Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro [1896]

This analytical study provides a fascinating examination of the circumstances of African-Americans during the first thirty years following the abolition of slavery and insights into the biases of nineteenth-century social science. Its chapters consider population factors, vital statistics, including anthropometry, race amalgamation and social and economic conditions. Hoffman, the statistician of the Prudential Insurance Company of America, based his book on research materials collected in his study of African-Americans. He concludes that, as of 1896, the lives of African-Americans did not demonstrably improve after abolition. As the legal historian Paul Finkelman notes in the introduction: "By employing the beguiling methodology of statistical analysis and other tools of the emerging social sciences, the work justified, among other things, massive racial discrimination in the insurance industry." vii (i-vii new Introduction), x, 329 pp.