The Philadelphia Negro; A Social Study. Together with a special report on domestic service by Isabel Eaton by W.E.B. Du Bois

Philadelphia: Published for the University 1899. First edition. Quarto, 520, (viii)pp. Diagrams, two folding charts. Publisher's green cloth with gilt-lettered black leather spine label showing with loss of word "Study". Rear hinge expertly strengthened; five terminal leaves with small paper losses in gutters; endpapers and some pages throughout lightly foxed or spotted. Chapter XII with several examples of old ink or pencil commentary or marginalia. A book found often found well-worn, this is a very good copy. First edition of Du Bois' landmark study in sociology, based upon his work with African Americans in the Seventh Ward, Philadelphia where he and his wife lived. Blockson 101: "As an assistant instructor in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, Du Bois published his pioneering sociological investigation The Philadelphia Negro [...] Distinctively, The Philadelphia Negro focuses on all aspects of Black life, migration, church, conjugal and family, health, education, crime, population statistics, social environment, alcoholism and interracial relations.The carefully-investigated volume is probably the most comprehensive landmark sociological inquiry ever written by an American sociologist." This copy with ownership stamp of Ralph Elwood Brock (1883-1959) of Mount Alto, Pennsylvania, America's first African American forester. An historical marker was erected in 2003 by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.  Also seen, the autograph of John C. Brock, a presumed relative. Blockson 101, #48. Work p468. See also Wolf, Quarter of a Millennium... LCP, #201.