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).
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.
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.
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).
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.
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,
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.
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 |
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.
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 |
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
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.
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 |
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.
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. |
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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. |
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.
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. |
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.
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.
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,
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.
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).