On April 7 at 3:15 PM in Posvar 4940, the Center for Governance and Markets will host Richard Hornbeck for a talk: The Social Construction of Race During Reconstruction. The talk is part of the Institutions and Inequality Series that CGM is co-hosting with the Department of Economics.
This talk examines how race was socially constructed during the Reconstruction Era using skin tone records from the Freedman’s Savings Bank linked to the 1870 Census. The research shows that people with the same physical skin tone were classified differently by race based on their wealth and literacy, revealing that racial categories were shaped by economic class in ways that set the stage for Jim Crow segregation and lasting racial stratification.
Richard Hornbeck is a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His work as an economic historian examines the historical development of the American economy to understand why some places and people prosper while others do not.
Register here
This talk is part of the Inequality and Institutions series at the Center for Governance and Markets.