The Use of Maps in the Study of the Black Ghetto-Formation Process: Cincinnati, 1802–1910

Spatial Organization and the Residential Experience: Black Cincinnati in 1850

“…Since even ward-level data are highly aggregated, these data cannot accurately reflect the nature of the black residential experience Source: Leonard P. Curry, 1981: 56. in antebellum Cincinnati (Hershberg, 1976: 100). A smaller areal unit of observation 3 must therefore be utilized for a more detailed picture of the black residential pattern and of the spatial organiza- tion of the black community (Hershberg, 1976: 99-104;Zunz, 1981: 20-27;Taylor, 1984). As a first step in analyzing the sub-ward distribution of African-Americans, the street was selected as the areal unit of observation, and the addresses of 2,109 blacks (representing 66% of the black population) were obtained from the 1850 Cincinnati city directory 4 and their residential locations plotted on an 1850 street map of the city (Taylor, 1984).…”

“…A smaller areal unit of observation 3 must therefore be utilized for a more detailed picture of the black residential pattern and of the spatial organiza- tion of the black community (Hershberg, 1976: 99-104;Zunz, 1981: 20-27;Taylor, 1984). As a first step in analyzing the sub-ward distribution of African-Americans, the street was selected as the areal unit of observation, and the addresses of 2,109 blacks (representing 66% of the black population) were obtained from the 1850 Cincinnati city directory 4 and their residential locations plotted on an 1850 street map of the city (Taylor, 1984). This micro-level cartographic analysis revealed that blacks were not evenly distributed within the wards but tended to be concentrated on a few streets within each ward.…”

“…It is interesting to note that these three primary cluster concentrations were found to correspond generally to three antebel-lum districts known colloquially as Bucktown, Little Africa, and Little Bucktown (Lammermeier, 1970). It is of signal importance, however, that these black cluster concentrations were not areas of black spatial dominance (Lammermeier, 1970;Taylor, 1983;Katzman, 1973). Bucktown, Little Africa, and Little Bucktown were actually white-dominated areas, with these colloquial appellations apparently referring to the relatively large numbers of black residents in these sections as compared to the rest of the city 6 (Wade, 1954;Woodson, 1916).…”

“…Black neighborhoods, in the modern sense, did not evolve until the twentieth century (Taylor, 1983). In antebellum Cincinnati, the small residential cluster was the most basic unit of spatial organization in the black community.…”

The Theoretical and Methodological Utility of Space and Spatial Statistics for Historical Studies: The Nazi Party in Geographic Context

“…S Methods has published a number of articles illustrating the role of spatial structures in mediating human behavior (Taylor 1984;Hochberg and Miller 1992;Artnouni and Komlos 1996). However, those researchers do not theorize how historical actions created and maintained spatial structures in the first place.…”