these groups within the residential land-use structure tended to re-

flect their socioeconomic status.⁵⁸ Therefore, knowledge of the rela-

tionship between African-Americans and the antebellum urban oc-

cupational structure is essential to understanding how blacks were

spatially incorporated into Cincinnati's commercial city.

 

The Black Occupational Structure: Jobs and Socioeconomic

Status

 

Although commercial Cincinnati was a prosperous boom town, ra-

cism and the color line limited opportunity for African-Americans and

confined most black workers to the lowest-paying jobs at the base of

the city's economic structure.⁵⁹ Almost all blacks who migrated to

Cincinnati in the commercial era were former slaves, and most of

these migrants probably had marketable skills, since slaves without

such skills or special talents were rarely manumitted and were rarely

successful in attempts to escape from bondage.⁶⁰ Despite their skills

and their ambition and willingness to work, blacks were restricted to

unskilled jobs by racially prejudiced employers, by the refusal of

white workers generally to work alongside of blacks, and by the law

which made it a penal offense to hire any black who could not pro-

duce a certificate of freedom. More than 80 percent of the black

workforce, therefore, labored as unskilled workers, as roustabouts

on the Cincinnati docks, as stewards on the steamboats, and as

 

57. Laurence Glasco, "Ethnicity and occupation in the Mid-Nineteenth Century:

Irish, Germans, and Native-born Whites in Buffalo, New York," in Richard L. Ehr-

lich, Immigrants in Industrial America, 1850-1920 (Charlottesville), 151-75.

58. Conzen, "Patterns of Residence in Early Milwaukee," 182.

59. The data in this section are taken from data pertaining to 915 blacks, derived

from the 1850 manuscript census of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, compiled by

Linda Ellwein and Patricia Riley. Prior to the 1860 census, data on women were not

systematically taken, and the census reports primarily reflect the occupational status of

black males. The Cincinnati Urban Studies Project has developed an occupational file,

derived from the 1850 manuscript census, which lists the job categories for blacks,

mulattoes, and whites who lived next door to blacks, for heads of household. See

Patricia Riley, "The Negro in Cincinnati, 1835-1850" (unpubl. M.A. thesis, University

of Cincinnati, 1964), 45-55; and Black Workers' Occupational File, Wards 1-12, 1850,

Cincinnati Urban Studies Project.

60. Theodore Hershberg, "Free Blacks in Antebellum Philadelphia: A Study of

Ex-slaves, Freeborn, and Socioeconomic Decline," in Theodore Hershberg (ed.),

Philadelphia, 376-86.

• 20
 

On Slavery's Fringe                                              25

 

washerwomen, domestics, servants, and cooks in the homes of white

elites and in hotels and boarding houses. Against difficult odds,

however, about 8 percent of the city's black workers did manage to

practice the skills that they had learned in slavery, and most of these

were employed as blacksmiths, coopers, bricklayers, and carpen-

ters.⁶¹

Skilled and unskilled black workers were also generally excluded

from the city's rapidly expanding industrial base. Even though 73

percent of the black population lived in the waterfront-industrial dis-

trict, and many blacks even lived next door to factories, only 0.76

percent of the black workforce found employment in the manufactur-

ing sector.⁶²

A small black middle class began to emerge during the commercial

period, with about 6 percent of Cincinnati's black workforce em-

ployed as clerks, shopkeepers, peddlers, traders, barbers, and small

businessmen. The black community also produced a small cadre of

black professionals, primarily nurses, physicians, teachers, and law-

yers, although many of these early professionals appear not to have

had any formal schooling or training. About 0.76 percent of the city's

black workforce fell into this professional category.⁶³ Within this

constricted range of opportunities, a handful of African-Americans

did build successful businesses, and a few even became independ-

ently wealthy. Members of this small elite of highly successful busi-

nessmen became influential members of Cincinnati's black communi-

ty and a driving force in its development process.⁶⁴ Yet, despite the

success of some blacks, the racist nature of the urban occupational

structure and the subordinate role of blacks in the Cincinnati econo-

my caused about 75 percent of the black population to live in the least

desirable residential areas of the city.

