Thread by @ToddMichney

This critique of my new article on historical #redlining is from someone with incredible quantitative research chops, who helped me understand HOLC’s 1933-36, "rescue phase" mortgage lending record. Here's a thread on economists vs. historians re: redlining generally ...

First, here's my new article on how & why HOLC made its “security maps” in case anyone’s interested … journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

.@thejonrose finds the primary sources I shared documenting HOLC-FHA communication “very weak” and “not indicative of much.” I disagree (read on). But note that in the article I describe my findings as preliminary & call for more archival research …

Note that first letter I shared is HOLC breaching protocol to give Homer Hoyt, chief economist w/ FHA’s Div of Research & Stats, access to its Atlanta #redlining map. Also they are clearly setting up formal lines of communication here... More on Hoyt: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

Second letter is the director of FHA's Div of Research & Stats Ernest Fisher, referencing setup of communication with HOLC. This directive is from the *very top*. Fisher was a racist land theorist trained by Richard Ely as @lwinling & I reveal: academic.oup.com/jah/article/10… ...

Third letter is head of HOLC's City Survey, Corwin Fergus, demonstrating detailed awareness of FHA’s mapping operations. As I write in my new #redlining article, this unit was housed in same building with FHA until 1936, even though HOLC headquarters was a mile across town …

I find all these HOLC-FHA connections compelling if fragmentary; perhaps most importantly, HOLC shared 3 full sets of its City Survey #redlining maps w/ FHA. But @thejonrose's skepticism may be more of a question of how historians use evidence vs. economists …

This recent article coauthored by @thejonrose has gotten much attention, even cited by @POTUS 2022 Economic Report. It has amazingly detailed maps of HOLC vs. FHA-backed lending that I & other historians have saluted: nber.org/papers/w29244 …

But its findings are based on a synth of the secondary lit, rather than tedium of finding primary sources in physical archives that is our stock & trade as historians. For ex, even if true their arg that FHA made #redlining maps before HOLC is speculative, not conclusive ...

To my knowledge only MIT historian Jennifer Light has looked at FHA's actual, internal correspondence re: mapping projects. Meanwhile @lwinling @3underscores & I are busy digging out new previously unknown FHA maps from @USNatArchives, like just last week ... @HOLCRedlining

Also, as @MpeterF has pointed out, the findings here are not so much “new” as confirming what Kenneth Jackson argued in 1980: Yes, FHA was *way* worse than HOLC in terms of its long-term impact: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00…

Economist Price Fishback, lead author on this article with @thejonrose, continues to promote this finding of HOLC as “not so bad” compared to FHA, as in this recent podcast from @HistBehindNews (see ~54:02): open.spotify.com/episode/2k7IDT… ...

This all sounds like an approach that historian @APaigeOutofHist calls attempting to "absolve" HOLC relative to FHA. But economists interested in #redlining are also seem to be missing @lwinling's and my major arguments here …

First, we expanded geographer Amy Hillier’s finding that the mortgage refinancing loans HOLC made to AfAm homeowners are best understood as a bailout to their creditors: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11… ...

Also, we contend that because HOLC spread racist appraisal methods – including how to make #redlining maps – via other channels like the 1937 Appraisal forum & thru outreach to private orgs, it therefore didn’t *need* to share its actual City Survey maps: academic.oup.com/jah/article/10…

I’m open to dialogue with economists and any constructive criticism re: #redlining research; after all there are many nuances here. For starters, y’all could catch up on the recent lit by reading @robgioielli's piece just out on the @UrbanHistoryA blog: themetropole.blog/2022/11/03/the…

P.S. @thejonrose -- I really hope historians & economists can work together on the topic of #redlining to produce some novel findings; looking back on what I wrote, I suppose Ken Jackson's initial findings on HOLC vs. FHA were speculatory, whereas yours are confirmatory ...

And while I called your assertion that FHA redlined before HOLC "speculative," you turn out to be correct; note the transcribed dates on these maps @lwinling dug out of the archives last week, incl one personally signed by Homer Hoyt. Let's keep the lines of communication open.