[African Americana] A Statistical Inquiry Into the Condition of the People of Colour, of the City and Districts of Philadelphia

Philadelphia: Printed by Kite & Walton, 1849. First edition. 8vo. 44 pp. Presumably bound in limp wrappers, now perished, original thread intact; all edges trimmed; library ink stamp at head of title-page, old pencil notations at same, largely erased; ink stamp "Historical Society of Pennsylvania g 1917" in gutter at p. (3). Deaccessioned by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Sabin 62289; Library Company of Philadelphia, Afro-Americana 9764

Scarce first edition of the second census of Philadelphia's Free Black community. Conducted in 1847 by the Society of Friends, and published by them with "the conviction that it presents, so far as it goes, a faithful picture of the condition of our people of colour--a picture which should inspire them with hope and confidence in the future, and encourage their friends to persevere in their efforts to remove the distress and degradation which prevail among a portion of them, most of which can be distinctly traced to the evil influences of slavery." (from the preface). Statistical Inquiry records important information regarding the city's Black population, including occupations, wages, churches, trades, and education.

This is the second (of four) studies on Philadelphia's Free Black population conducted prior to the Civil War. The first was the first-ever census, conducted by Benjamin C. Bacon and Charles Gardner in 1838 on behalf of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, the third, Statistics of the Colored People of Philadelphia (1856), and the fourth study, was an enlarged edition of the third (see lot 1).

W.E.B. Du Bois would notably cite the current study in his important work, The Philadelphia Negro (1899). Scarce.