Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T22:46:42.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Insuring Inequality: The Role of the Federal Housing Administration in the Urban Ghettoization of African Americans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

John Kimble
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A reexamination of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) documents reveals that the agency played a more direct role in the ghettoization of African Americans than previous scholarship has established. The FHA went far beyond merely approving of racial discrimination, and exploring the extent to which it did so is crucial to understanding the origins of urban racial inequality in America. Agency publications, many of them largely passed over by historians, called unequivocally for the containment of African Americans in the older residential neighborhoods where they were most likely to settle after migrating to the city. The agency then disguised its leadership in advancing a national segregationist agenda by deflecting blame onto the private market for policies that it had standardized and mandated. For nearly a decade after the Supreme Court invalidated one of its core racial programs, the FHA resisted providing greater opportunities for African Americans in the housing market.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , Spring 2007 , pp. 399 - 434
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2007 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

“RG” refers to the Record Group classification at the National Archives and Records Administration II in College Park, MD. RG 31 houses records of the Federal Housing Administration; RG 195 houses records of the Home Loan Bank Board; and RG 287 houses publications of the U.S. Government.Google Scholar
Abrams, Charles. 1949. The Segregation Threat in Housing. Commentary, 7 (2): 122–31.Google Scholar
Canaday, Ward. 1934. Proceedings of the National Conference of the American Bankers Association Liaison Officers to Consider Methods of Operation and Interpretation of the Modernization of Credit Plan. August 14, Washington, DC [RG 287].Google Scholar
Clark, Tom, and Perlman, Philip. 1975. Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae. In Landmark Briefs and Arguments of the Supreme Court of the United States: Constitutional Law, vol. 46, ed. Kurland, Philip and Casper, Gerhard. Arlington, VA: University Publications of America. (Originally submitted to the Supreme Court in December 1947.)Google Scholar
Cutler, David, Glaeser, Edward, and Vigdor, Jacob. 1999. Segregation Data, 1890 to 2000. http://trinity.aas.duke.edu/~jvigdor/segregation/allseg.txt (accessed March 20, 2002; for more information, and for disaggregated decadal data, see http://trinity.aas.duke.edu/~jvigdor/segregation).Google Scholar
Danielson, Michael. 1976. The Politics of Exclusion. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1934a. Community Campaign: How Your City Can Get the Greatest Benefit from the National Housing Act, A Suggested Plan for Organizing Your Local Campaign Under the BETTER HOUSING PROGRAM. Washington, DC: USGPO [RG 287].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1934b. Community Planning, In Relation to the Modernization Phase of the National Housing Act, Suggestions to Building and Planning Officials, City Planning and Housing Commissions & Associations, Architects, etc., interested in the Better Housing Program. Washington, DC: USGPO [RG 287].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1934c. Dwelling Survey Instructions to Enumerators. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office [RG 287].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1934d. First Annual Report. Washington, DC: USGPO [RG 287].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1934e. Report of Valuator, Form No. 2015. Washington, DC: FHA [RG 31].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1936a. Untitled document, identified as 14719 (April). Washington, DC: USGPO [RG 287].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1936b. Untitled document, identified as 14720 (April). Washington, DC: USGPO [RG 287].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1937. Real Estate Property Inventory Maps. [RG 31, Cartographics Division “FHA City Maps: Trenton,” PI 45, Entry 174].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1938a. Underwriting Manual: Underwriting and Valuation Procedure Under Title II of the National Housing Act. Washington, DC: USGPO [RG 287].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1938b. Progress in Subdivision Planning. Insured Mortgage Portfolio, 3 (October): 4.Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1938c. Planning Neighborhoods for Small Houses. Washington, DC: USGPO [RG 287].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1938c1. Suggested Minimum Restrictive Covenants. Appendix A to Planning Neighborhoods for Small Houses. Washington, DC: USGPO [RG 287].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1939. The Structure and Growth of Residential Neighborhoods in American Cities. Washington, DC: USGPO [RG 287].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1940. Seventh Annual Report of the Federal Housing Administration for the year ending December 31, 1940. Washington, DC: USGPO [RG 287].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1949. Underwriting Manual Revision No. 5 (March 10). Washington, DC: USGPO [RG 287].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1952. Estimated Production of Housing Available to Minority Groups Based on Zone Commissioner Survey of August 25, 1952. Washington, DC: FHA [RG 31].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1954a. The FHA Program and Minority Groups. Washington, DC: FHA [RG 31].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1954b. Proposed Racial Relations Handbook (February). Washington, DC: FHA [RG 31].Google Scholar