 

Blacks and the Residential Land-Use Structure

 

The vast majority of blacks, because of their low incomes and un-

stable jobs, had to live in the East End and the Central Waterfront

 

 

 

61. Ellwein, "The Negro in Cincinnati," 45-55; Riley, "The Negro in Cincinnati,

1835-1850," 53-76; Black Workers Occupational File.

62. Black Workers Occupation File. Theodore Hershberg and Robert Dockhorn,

"Occupational Classification," in Historical Methods Newsletter, A Special Issue: The

Philadelphia Social History Project, 9 (March-June, 1976), 49-98.

63. Black Workers Occupational File. Carter G. Woodson, "The Negroes of Cincin-

nati Prior to the Civil War," Journal of Negro History, 1 (January, 1916), 1-22.

64. Vicky Dula, "The Wolf and the Pack: Black Residence and Social Organization

• 21
 

26                                                        OHIO HISTORY

 

districts. However, socioeconomic status was not the only factor de-

termining the residential location of African-Americans. Racial hostil-

ity in antebellum Cincinnati reinforced the "congregational" instinct

of blacks, and they clustered together regardless of socioeconomic

status. Further, occupation-as was the case with other groups-also

determined where some blacks lived in the antebellum city. Some

job categories such as cooks, barbers, and servants required some

blacks to live in certain parts of the walking city.

Although white prejudice, discrimination, and hostility infiltrated

nearly every other aspect of life, the data indicate that residential

segregation by race did not exist in commercial Cincinnati. Blacks

did not live in homogeneous, racially segregated neighborhoods,

but in many small clusters lodged within white-dominated residen-

tial areas. The limited amount of space available for residential devel-

opment, the existence of a renter-dominated housing market, and

real estate values based on a heterogeneous land-use structure com-

bined to preclude the development of housing segregated on the ba-

sis of race.⁶⁵

 

Black Residential Clusters

 

Blacks lived in about 98 residential clusters which typically con-

sisted of from two to five two-parent, male-headed families who lived

in single or multiple-family dwelling units. In the heavily populated

black sections of the city, there were occasionally clusters which

consisted of as many as ten to fifteen families. Only rarely did blacks

live in the same dwelling unit with a white family; and most blacks ei-

ther shared a dwelling unit with another black, lived next door to

 

 

in Antebellum Cincinnati" (unpubl. M.A. thesis, The Ohio State University, 1984).

65. To determine how blacks were spatially incorporated in the commercial city, the

residential locations of 964 black male heads-of-households were determined, using

the city directories (1834-37 and 1840-43) and the 1850 manuscript census, and the lo-

cations were then plotted on the 1850 project basemap, so that the residential locations

could be studied in relation to the city's land-use structure. Because street addresses

were not recorded until the 1880 census, a two-step procedure for determining black

residential locations was developed. In the first step, the names of blacks and of their

white neighbors were obtained from the manuscript census; in the second step, these

individuals were looked up in the city directories, their residential address deter-

mined, and the household location mapped on the 1850 basemap. As the data were

plotted, a clustering pattern emerged, showing that blacks were organized into 98 resi-

dential clusters. The residential locations, along with other demographic data, were

also recorded in a Residential Directory (hereafter cited as Residential Directory). U.S.

Census, Instructions to Enumerators, 1850: Census Bill, (U.S. House of Representa-

tives, 1850), 5-27.

• 22
 

On Slavery's Fringe                                       27

blacks, or lived only a few doors away from other black house- holds.66 An example of a typical cluster can be found in Fig. 5. The black residential clusters were extremely diverse, and were formed without reference to social class, nativity, stage in the life cy- cle, shade of color, or family and household structure. Thus, each black residential cluster was a heterogeneous social unit that united African-Americans exclusively on the basis of race.67 A similar residential pattern was found to exist among Black Cincin- nati's boarding house and hotel population, which consisted primar- ily of single men. Thirty-three clusters of about two or three people each were distributed throughout the boarding house and hotel   66. Residential Directory. 67. Dula, "The Wolf and the Pack," 61-90.

