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Survival Strategies Of Black Kalamazooans: Migration, Kinship Networks And Work In A Midwestern Village, 1860-1900, Carson Jeanne Leftwich

Masters Theses

An investigation of the lives of African Americans in a small Midwestern village in the second half of the nineteenth century finds that paradigms vary significantly from that of urban Northern or rural Southern black lives. Three survival strategies are explored: work, migration, and kinship networks. Residential and home ownership patterns are explored, as is the structure of the village, neighborhood, and home. The work of men and women, education, state of birth and subsequent migrations, household structure, and kin relationships are analyzed.

The study uses only public records: manuscript census records from 1860, 1870, and 1880; Kalamazoo City Directories …