Federal Housing Administration (FHA). 1954c. Letters from Regional Directors to Field Offices (February). Washington, DC: FHA [RG 31].Google Scholar
FHA Division of Economics and Statistics. Graphs Summarizing Characteristics of Selected Urban Areas. [RG 31, Cartographics Division].Google Scholar
Federal Loan Agency News. 1940. FHA Subdivisions Contained Sites for City of 1,132,000 (April 30). Washington, DC: USGPO [RG 287].Google Scholar
Freund, David. 1999. Making It Home: Race, Development, and the Politics of Place in Suburban Detroit, 1940–1967. PhD Department of History diss., University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Hinton, Harold. 1949. No Change Viewed in Work of F.H.A. New York Times, December 4, 84.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Arnold. 2000a. Choosing Segregation: Federal Housing Policy Between Shelley and Brown . In From Tenements to the Taylor Homes: In Search of an Urban Housing Policy in Twentieth Century America, ed. Bauman, John F., Biles, Roger and Szylvian, Kristin M., 206–25. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Arnold. 2000b. “Containment” on the Home Front: Race and Federal Housing Policy from the New Deal to the Cold War. Journal of Urban History, 26 (2): 158–89.Google Scholar
Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC). 1937. Master File for Trenton, New Jersey Containing Residential Security Map and Area Descriptions (March 1). Washington, DC: HOLC Division of Research and Statistics. [RG 195, records relating to the City Survey File, 1935–40].Google Scholar
Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA). 1952. Housing of the Nonwhite Population: 1940–1950. Washington, DC: HHFA [RG 31].Google Scholar
Hoyt, Homer. 1936. City Growth and Mortgage Risk. Insured Mortgage Portfolio, 1 (6): 8–10, 21–22 (December) [RG 287].Google Scholar
Hubbard, DeHart. 1949. Letter to George Bremer (March 23). Washington, DC: FHA [RG 31].Google Scholar
Irons, Peter. 1982. The New Deal Lawyers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, Kenneth. 1985. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Keith, Nathaniel. 1973. Politics and the Housing Crisis Since 1930. New York: Universe Books.Google Scholar
Laurenti, Luigi. 1952. Effects of Nonwhite Purchases on Market Prices. The Appraisal Journal, 20 (3).Google Scholar
Magee, John. 1937. City Growth and Population Patterns. Insured Mortgage Portfolio, 2 (3): 5–6, 22 [RG 287].Google Scholar
Mott, Seward. 1939. Zoning and Neighborhood Standards. Insured Mortgage Portfolio, 3 (10): 14–16, 22–24 [RG 287].Google Scholar
National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB). 1975. Brief of the National Association of Real Estate Boards as Amicus Curiae. Re-printed in Landmark Briefs and Arguments of the Supreme Court of the United States: Constitutional Law, vol. 46, ed. Kurland, Phillip and Casper, Gerhard. Arlington, VA: University Publications of America. (Originally submitted to the Supreme Court in October term, 1947.)Google Scholar
National Negro Insurance Association. 1948. Housing Aids and Possibilities for Concerned Combined Action. Proceedings of the 27th Annual Session of the National Negro Insurance Association, in Louisville, AR. [RG 31].Google Scholar
New York Times. 1949a. State Group Asks Housing Bias Bans. December 3, A2.Google Scholar
New York Times. 1949b. Assails Segregation. February 5, A8.Google Scholar
New York Times. 1949c. Negroes Ask Truman Word. December 5, A15.Google Scholar
Polier, Shad. 1949. Discrimination in Housing. New York Times, December 12, Letters to the Times, 32.Google Scholar
Pritchett, Wendell E. The Romance of Home: The Fair Housing Movement in the 1950s. Research Paper No. 8. Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series. University of Pennsylvania Law School (Fall 2002). Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection. http:com/abstract_id=328625 (accessed April 2, 2002).Google Scholar
Schwendinger, Herman, and Schwendinger, Julia. 1974. The Sociologists of the Chair: A Radical Analysis of the Formative Years of North-American Sociology. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Silk, Leonard. 1949. Sweden plans for better housing. New York Times, January 16, BR30.Google Scholar
Sitkoff, Harvard. 1978. A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Elden. 1938. Measuring the Neighborhood Risk. Insured Mortgage Portfolio, 2 (8): 9–11, 22–23.Google Scholar
Star, C. W. 1952. Letter to FHA Commissioner Walter Greene (October 6). Washington, DC: FHA [RG 31].Google Scholar
Streator, George. 1949a. FHA aide outlines Negro housing bar. New York Times, April 23, A8.Google Scholar
Streator, George. 1949b. Housing bias curb called minor gain. New York Times, April 27, A23.Google Scholar
Sugrue, Thomas. 1996. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, James. 1937. A New Map Aid for Mortgage Lenders. Insured Mortgage Portfolio, 1 (12): 8–10, 22 [RG 287].Google Scholar
Thompson, Albert. 1953. Letter to George Snowden (September 26). Washington, DC: FHA [RG 31].Google Scholar
U.S. National Committee on Urban Problems to the Congress and to the President of the U.S. 1968. Building the American City. Washington, DC: USGPO [RG 287].Google Scholar