• 23
 

28                                                     OHIO HISTORY

 

district. Although there were a few all-black boarding houses sand-

wiched in among other dwelling units and other sorts of structures, it

was not uncommon for blacks and whites to live within the same

boarding house or hotel.⁶⁸

Seventy-five percent of the black residential clusters were located

in the Central Waterfront and East End districts, and the remaining

25 percent were distributed throughout the rest of the city. Regard-

less of their location, however, each black residential cluster was

sandwiched in among white residences, and occupation and nativity

seem to have been the primary factors that determined which white

Cincinnatians lived next door to blacks.⁶⁹

 

Black Cluster Concentrations

 

Most of the black residential clusters were found to be aggregated

into discrete cluster concentrations in various areas of the city. After

all the black household locations were plotted on the basemap, it

was possible to delimit the boundaries of three distinct, primary

cluster concentrations. These primary cluster concentrations were

also found to correspond generally to three antebellum black sections

known colloquially as Bucktown, Little Africa, and Little Bucktown.

Although the precise boundaries of the areas to which these con-

temporary appellations referred are not known, these names were

adopted and used in this study to refer to the three primary black

residential cluster concentrations in commercial Cincinnati. It should

be noted that these black social areas were not areas of black spatial

dominance, but were names given to the white-dominated areas

where the largest concentrations of black residential clusters were

found⁷⁰ (see Figure 6).

The spatial structure of these black social areas thus differed sig-

nificantly from the twentieth-century black urban ghetto. During the

antebellum period, residential land-use was heterogeneous, and the

 

 

68. The boarding house section was located along the waterfront, in the area adja-

cent to the public landing. The section represented the lower portion of the East End

residential area.

69. "Whites who lived next door to blacks" represents another data subset that

was derived from the 1850 census. Demographic data were recorded for 11,203 white

male heads-of-households who lived next door to blacks. This file will hereafter be

cited as the White Neighbors File.

70. The notion of black social areas is based on concepts of social space developed

by geographers. A full elaboration of this theory is found in Brian J. Berry and Frank

E. Horton (eds.), Geographic Perspectives on Urban Systems (Englewood Cliffs, 1970),

306-439; Conzen, "Patterns of Residence in Early Milwaukee," 145-83.

• 24
 

On Slavery's Fringe                                     29

limited spatial margin was shared by different groups. Yet, within these geographically compact residential areas, each ethnic and ra- cial group lived together in clusters, and each ethnic and racial group -within these common residential areas-was held together by a web-like mesh of social networks and organizations.71 Little Africa was situated along the central waterfront district, and was bounded by Third Street and the Ohio River, and John and Main Streets. Five hundred sixty-three blacks lived in Little Africa in 1850. Bucktown was the largest of the three black social areas; it was located in the heart of the East End factory district, and was   71. This residential pattern can be observed by making a "visual" analysis of the manuscript census. The census takers were very systematic in their efforts to record in- formation on the residents of the city. These enumerators were told to list the families and households they visited in order of visitation. Although not directly stated in the Instructions to the Enumerators, the census takers probably moved up one side of the street, and down another. Thus, listing of families and households also provides a snapshot of the internal structure of the city's residential areas, revealing the residen- tial pattern of the city's social areas. Daniel Ley, A Social Geography of the City (New York, 1983). Gerald D. Suttles, in The Social Order of the Slum: Ethnicity and Territory in the Inner City (Chicago, 1968), referred to the ecological structure of multinational residential areas as ordered segmentation. Walter S. Glazer, Cincinnati in 1840: A Com- munity Profile (Ann Arbor, 1968), 13-38.

• 25
 

30                                                     OHIO HISTORY

 

bounded by Sycamore and the Miami-Erie Canal, and South Canal

Street and the Ohio River. At mid-century, 1,351 blacks lived in

Bucktown. Little Bucktown-also sometimes called "the swamp"-

was located along the river bottom in the West End, and was bound-

ed by John Street and the Mill Creek, and Sixth Street and the Ohio

River. Little Bucktown was the home of 401 African-Americans.⁷²

In order to examine living conditions in these three black social

areas, the types and characteristics of the dwelling units occupied by

blacks, as well as the spatial relationship between black dwelling

units and other types of structures were analyzed. Data were derived

primarily from an 1855 Martin Fire Insurance Map of Cincinnati.⁷³

The evidence suggests that blacks were more likely than whites to

live next door to factories, and to reside in wooden structures and

tenements: i.e., African-Americans occupied the worst land and

housing in the East End factory district and along the river bottom.

