1. SOC 531: Community Organization Comparing DuBois and Lynds

2. 7 th Ward and Middletown Different times (1890s: Gay Nineties, versus 1920s: Roaring Twenties Different Places – Pennsylvania versus Indiana – Big cities and small cities Different Authors – DuBois – Lynds

3. Different Methods DuBois uses a housing/dwelling unit census – Occupied DUs – Residential survey – Business survey Lynds interview housewives – 124 working class families – 40 business class families Lynds use questionnaire for high school students

4. Lynds Methods Started with 18 month participant observation Observing “six main life categories” Then developed research plan – 1890 snapshot – 1924 snapshot – Mixed methods Participant observation Archival/documentary: gov, clubs, churches, newpapers

5. Compare Samples DuBois – Focused on blacks 39,000 people in 1890 Philadelphia 3.76% of population was black – Area sample of Seventh Ward 8,861 persons 42% black

6. Comparing DuBois and Lynds DuBois more spatial and population oriented – More political – More conflict – More materialist – Social problems focus Lynds more social and cultural – Consensus – Still see material base – More social constructionist

7. Lynds No social problems in Middletown – Individual troubles: C. Wright Mills, Sociological Imagination (1959) – Problems limited to adjustment to change Technology – Work – Leisure mobility – work and home – Decline of local work and neighborhood – Growth of voluntary, de-centered social life (Robert Wuthnow and Robert Bellah on secularization and civil religion)

8. DuBois vs. Lynds Lynds wrote about majority (>80% WASP) – Ignored minorities – Ignored neighborhoods – Focused on WASP nuclear families and businesses Dubois wrote about a minority (<5% of population of Philadelphia) – Focused on minority neighborhood – Largely ignored religion

9. Evaluating their Work Prof. Harris, “Lynds were blind” But white bread world of 1920 came crashing down Middletown in Transition (1937) was equally racist/blind but much less cheery Not until the Sixties (Civil Rights Movement, Great Society, and Equal Opportunity laws) did white color blindness (or blindness) change

10. Major Problem Generalizeability – From 7 th Ward To Southside Chicago To Philadelphia To black community (1890-2010) – From Middletown white working class and business class families To Muncie To Indiana To West Lafayette To Kokomo

11. Community Studies Serious reliability problems – Can results be reproduced? – Generalized to other times and places? Often claim validity – Really capture something essential – Provide valuable, largely descriptive data