{"id":19386,"date":"2011-12-30T19:41:04","date_gmt":"2011-12-30T19:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=19386"},"modified":"2016-05-22T20:43:17","modified_gmt":"2016-05-22T20:43:17","slug":"hypodescent-a-history-of-the-crystallization-of-the-one-drop-rule-in-the-united-states-1880-1940","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=19386","title":{"rendered":"Hypodescent: A history of the crystallization of the one-drop rule in the United States, 1880-1940"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hypodescent: A history of the crystallization of the one-drop rule in the United States, 1880-1940<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Princeton University
\nSeptember 2011
\n383 pages
\nPublication Number: AAT 3480237
\nISBN: 9781124939179<\/p>\n

Scott Leon Washington<\/strong><\/p>\n

A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE BY THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY<\/em><\/p>\n

This dissertation examines the crystallization of the one-drop rule in the United States between 1880 and 1940. The “one-drop rule<\/a>” is a colloquial expression, a phrase which reflects the belief that a person bearing a trace of African ancestry (literally, a single drop of black or Negro “blood”) is black. Historians and social scientists have tended to assume that, as a principle of classification, the one-drop rule can be traced back to the institution of slavery. This study provides a different account. Using a variety of methods, it attempts to explain how the one-drop rule developed, when it became institutionalized, and why.<\/strong> It also adopts a new approach to the study of race, ethnicity, and nationalism, an approach based largely although by no means exclusively on the work of Pierre Bourdieu<\/a>. The study in its present form has been limited to five chapters. Chapter One explores the origins and development of the one-drop rule, while Chapter Two provides a detailed reading of the case of Plessy v. Ferguson<\/a><\/em>. Chapter Three provides a quantitative account of the country’s history of anti-miscegenation<\/a> legislation, while Chapter Four examines the role lynching played in the South as a means of social demarcation. The study ends in Chapter Five with a brief synopsis, an inquiry into the relationship between slavery and democracy, and a nonpartisan look at the legacy of the one-drop rule.<\/p>\n

Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n