Because urban land and housing were scarce commodities, and be-

cause Cincinnati's blacks were systematically excluded from manu-

facturing and overwhelmingly confined to low-paying, unskilled posi-

tions at the bottom of the city's tertiary sector, the low economic

status of blacks was inevitably reflected in their inability to compete

with other groups for good housing or desirable residential loca-

tions.

 

Blacks Who Lived Outside the Primary Black Residential

Structure

 

In 1850, at the close of the second stage of Cincinnati's commercial

era, 894 blacks, representing 27 percent of the city's African-American

population, lived outside the main black residential structure.⁷⁴ Five

hundred sixty-three blacks lived in the central core residential area,

96 lived in the West End, and 235 lived in Over-the-Rhine.⁷⁵ Forty-

nine percent of the blacks who lived outside the primary black resi-

 

 

72. Cist, Cincinnati in 1851, 44; Wards 9, 1, 3, 4, and 6, Residential Directory.

73. Martin, Map of Cincinnati for Insurance Companies. Additional data on housing

were obtained from the 1850 manuscript census, which listed dwelling units in order of

visitation and recorded the number of families and individuals residing in each dwell-

ing unit. By examining this data, it is possible to determine the extent of crowding as

well as the proportion of blacks, and their white neighbors, who lived in single and

multi-dwelling units.

74. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Seventh Census: Population; Cist, Cincinnati in 1851,

44. During this period, a black residential cluster began to form in Walnut Hills, in the

area near Lane Seminary. Cist, Cincinnati in 1851, 44.

75. U.S. Bureau of Census, Seventh Census: Population; Cist, Cincinnati in 1851, 44.

• 26
 

On Slavery's Fringe                                               31

 

dential structure were live-in servants in white households, and an-

other 25 percent were cooks and barbers;⁷⁶ 78.2 percent of the live-in

servants lived in the homes of native whites,⁷⁷ with Southern whites

being overrepresented. Although Southern whites comprised 16 per-

cent of the native white population and 8 percent of the total white

population of the city, 39 percent of white households with black

live-in servants were Southern white households. Foreign-born

whites comprised 44.3 percent of the population, but only 22 percent

of the households with black live-in servants were those of immi-

grants, and only one Irish household had a black live-in servant.⁷⁸

Southern whites were underrepresented among whites who lived

next door to blacks.⁷⁹

 

Whites Who Lived Next Door to Blacks

 

In the central waterfront and East End districts, foreign-born

whites comprised only 46.1 percent of the population, and yet they

comprised 76.3 percent of the whites who lived next door to blacks.

Irish immigrants were the most likely to have black neighbors, and

the next most likely were the Germans. Most whites living next door

to blacks were skilled or unskilled wage-earners, including laborers,

shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, coopers, draymen, blacksmiths, and

clerks, with laborers being the predominant occupational type. This

suggests that, within this low-income residential district, blacks gen-

erally lived next door to the very poorest of the area's white resi-

dents.⁸⁰

The significance of occupation and nativity in determining who

lived next door to blacks is also evident outside the central water-

front and East End districts. In the prosperous, elite central core resi-

dential area, black live-in servants, barbers, cooks, and other skilled

service workers lived next door to elite native white and German

physicians, lawyers, merchants, and clerks.⁸¹ In both the West End

 

 

 

76. See wards 2, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 12 in U.S. Manuscript Census for Cincinnati. See

also the same wards in the Residential Directory. This finding suggests that occupation

was the primary determinant of the residential location of these black workers.

77. See wards 2, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 12 in the White Neighbors File.

78. As previously mentioned, this family may not have been ethnically Irish.

79. U.S. Bureau of Census, Seventh Census: Population; Cist, Cincinnati in 1851, 44:

Barnhart, "Sources of Southern Migration into the Old Northwest," 28-42; Barnhart,

"The Southern Influence in Ohio," 28-42; White Neighbors File.

