Interzones

Black/White Sex Districts in Chicago and New York in the Early Twentieth Century

Author: Kevin J. Mumford
ISBN: 9780231104937

Interzones is an innovative account of how the color line was drawn--and how it was crossed--in twentieth-century American cities. Kevin Mumford chronicles the role of vice districts in New York and Chicago as crucibles for the shaping of racial categories and racial inequalities.Focusing on Chicago's South Side and Levee districts, and Greenwich Village and Harlem in New York at the height of the Progressive era, Mumford traces the connections between the Great Migration, the commercialization of leisure, and the politics of reform and urban renewal. Interzones is the first book to examine in depth the combined effects on American culture of two major transformations: the migration north of southern blacks and the emergence of a new public consumer culture.Mumford writes an important chapter in Progressive-era history from the perspectives of its most marginalized and dispossessed citizens. Recreating the mixed-race underworlds of brothels and dance halls, and charting the history of

Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publish Date: 1997-01

Subjects: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies, Social Science / Minority Studies, Social Science / Discrimination & Race Relations, Social Science / Gender Studies

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Cross-Cultural Center (Location: Urban Studies & Class (URBN))