Books and Manuscripts

Philadelphia: Reprinted by Order of the Board of Education, 1859. Second edition. 8vo. 24 pp. Publisher's limp printed wrappers, lightly soiled, small chipping along front and rear wrapper edges, small segments of spine perished; all edges trimmed. Sabin 62293; Library Company of Philadelphia, Afro-Americana 751; Not in Blockson

Rare second edition of the 1856 study of Philadelphia's Free Black community. Recording education and employment statistics, and enlarged from the first edition with eight additional pages of statistics related to crime and incarceration rates. This is the fourth (of four) studies on Philadelphia's Free Black population conducted prior to the Civil War. The first was a census conducted by Bacon and Charles Gardner in 1838 on behalf of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, the second was conducted by the Quakers, A Statistical Inquiry into the Condition of the People of Colour of the City and Districts of Philadelphia (1849, see lot 5), and the third study was the first edition of the present work. Cited by W.E.B. Du Bois in his important study, The Philadelphia Negro (1899).

Benjamin C. Bacon was a Quaker abolitionist, member and recording Secretary of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, member of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and executive committee member of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society.