The following set of web pages was developed by the Lewis Mumford
Center, University at Albany, to provide information about a set of about 50 people who lived in New York City in 1920.  It is based on data collected in an urban history project directed by John Logan. The sample includes native whites, first and second generation immigrants from Europe, and African Americans.  We have traced these people back to 1900, when many of them - especially the African Americans among them - lived in other states.  Our interest is in how members of different groups were incorporated into the city in this period, especially the composition of their families, whom they married, and changes in where they lived and what kinds of jobs they had.  

Click on any name in the following lists.  You will be taken first to information that we found about the person's household in the 1920 census manuscript.  Then you can choose to learn more about the person's neighborhood in 1920, or connect to their household listing in the census of 1900.  There are many stories that can be told from these bits of evidence.  Few New Yorkers had easy lives; most depended on their family and community networks to get by; and some, as you will see, experienced real improvements in their lifetime or at least hope for their children's futures.