Elman Cheryl, Feltey Kathryn, Wittman Barbara, Stevens Corey, Isenberg Molly B
Social Science Research Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
Department of Sociology, The University of Akron, Akron, OH, USA.
Soc Sci Hist. 2025 Jun 3. doi: 10.1017/ssh.2025.15.
Nearly all US Black children born before 1910 were born in the American South. We use a mixed-methods design to examine Black children's survival disadvantage over the twentieth century's turn under the rising regime of Jim Crow. We focus on 1910 Arkansas, taking advantage of within-state heterogeneity in agriculture (plantation vs. subsistence farming), disease environments, and geographic racial concentration (macro-segregation). This one-state focus allows purposive sampling of Works Progress Administration and Behind the Veil oral interviews of Arkansan Black Americans who were born or lived under the state's Jim Crow regime. We also use the 1910 complete-count Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) linked to US Decennial and 1916 Plantation Censuses to examine race-related differences in child mortality rates among ever-married, parous Arkansas women ( = 234,811). Count regression models find the Black-White child mortality gap widest among Arkansas mothers economically tied to plantation vs. subsistence agriculture; exposed to worse health environments; living in tenant farm vs. owned-farm households; and with limited individual resources such as literacy. Oral accounts illustrate how Black children's lives reflected contextual, living standard, psychosocial, and other health risks associated with the racialized policies and practices of the Jim Crow South; they capture otherwise hidden historical processes that linked the era's institutional racism and child mortality.
1910年以前出生的几乎所有美国黑人儿童都出生在美国南部。我们采用混合方法设计，来研究在吉姆·克劳法日益盛行的情况下，20世纪之交黑人儿童的生存劣势。我们聚焦于1910年的阿肯色州，利用该州内部在农业（种植园农业与自给农业）、疾病环境以及地理种族集中程度（宏观隔离）方面的差异。这种聚焦于一个州的研究方式，使得我们能够有目的地抽样Works Progress Administration以及对在该州吉姆·克劳法统治下出生或生活过的阿肯色州美国黑人进行的《面纱之后》口述访谈。我们还使用了与美国十年一度人口普查以及1916年种植园普查相链接的1910年完整计数综合公共使用微观数据系列（IPUMS），来研究阿肯色州曾经结婚且育有子女的女性（= 234,811）中儿童死亡率的种族差异。计数回归模型发现，在经济上与种植园农业而非自给农业相关联、接触更恶劣健康环境、生活在佃农家庭而非自有农场家庭以及识字等个人资源有限的阿肯色州母亲中，黑人与白人儿童的死亡率差距最大。口述记录说明了黑人儿童的生活如何反映了与吉姆·克劳法统治下南方的种族化政策和做法相关的背景、生活水平、心理社会及其他健康风险；它们捕捉到了那些将那个时代的制度性种族主义与儿童死亡率联系起来的、否则就会被隐藏的历史进程。
