Progressive Economists and Scientific Racism: Walter Willcox and Black Americans, 1895-1910

Aldrich, Mark

doi:10.2307/274418

Cited by 20 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…The most interesting case in this respect is that of Walter Willcox. To be sure, his scientific work on black Americans was tainted by academic racism (Aldrich 1979), and he could never bring himself to reject immigration restriction. But at the same time, he "empirically demolished] nearly all of Fairchild's objections to unrestricted immigration" (Hodgson 1991: 18) and seriously challenged Walker's theory.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Controversy and Demarcation in Early-Twentieth-Century Demography: The Rise and Decline of Walker’s Theory of Immigration and the Birth Rate

Prévost¹

1998

Social Science History

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Population growth has always been a politically loaded object of inquiry. From the debate sparked by Malthus’s classic Essay to the still present apocalyptic warnings about overpopulation or the declining birth rate, demographers and statisticians have worked in troubled waters, where progressively more sophisticated quantitative techniques have sometimes gone hand in hand with dubious social philosophy. In her recent survey of post-1930 American demography, Susan Greenhalgh (1996: 30–31) argued that the institutionalization and professionalization of this field as an academic discipline required scholars to draw “sharp boundaries between themselves and activists,” such as those involved in the promotion of objectives like birth control, eugenics, or immigration restriction. A detailed inquiry into the origins of the Population Association of America (PAA) has shown that up to the 1930s the study of population attracted more activists than social scientists and that the two types could coexist quite happily within the same organization (Hodgson 1991). Greenhalgh added (1996), however, that despite the efforts expanded in its quest for scientific status, this field of study has remained quite open to ideological influence, fundamentally Eurocentric and devoid of reflexivity. The polemic that stirred the French Institut national d’études démographiques in the early 1990s shows that the demarcation lines can easily get blurred and that the simultaneously cognitive and political dimensions of population study can reappear with utmost clarity (Le Bras 1991).

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Controversy and Demarcation in Early-Twentieth-Century Demography: The Rise and Decline of Walker’s Theory of Immigration and the Birth Rate

Prévost¹

1998

Social Science History

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“…Advocating the use of objective statistical facts to address the 'race question', Willcox positioned the researcher as an impartial judge aa presenting evidence, distancing from advocacy. This concept of the scientist as an objective data gatherer, revealing unbiased truths about race, played a crucial role in Willcox's economic demography work on blacks (Aldrich 1979).…”

Section: VIII a New Strategy: An Outlinementioning

confidence: 99%

The Plurality of Economic Classifications

Frasser,

Guzmán

2024

EJPE

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The standard strategy involves evaluating whether economic classifications meet criteria derived from a general theory of natural kinds. The first objective of this article is to show the implementation of this strategy by various relevant authors. We argue that the standard strategy has failed due to its lack of a greater sensitivity to the role played by human interests in the design of different types of natural kinds. The second objective is to outline a new strategy for investigating economic classifications. Our departure from the standard strategy can be described as a shift from assessing economic classifications based on general theories of natural kinds to examining specific cases with the aim of theorizing about their design and application. The cases of the cost-of-living index and race are used to succinctly discuss the objectivity of economic classifications and implications for the relationship between science and democracy.

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“…Willcox was instrumental in providing authority to Stone, promoting his work within the discipline of economic demography, recommending him for membership in the American Economic Association, and selecting him as a member of the association's Committee to Study the Negro (Aldrich 1979). Willcox contributed three of essays to the text-"Negro Criminality," "Census Statistics of the Negro," and "The Probable Increase of the Negro Race in the United States."…”

Section: Conceptual Fr Amework and Contentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Articulating Agrarian Racism: Statistics and Plantationist Empirics

Williams¹

2017

Southeastern Geographer

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supremacistas con las prácticas estadísticas liberales que examinaron la raza como un fenómeno a nivel de población. Esta epistemología agraria, articulada como la interacción de deficiencia racial individual y demográficos a nivel de población, proporciona evidencia de una inversión anti-Negro en la noción de la industria. Reconociendo contra la negritud en el genealogía de la agroindustria, sugiero, proporciona un medio para comprender mejor el desarrollo agrícola posterior.

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Progressive Economists and Scientific Racism: Walter Willcox and Black Americans, 1895-1910

Cited by 20 publications

References 0 publications

Controversy and Demarcation in Early-Twentieth-Century Demography: The Rise and Decline of Walker’s Theory of Immigration and the Birth Rate

Controversy and Demarcation in Early-Twentieth-Century Demography: The Rise and Decline of Walker’s Theory of Immigration and the Birth Rate

The Plurality of Economic Classifications

Articulating Agrarian Racism: Statistics and Plantationist Empirics

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