Editing WEB Du Bois (section)

== The Philadelphia Study ==

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois arrived at the University of Pennsylvania in 1896 to conduct research on Philadelphia's Black community in the Seventh Ward. His position, though at Penn, came without regular faculty appointment—the university would not grant a Black scholar such recognition regardless of his Harvard doctorate. His residence in the Seventh Ward, in conditions that allowed him to observe community life directly, provided the immersive research experience that his study required. The year of fieldwork, conducted under circumstances that reflected the racism his study would analyze, produced data that no previous American social scientist had gathered.<ref name="anderson">{{cite book |last=Anderson |first=Elijah |title=Introduction to The Philadelphia Negro |year=1996 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |location=Philadelphia}}</ref>

His methods combined quantitative survey research with qualitative observation in ways that established standards for sociological investigation. His door-to-door interviews, his mapping of the community's geography, and his analysis of historical development demonstrated that African American life could be studied with the rigor that other subjects received. The resulting work challenged both racist assumptions about Black incapacity and romantic assumptions about community solidarity, presenting instead a complex portrait of a community shaped by discrimination and internal differentiation.<ref name="lewis"/>

His analysis of the Seventh Ward's class structure, occupational distribution, and social organization provided empirical foundation for understanding that previous commentary had lacked. His documentation of discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations demonstrated that Black disadvantage resulted from white action rather than Black inadequacy. The study's influence on subsequent sociology, though not always acknowledged, established approaches that the discipline would develop throughout the twentieth century.<ref name="anderson"/>