Tacking Between Black and White: Race Relations in Gilded Age Philadelphia

Despite the growing interest in archaeological studies of race there have been no investigations clearly negotiating race and/or racism in Philadelphia during the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. This reality is perplexing, given the prevalence of race and racism in the past and present. Though this article does not explicitly discuss recovered artifacts it does situate scientific racism at the University of Pennsylvania, White violence in response to Black male enfranchisement and the popularity of blackface minstrel shows as everyday practices used to facilitate racial hierarchies and, thus influence identities and relationships. Although these practices lack salient archaeological materiality the purpose of this article is to convey the bombardment of dehumanizing tactics endured by Black Philadelphians as measures to contextualize the unavoidable dynamics of racial and class oriented repression unto the archaeological record.