Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto: Negro New York 1890-1930

By Gilbert Osofsky

Book Overview

A great many books have been written about Harlem, but for social history none has surpassed Gilbert Osofsky's account of how a pleasant, pastoral upper-middle-class suburb of Manhattan turned into an appalling black slum within forty years. Mr. Osofsky sets his chronicle against the background of pre-Harlem black life in New York City and in the context of the radical changes in race relations in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He traces Harlem's change to the largest segregated neighborhood in the nation and then its fall to a slum. Throughout he neatly balances statistics and humanly revealing details. "A careful and important study.... Osofsky at once takes his place alongside James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, and others who have looked at Harlem at close range."-John Hope Franklin. "A pioneering scholarly achievement.... Although the subject engages his compassion, his presentation is rigorously straightforward and unsentimental and therefore all the more valuable as social analysis."-New York Times Book Review

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566631041
• ISBN13: 9781566631044
• Release Date: February 1996
• Publisher: Dee Publisher, Ivan R.
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.73 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Excellent scholarship and research

In this book osofsky managed to present detailed and well documented research regarding the afro-american migration to and settlement of Harlem during the early 20th century. By first laying the groundwork of presenting a parallel examination of Harlem before this period and the black migration to New York he manages to create a fascinating and very readable historical document. The economic forces in play at the time are presented as being equally important to the development of Harlem as the social and political climate of the day. Real Estate speculations and a boom and subsequent bust coincided with the building of mass transit that made the upper reaches of Manhattan more accessable. The book would benefit from the inclusion of some historical photos. However as a pure historical treatise it is extremely informative and readable. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in the history of New York City or Afro- American history. I was traveling down 125th street just yesterday while reading this and the buildings that date from this period held new signifcance for me.

An endearing look at one of society's ills

Osofsky really gets into the subject of ghetto creation. Unlike the European immigrants who ghettoized themselves and then were able to climb up society's ladder, Osofsky argues that this possibility was inaccessible to Harlem's black population, with minor exceptions.. As a student of Chicago's housing issues, this is as true today as it was in the beginning of the last century. As a result of this moving book, I feel like I have lived in the squalor of Harlem's ghettos and slums, and I have never been to NYC.