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at Chapel Hill to study city directories and
census data. 3 Economics doctoral student
Tod Hamilton took the lead in the project
and oversaw data entry and managed the
databases to provide the Wilmington Race
Riot Commission with multiple reports
concerning the data for Wilmington. A
summary of Hamilton’s directory findings
can be found in this chapter and more detail
can be found in the Appendix.
New in- depth, computer- aided
analysis of the 1897 and 1900 city directory
data provided revealing information about
the city’s economic environment for the
black community. Entries for both races in
the residential section of the directory
, including all associated information such as
occupation and addresses for businesses and
residences, were entered into a database. 4
3 The first comprehensive study of occupations using
the city directory was done by Hayumi Higuchi for a
master’s thesis at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill in 1980. Another study of the city
directory data was completed by Sue Cody for a
thesis at the University of North Carolina at
Wilmington in 2000. Further study of city directory
data was performed for this project in 2002, prior to
the joint project with UNC- CH. Cody cited the
considerable drawbacks to using the directory data.
Cody surmised that the directories were incomplete
lists of city residents and were, at best, only a sample
of citizens, skewed by race, gender, geography, and
age.
4 This portion of the study did not take into account
gender or age since those two variables were not
provided by the directories. However, some
occupations traditionally held by women have been
identified, and some marginal conclusions about their
Tabulation of Summary Data from the 1897 and 1900 City Directories
1897 1900
Total Black White Total Black White
Population 7,673 49% 51% 8,124 44% 56%
Occupation
Listed
6,481 3,478 3,003 5,703 2,497 3,206
Of the total population listed in the city directory, a slightly smaller number listed their occupation in their entry. It
is assumed that if no occupation was listed, the individual was not employed. A more detailed study of the
directory data will be made available upon completion of work by Tod Hamilton.
Concern was expressed that the data may
have been skewed along racial or gender
lines by the publishers when the directory
was compiled. However, after review of the
data, it was clear that the directories were
relatively reflective of the city’s racial
diversity both before and after the violence
of 1898.5 Because of this conclusion about
the city directory data, and because the
directories are the only known data sets
containing information about black
employment so soon before and after
November 1898, they were used to draw
some conclusions about the impact of both
the violence and the white supremacy
campaign on the city’s African American
economic outlook. 6
Consolidation of the data into 15
occupational categories reflective of the
peculiar business climate associated with
Wilmington’s port status demonstrates that
the city offered a diverse working
environment for the city’s African
work experiences can be drawn from the directory
data.
5 Both directories were compiled by the same
company. It can be assumed that the data collection
methods that would skew whether or not someone
was entered into the city directory were similar for
both directory years. It is therefore safe to assume
that people from any given occupation or
neighborhood would be equally as likely to be
included or excluded from both directories, making
the directories mutually comparable.
6 The only other available information on occupation
would be from the census, but the 1890 census was
destroyed by fire in Washington, D. C.