Job Market Paper

The Defender on the Move: Black Newspapers and the First Great Migration
Abstract: The First Great Migration (1915–1940) marked a turning point in American history: after 50 years of limited migration following emancipation, 1.5 million Black southerners made the dangerous journey North. I use within-city and across-county variation in exposure to the Chicago Defender, the most prominent northern Black newspaper, to examine whether information on southern conditions and northern life sparked the first wave of migrants. The Chicago Defender expanded South in the mid-1910s by partnering with Black railway porters working for the Illinois Central railroad. In cities along the railroad, I find that individuals who lived near a porter carrying the Chicago Defender were more likely to migrate North than otherwise similar individuals who did not. Across counties, I find that Chicago Defender penetration increased out-migration and political organization, and decreased lynchings. Back of the envelope calculations indicate that the Chicago Defender led over 172,000 Black individuals to migrate North by 1940, caused 95 NAACP branches to open, and prevented 216 lynchings. My results demonstrate the value of information in guiding moves to opportunity.

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FEDS Working Paper, retrievable here

How Does Social Distancing Affect the Spread of Covid-19 in the United States? (with Bhashkar Mazumder)
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