White plague in Black Los Angeles: Tuberculosis among African Americans in Los Angeles, 1930--1950 (California)

This thesis examines and presents, for the first time, a micro scale, historical urban study on the experience of disease in to African American population. It analyzes the disease ecology of tuberculosis among African Americans in Los Angeles during a time of massive in-migration and a shortage of adequate housing. The significance of this particular time is that it marks the geographical solidification of the modern Los Angeles African American community and also marks the last decades of tuberculosis as a major factor in the public health of but community.; Although chemotherapy and other biomedical interventions played an important role in lowering tuberculosis rates, the decisive factors in the changing rates were the socioeconomic ones. These changing socioeconomic conditions grow out of several historical events: the migration of African Americans to Los Angeles primarily from the West South Central states (Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas), the beginnings of the breakup of racial segregation in housing and employment in the city, and an expanding Southern California economy, centered in Los Angeles, that was fostered by World War II industrial growth.; The data for the study is based on: 732 African American TB deaths culled from 121,329 death certificates for six full years for 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1940, and 1950 and partial years for 1936, 1938, 1943, and 1945; the 1939 Housing Survey conducted by the Works Progress Administration and the Los Angeles City Housing Authority; and census records for the time period of the study.; Research questions included the role played by racial segregation in the ecology of tuberculosis and differences in mortality rates between effluent and poorer Black Angelenos. The study found that the census tracts with the highest rates of tuberculosis mortality were not the ones that had the highest room densities but the ones that had a combination of factors: the lowest average incomes, the oldest housing, and very high rates of residential segregation (over 90 percent African American).