make bullet pionts for the main piont of the text
In June 1896, W.E.B. Du Bois, then twenty-eight years old and married three weeks, received a telegram from Charles C. Harrison, acting provost of the University of Pennsylvania: "Are ready to appoint you for one year at nine hundred dollars maximum payable monthly from date of service. If you wish to make an appointment, I will definitely write." Harrison had piqued the interest of one of nineteenth-century America's most promising young intellectuals. Du Bois had risen rapidly from humble origins in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Educated at Fisk and in Berlin, he became the first African American to be awarded a doctorate by Harvard. Eager to escape his first job at parochial Wilberforce University in Ohio, where he had been teaching classics for two years, Du Bois moved with his wife Nina into an apartment in the Philadelphia Settlement at Seventh and Lombard Streets, near the heart of one of the city's largest African American neighborhoods.
Arriving in Philadelphia in August of 1896, the Du Boises found themselves in a city that was the antithesis of Wilberforce. Late nineteenth- century Philadelphia was an industrial giant, the second largest city in the United States. Traveling from the train station to the Philadelphia Settlement House, Du Bois undoubtedly sensed the dynamism, the promise, and the deep-rooted problems of a city undergoing wrenching economic changes. For most of the nineteenth century, Philadelphia had been aeye vennad Lancaster County Papath
premier shipging and trading offered the Delaware River, brated whey headed trend for the thipe filed with corn, cloth, and the The region's transf down the cent rity, filled Charleston, and Savannah. The then by the sea Pluladelphia had also became the heart of the nation's burge rated industry, Rail lines cxannected Philadelphia to Pensylvania's ch reine of anthracite coal, only ninety miles to the northwest. And they connected the city to the steel and iron manufacturers of Pittsburgh and wheeling, several hundred miles to the west. As the headquarters of the Wherle Pennsylvania Railroad empire, Philadelphia nurtured a business live whose influence spread across the nation.
By the 1970s Philadelphia had achieved prominence as a center of industrial innovation and specialization. A national center of textile and clothing manufacturing, the city was home to one of the country's largest agglomerations of lace makers, carpet weavers, and fabric manufacturers. But one industry predominated. The city housed a remarkably diverse range of manufacturers, including machine tool and hardware production, puldishing, and tanning. Heavier industries also employed thousands of Philadelphians: steelmaking and forging, shipbuilding, and railroad engine assembly. Countless other specialty firms clustered in the city:
- W.E.B. Du Bois was offered a one-year appointment at the University of Pennsylvania in 1896
- Du Bois was a promising young intellectual who had already achieved academic success
- Du Bois moved to Philadelphia with his wife and was surrounded by a dynamic city undergoing economic changes
- Philadelphia was a key industrial city with a focus on shipping, trading, and manufacturing
- Philadelphia was a center of industrial innovation and specialization, with a diverse range of manufacturers.
more
- Philadelphia was the second largest city in the United States in the late 19th century
- The city was a hub for shipping, trading, and manufacturing, with close connections to coal, steel, and iron industries
- Philadelphia was a center of industrial innovation, with a focus on textile and clothing manufacturing
- Du Bois arrived in Philadelphia at a time of economic growth and transformation in the city in 1896
When he wrote The Philadelphia Negro Du Bois had grounds for optimism as Philadelphia rebounded from the depression of 1893-96. He marveled at the rapid growth the city had enjoyed in the decades following the Civil War, writing that "new methods of conducting business and industry are now rife.... Manufacturing of all kinds has increased by leaps and bounds in the city, and to-day employs three times as many men as in 1860, paying three hundred millions annually in wages; hacks and expressmen have turned into vast inter-urban businesses: restaurants have become palatial hotels-the whole face of business is being gradually transformed. The industrial city of the 1890s was, for Du Bois and many Americans, a strange and exciting world, one of extraordinary, if unfulfilled, promise.
As Du Bois entered the city for the first time, passing from the train depot through Center City toward the Philadelphia Settlement, he saw before him the entire industrial metropolis in microcosm. The ostentation of179
The Contest of The Philadelphia Negra
the city's new wealth was visible in the elaborate facade of the nearly finished Second Empire-style City Hall. Along Market Street stretched the cast-iron facades of the city's grand department stores, Lit Brothers and Wanamaker's. Around Rittenhouse Square and along Spruce and Locust Streets stood elaborate four-story Italianate row houses and posh clubs. The stately Georgian-revival mansions of Delancey Place and Pine Street housed many bankers, executives, entrepreneurs, and lawyers who had prospered from the city's economic boom. To the west, near the University of Pennsylvania, a new class of corporate managers who sought the area's quasi-suburban amenities and could afford the short trolley ride to the offices of Center City Imilt substantial Queen Anne homes. A walk through the innumerable blue- collar neighborhoods that ringed Center City revealed neat blocks of small, impeccably maintained "Philadelphia-style" row houses that gave the city the highest rate of single-family homeownership of the nation's ten largest cities.
- Du Bois observed Philadelphia's rebound from the depression of 1893-96 and noted the rapid growth and transformation of the city in the decades following the Civil War
- He described the industrial city of the 1890s as a strange and exciting world, with extraordinary promise
- Du Bois marveled at the visible signs of new wealth in Philadelphia, such as the elaborate City Hall, grand department stores, Italianate row houses, and posh clubs
- The city's economic boom led to the prosperity of bankers, executives, entrepreneurs, and lawyers, as well as the emergence of a new class of corporate managers seeking suburban amenities
- Philadelphia was known for its high rate of single-family homeownership and well-maintained row houses in blue-collar neighborhoods surrounding Center City