We study the residential patterns of blacks and mulattoes in 10 Southern cities in 1880 and 1920. Researchers have documented the salience of social differences among African Americans in this period, partly related to mulattoes’ higher occupational status. Did these differences result in clustering of these two groups in different neighborhoods, and were mulattoes less separated from whites? If so, did the differences diminish in these decades after Reconstruction due a Jim Crow system that did not distinguish between blacks and mulattoes? We use geocoded census microdata for 1880 and 1920 to address these questions. Segregation between whites and both blacks was already high in 1880, especially at a fine spatial scale, and it increased sharply by 1920. In this respect, whites did not distinguish between these two groups. However, blacks and mulattoes were quite segregated from one another in 1880, and even more so by 1920. This pattern did not result from mulattoes’ moderately higher-class position. Hence, as the color line between whites and all non-whites was becoming harder, blacks and mulattoes were separating further from each other. Understanding what led to this pattern remains a key question about racial identities and racialization in the early twentieth century.

我们研究了 1880 年和 1920 年南方 10 个城市黑人和混血儿的居住模式。研究人员记录了这一时期非裔美国人之间社会差异的显着性，部分与混血儿较高的职业地位有关。这些差异是否导致这两个群体聚集在不同的社区，以及黑白混血儿与白人的分离程度是否较低？如果是这样，那么在重建后的几十年里，由于吉姆·克劳制度不区分黑人和黑白混血儿，差异是否会减少？我们使用 1880 年和 1920 年地理编码的人口普查微观数据来解决这些问题。1880 年，白人和黑人之间的隔离已经很严重，尤其是在精细的空间尺度上，到 1920 年，这种隔离急剧增加。在这方面，白人并没有区分这两个群体。然而，1880 年，黑人和混血儿之间存在相当程度的隔离，到 1920 年更是如此。这种模式并不是由于混血儿的中等较高阶级地位造成的。因此，随着白人和所有非白人之间的肤色界限变得越来越清晰，黑人和黑白混血儿之间的距离也越来越远。了解导致这种模式的原因仍然是二十世纪初种族身份和种族化的一个关键问题。