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Title: White, Black, Or Mulatto: A Sociological Exploration of The Meaning Of Racial Classification In The United States Census Of 1880

Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis

Publication Year: 1998

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Abstract: This dissertation is a sociological and statistical analysis of the institutional and social meaning of race as a concept and an identity. It uses an interdisciplinary approach which integrates census-based socio-historical research and demographic methods to argue that American institutions have helped to construct the idea of racial difference in ways that reinforce a system of social inequality. This thesis is illustrated through a historical analysis of the measurement of racial categories used by the U.S. Census Office of 1880, and how it was embedded in the social institutions that produced the idea of racial difference and linked the privileges of citizenship and American identity to 'whiteness.' This dissertation identifies the social and ideological components of racial classification in the United States, and analyzes the significance of non-biological factors in the perception of an individual's racial status by other persons. The concept of social race developed by Charles Wagley and the theory of racial formation developed by sociologists Michael Omi and Howard Winant are used to analyze the influence of social and economic indicators in the process of racial categorization. The longstanding use of color and/or racial classification systems in the United States Census of the Population is evidence of the importance of perceived and legislated racial differences to the institutional and social processes of the construction of American identity and statehood. Current popular, academic, and governmental debates about attempts to include a separate 'biracial' or 'multi-racial' category in the 2000 Census are but the latest version of the ongoing struggle to affect the significance of race by changing its boundaries. In 1880, the Census Office used five racial categories: 'White,' 'Mulatto,' and 'Black,' 'Indian' and 'Chinese.' I hypothesize that Census enumerators used not only biological characteristics but also social characteristics in classifying individuals. More specifically, I argue that lower status individuals would be more likely to be classified as 'mulatto' than 'white' and that, because women have lower status than men, 'mulatto' category would have an excess of women. Moreover, statistical evidence shows that other characteristics such as a low status occupation and illiteracy are associated with being classified as 'mulatto' rather than 'white.' In sum, I demonstrate that a category that most people take for granted as 'natural' and unproblematic was maintained in a way that reinforced the privileged social position of persons classified as 'white.'

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Authors: Washington, Mary

Institution: Johns Hopkins University

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Degree: Doctor in Philosophy

Publisher Location: Baltimore, MD

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Race and Ethnicity

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