Thread by @ToddMichney

Check out "The Roots of #Redlining," a new article @lwinling & I wrote that was just released in the @JournAmHist. Here's the link academic.oup.com/jah/article-ab… but an illustrated thread with summary & our major findings follows ... (1/17)
@UrbanHistoryA @SACRPH

We trace the intellectual roots of #redlining to economist Richard T. Ely and his students & colleagues affiliated with the Institute for Research in Land Economics, which he founded in 1920 ... (2/17)

While a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, the University of Wisconsin & Northwestern from the 1880s-1920s, Ely trained scores of economists, sociologists & historians -- including future president Woodrow Wilson ... (3/17)

Ely's career coincided with the intellectual tyranny of #eugenics and #scientificracism and he helped promote those viewpoints in his own publications & through the American Economic Association, which he served as secretary ... (4/17)

By 1922, Ely and his fellow Institute colleagues were expressing dismay at the continuing #GreatMigration of African Americans to northern cities after World War I ... (5/17)

Starting in 1921, Ely's student Ernest Fisher wrote textbooks for the National Association of Real Estate Boards, ingraining the racist theory that Black people's very presence inexorably lowered property values ... (6/17)

NAREB already had a deeply racist culture as @APaigeOutofHist has amply demonstrated; their 1924 Code of Ethics stated a Realtor should never "introduce into a neighborhood . . . members of any race or nationality" that would hurt property values ... (7/17)

Whites had attempted segregation through race-based #zoning that the Supreme Court struck down in 1917, and had rioted in 1919 #Chicago, ransacking the homes of AfAms who dared to purchase outside of the "Black Belt" ... (8/17)

The Supreme Court in _Corrigan v. Buckley_ (1926) certified the legality of restrictions forbidding property sales to Black people; NAREB, Ely & his Institute and allies eagerly promoted these ... (9/17)

The Great Depression effectively shuttered Ely's Institute; however, his students and colleagues joined the Home Owners Loan Corporation & Federal Housing Administration, going on to implement #redlining based on his racist property value theories ... (10/17)
#HOLC #FHA

Some other key individuals responsible for implementing #redlining include Ely Institute affiliate Frederick Babcock who wrote the FHA's now-notorious _Underwriting Manual_, and first HOLC president Philip Kniskern, a former mortgage industry exec ... (11/17)

This new #redlining article of ours includes some surprises, such as that HOLC's program was not top-secret as previously assumed; for example, a 1938 _Architectural Forum_ feature profiled its City Survey program & even reproduced a "hypothetical security map" ... (12/17)

Writing in 1938 near the end of his life, Ely predicted his collaboration with the NAREB Realtors “would be felt a hundred years from now” -- and indeed, efforts to dismantle #segregation & racist real estate appraisal continue today ... (13/17)

Our #redlining scholarship builds on that of the legendary Ken Jackson, but also @KeeangaYamahtta, @TomSugrue, @ndbconnolly, @APaigeOutofHist, @benchansfield, @ChloeThurstonDC, @rmarchiel, @andrewkahrl, @HowellOcean & many others not on Twitter ... (14/17)

#Redlining has become more widely-known in recent years through the important writings and work of Ta-Nehisi Coates, Richard Rothstein, @MapPrejudice, @PrologueDC, @designingthewe & @gregory8jost with #UndesignTheRedline, and of course @HOLCRedlining ... (15/17)

Copying about new #redlining article: @WorldProfessor, @jenny_schuetz, @drlungamam, @DanImmergluck, @CalScherm, @pedrorgld, @atboston, @elizabethkaygee, @econhist_allday, @DoughertyJack, @EricMichaRhodes, @iamwfx, @snmarkley, @TheIslandInn, @KParkPlace & @JoshuaPoe_Lou... (16/17)

We hope our article contributes toward these crucial conversations about the history of #redlining & how to undo its damaging effects -- and we invite feedback from anyone who is interested in the topic of #structuralracism (17/17) @lwinling @HOLCRedlining

@KeeangaYamahtta @TomSugrue @APaigeOutofHist @benchansfield @ChloeThurstonDC @rmarchiel @andrewkahrl @HowellOcean And of course @MpeterF whose book _Colored Property_ is the most detailed study to date of the federal government's role in promoting racist housing policies -- and who has been so generous in supporting our work