80. See White Neighbors File, wards 4, 1, 3, 9.

81. Ibid., wards 2, 5, 7.

• 27
 

32                                               OHIO HISTORY

 

and Over-the-Rhine, most white neighbors of blacks were wage-

earners, including carpenters, draymen, plasterers, bricklayers, tail-

ors, and clerks.⁸² Very few Irish laborers lived next to blacks in

these two newer residential sections; and no blacks lived in the pre-

dominantly working-class Irish settlement.

 

Race Relations and the Heterogeneous Residential Land-Use

Structure

 

Despite the pervasive social segregation, the institutional apart-

heid, the discrimination in employment, and the other virulent ex-

pressions of racism, the patterns of residential segregation by race

characteristic of the modern era did not emerge in commercial Cin-

cinnati. Instead, Cincinnati's black freedmen built their neighbor-

hoods in white-dominated residential areas, primarily in the water-

front and East End districts, and lived side by side with poor and

working-class whites throughout the commercial era. In the midst of

the factories, warehouses, commercial buildings, railroad structures,

shipyards, and the dwelling units of poor and working-class whites,

in the midst of the flooding, the pollution, and the "hustle and

bustle" of the waterfront-industrial district, Cincinnati's African-

American community formed an independent, vibrant, and well-

organized community. By mid-century, Black Cincinnati, with its

small but flourishing middle class, had established five churches,

six schools, including the famous Gilmore High School, an orphan-

age, a cemetery, several lodges, and various benevolent, temperance,

and mutual aid societies. Strategically located on slavery's fringe,

Black Cincinnati also played a crucial role in helping thousands of

blacks escape from bondage.⁸³

Considering the various other forms of racial segregation and the

intensity of white animosity in commercial Cincinnati, it is of signal im-

portance that in this period there are no recorded incidents of racial

violence precipitated by antagonism over the living place. The re-

ported acts of racial violence during this period were all associated

with other economic issues, and the white participants in these inci-

dents do not even appear to have been residents of the central water-

front or East End districts, where most blacks lived.⁸⁴ The data fur-

 

 

82. Ibid., wards 8, 10, 11, 12.

83. Woodson, "The Negroes of Cincinnati Prior to the Civil War," 1-22.

84. Western Star (Lebanon, Ohio), August 19, 1829; Wade, "The Negro in Cincinna-

ti, 1802-1841" (unpubl. M.A. thesis, Miami University, 1968); and Leonard Harding,

• 28
 

On Slavery's Fringe                                         33

 

ther suggest that the Irish-born and other whites who participated

in commercial Cincinnati's race riots were part of the rough riverboat

population, and that the violence associated with the riots was not

unusual for cities that were located on the frontier.⁸⁵ The apparent

lack of violent racially-focused conflict between black and white

neighbors is all the more impressive in light of the fact that these two

groups competed with each other for jobs at the base of the city's

occupational structure.

As urban expansion, population growth, and the conversion of ru-

ral land to urban uses proceeded in tandem, more than four square

miles were added to the city's boundaries by 1850. The opening of

the new residential lands led to the first hints of racial residential

segregation in Cincinnati, as whites took advantage of their easier ac-

cess to the new settlements. The relatively few blacks who moved

into the new residential areas settled in the flood plain in the nascent

West End industrial district, in the midst of that area's cheapest

housing; whereas whites mostly settled on the West End's more de-

sirable upper bank.⁸⁶

 

Conclusion

 

The results of this study suggest that the city building process had

a significant impact on the development of Black Cincinnati. The

city's emerging land-use structure and pattern of building develop-

ment combined with the racist occupational structure and a com-

modity conception of housing to determine where black people lived

in the antebellum city, who their neighbors were, and the type of

problems they encountered while adjusting to the urban environ-

ment. Finally, although the city was hostile, it was not destructive.

Blacks adjusted to Cincinnati, and went on to build one of the most

powerful, and highly organized, black communities in the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The Cincinnati Riots of 1862," Bulletin of the Cincinnati Historical Society, 25 (Sum-

mer, 1967), 229-39.

85. Wade, The Urban Frontier, 87-94.

86. Martin, Map of Cincinnati for Insurance Companies; U.S. Bureau of Census, Sev-

enth Census: Population, 810-13.

• 29