The Philadelphia Negroand the Canon of Classical Urban Theory

This paper outlines the urban theory of W. E. B. Du Bois as presented in the classic sociological text The Philadelphia Negro . I argue that Du Bois’s urban theory, which focused on how the socially-constructed racial hierarchy of the United States was shaping the material conditions of industrial cities, prefigured important later work and offered a sociologically richer understanding of urban processes than the canonized classical urban theorists—Weber, Simmel, and Park. I focus on two key areas of Du Bois’s urban theory: (1) racial stratification as a fundamental feature of the modern city and (2) urbanization and urban migration. While The Philadelphia Negro has gained recent praise for Du Bois’s methodological achievements, I use extensive passages from the work to demonstrate the theoretical importance of The Philadelphia Negro and to argue that this groundbreaking work should be considered canonical urban theory.