The twentieth century has seen two great waves of African American migration from rural areas into the city, changing not only the country’s demographics but also black culture. In her thorough study of migration to Houston, Bernadette Pruitt portrays the move from rural to urban homes in Jim Crow Houston as a form of black activism and resistance to racism. Between 1900 and 1950 nearly fifty thousand blacks left their rural communities and small towns in Texas and Louisiana for Houston. Jim Crow proscription, disfranchisement, acts of violence and brutality, and rural poverty pushed them from their homes; the lure of social advancement and prosperity based on urban-industrial development drew them. Houston’s close proximity to basic minerals, innovations in transportation, increased trade, augmented economic revenue, and industrial development prompted white families, commercial businesses, and industries near the Houston Ship Channel to recruit blacks and other immigrants to the city as domestic laborers and wage earners. Using census data, manuscript collections, government records, and oral history interviews, Pruitt details who the migrants were, why they embarked on their journeys to Houston, the migration networks on which they relied, the jobs they held, the neighborhoods into which they settled, the culture and institutions they transplanted into the city, and the communities and people they transformed in Houston.

Finding Answers in U.S. Census Records is a comprehensive guide to understanding and using U.S. Census records, in particular those of the federal census. Aimed at the general family history audience, this book is especially useful for the beginning to intermediate researcher. Along with a description of the history and structure of the federal census there is a guide to each decennial census. Three appendixes offer a description of major census data providers, major stare and national archives with census collections, and specially designed census extraction forms. Includes a complete index.

A guide to conducting genealogical research, focusing on the role of electronic databases, computer programs, and Internet resources in revolutionizing the process of tracing family histories. Includes charts, forms, exercises, Web site addresses, and bibliographies.

This book is about our personal journeys in the United States from the enslavement period to the present. There are pages of mini biographies; historical tidbits; essays by family members; obituaries; memoirs; and photographs from 1920's to the present.