Networks Past: A 1939 Bloomington Neighborhood

One difficulty with couching questions about community in network terms is the dearth of historical data on networks. This research begins to fill the gap by analyzing data collected in 1939 from residents of a square block in Bloomington, Indiana. Relatively weak relationships were more than closefriendships; residents knew about twothirds of their neighbors by name, and had about 13 friends on the block; the densities of friendship networks in this neighborhood are similar to those reported in recent studies of unbounded networks. Thesefindings cast somne doubt on the presumption that past neighborhood networks were significantly more sociable thian contemzporary networks. The social science literature is replete with studies examining the current state of community, and a central element in many definitions of community is the concept of a group of people in social interaction having some ties or bonds in common (Hillery 1955:118; see also Warren 1972). In addition, numerous writers have made use of network imagery (if not network analysis) to portray relations between members of local areas (see Berkowitz 1982:2; Hall & Wellman 1985:33). And Fischer (1988) has recently identified the canon that individuals' social networks have become decreasingly focussed on the locality (pp. 11-12) as one of several questionable assumptions to contemporary discussions of community. These observations underscore the notion that the study of community and social networks is closely intertwined. Despite the development of useful analytic techniques, one difficulty with couching questions about community in network terms is the dearth of data on networks past. Even if we adhere to the conventional emphasis on relations within bounded areas, rather than to Wellman's and Fischer's focus on aspatial networks, we have limited past or present data with which to examine the strength of community as embodied in networks. Numerous studies have