Content provided in partnership with

Black Housing, White Finance: African American Housing And Home Ownership In Evanston, Illinois, Before 1940 - Statistical Data Included

Journal of Social History, Winter, 1999 by Andrew Wiese

<< Page 1 Continued from page 5. Previous | Next

Although large numbers of black Evanstonians succeeded in becoming home owners, they did not do so without a struggle. In response to black migration, white Evanstonians erected a wall of segregation in public and private life, including the market for housing. [23] After 1910, Evanston's white real estate brokers apparently developed a practice of informal racial zoning. In effect, they treated a section of west Evanston as open to African Americans, while excluding them from the rest of town. [24] The result was increased crowding, higher housing prices, and racial segregation for Evanston's African American community.

Most Popular Articles in Reference: The importance of understanding organizational culture; Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students; What factors attract foreign direct investment?; Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...; How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques; More »

Although explicit markers of segregation, such as race restrictive covenants, were uncommon in Evanston, the limits of black Evanston were well understood by blacks and whites alike. [25] Between 1910 and 1940, there was not a single area of African American expansion outside of west Evanston, in spite of black population growth of almost 5,000. To the contrary, public and private actions reduced the number of African American housing units outside these boundaries. [26] By 1940, it was a simple matter to trace the boundaries of black Evanston. To the west and north, the enclave ended at the banks of a broad sanitary canal. To the east, black neighborhoods halted at the tracks of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, with the exception of one small node, which projected eastward on two streets to the tracks of the "El" train. To the south, Church Street formed the recognized boundary. By 1940, 84 percent of African American households in Evanston lived within these limits, and the core of the neighborhood w as 95 percent black. Outside these limits, a few black families lived in a pocket of older homes on the east side (where families had bought before 1900) and in a few scattered houses along the Northwestern Railroad tracks, but by the eve of World War Two, suburban Evanston was nearly as segregated as the city of Chicago. [27]

In spite of these similarities, the housing market that produced segregation in Evanston suggests that there was greater diversity in metropolitan housing markets before 1940 than historians have recognized--even where African Americans were concerned. In his study of Detroit, The Changing Face of Inequality, Olivier Zunz discerned two primary housing markets that shaped different parts of the city at the turn of the century:

One was formal, [and] operated through professionals from their downtown offices. It produced expensive homes for the native white American community, many of them for rent. The other market was informal, highly localized, controlled from within ethnic communities and designed to fit their means. [28]

In addition to Zunz, scholars such as Richard Harris, Matt Sendbuehler, Becky Nicolaides, and Roger Simon have described similar informal markets for blue collar workers in cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and Milwaukee, as well as Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario. Among African American workers, too, scholars suggest that informal markets such as Zunz describes allowed working class families to become home owners in semi-rural suburbs. [29] However, observers of African American housing in suburbs and central cities alike have emphasized the difficulties that African Americans faced in borrowing money from mainstream lending institutions. Banks and other institutions--including the ethnic savings and loan associations that facilitated working class white home ownership--often refused to make home loans in black neighborhoods. Even more, they rejected making loans to black families in white neighborhoods. Black institutions picked up some of the slack, but they were small and often poorly equipped to meet th e urgent demand for home loans within growing black communities. Consequently, African Americans who aspired to own a home were often forced either to build without a mortgage or to borrow money from informal lenders who extorted high rates of interest and hazardous terms. [30]

Black Housing, White Finance: African American Housing And Home Ownership In Evanston, Illinois, Before 1940 - Statistical Data Included

Journal of Social History, Winter, 1999 by Andrew Wiese

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Reference

Most Popular Articles in Reference

Most Popular Publications in Reference