Isabel Eaton

Isabel Eaton
Born(1863-11-22)November 22, 1863
Cape Elizabeth, Maine
DiedMay 16, 1937(1937-05-16) (aged 73)
Staffordville, Connecticut
EducationSmith College; Columbia University
Notable workThe Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899) with W. E. B. Du Bois
MovementSettlement movement

Isabel Eaton (22 November 1863 – 16 May 1937)[1][2] was an American sociologist,[3] researcher, social worker, and teacher, who acted as research assistant to W. E. B. Du Bois on The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899), the first sociological case study of a Black community in the United States.[4][5][6]

Early life and education

Isabel Eaton was in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, and came from an established New England family, related to that of Daniel Webster.[7][4] Her father was associated with General O. O. Howard.[7]

Eaton graduated from Smith College in 1888, and earned her Master of Arts at Columbia University in 1898.[7] While a graduate student, Eaton collaborated with sociologist Dr W. E. B. Du Bois, and also authored a paper for Hull House on the wages of cloak makers in Chicago.[8][9]

Work with W. E. B. Du Bois

Eaton worked with W. E. B. Du Bois as a research assistant and field researcher in the compiling and writing of The Philadelphia Negro,[10] "one of the first works to combine the use of urban ethnography, social history, and descriptive statistics", known today as "a classic work in the social science literature".[7][11][4] She was supported by a fellowship from the College Settlements Association.[12]

Du Bois' collaboration with a single white woman, it has been written, was

in complete contravention to the tenor and racist attitudes of the time. Eaton supplied her own 80 page report on Negro Domestic Service as an appendix.[13]

Eaton's report on "Negro Domestic Service in the Seventh Ward, Philadelphia," was based on an eight months' investigation conducted between 1896 and 1897, including home visits.[14] Her work has since been described as "a trailblazing documentation of the social and economic conditions of the single most prominent occupation among blacks in nineteenth-century urban America", although her "contribution to sociology and history... was largely ignored in reviews at the time The Philadelphia Negro was published and in critical assessments in the years since".[4] It has been pointed out that despite Eaton authoring "almost one-fifth of The Philadelphia Negro... none of the analyses of The Philadelphia Negro written by men acknowledge her substantial input."[3] However, Eaton and Du Bois retained a lifelong friendship and lengthy correspondence beyond the study, and Eaton's MA was earned on the basis of her contributions, guided by Du Bois.[3][15] She was, though, unable to find work in sociology after its publication.[3]

Settlement work and Ethical Culture

Eaton worked at Hull House, Chicago and on the East side in New York.[7] In 1903 she became executive secretary of the Society for Ethical Culture in New York City and held this position for seven years.[7] She was associated in the forming of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).[7][16]

In 1910, Eaton went to Robert Gould Shaw House, Boston, which had been founded two years earlier.[7][17] According to The Crisis, her work there was "pioneer work and especially difficult because of the unrighteous attitude of all other Boston settlements toward colored people".[7] Eaton was there for four years as headworker (1910–1914) before resigning due to ill health.[7][18] Work at the settlement focused on neighborhood work, and activities including "gym, chaircaning, sewing, embroidery, English literature, brasswork, nursing, cooking, violin, pyrography, elocution, dancing, pottery, ironwork, music, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Highland Tents, Nurses' Club, Choral Club, Progressive Club, Shaw Guards, Checker Club, Young Ladies Imperial Club, and the Kindergarten".[18]

Later years and death

Eaton spent her final years in Staffordville, Connecticut, where she died on 16 May 1937, aged 73.[1][19][20]

References

  1. ^ a b "Isabel Eaton". Find a Grave.
  2. ^ "Isabel Eaton". The Springfield Daily Republican. 17 May 1937.
  3. ^ a b c d Deegan, Mary Jo (1988). "W.E.B. Du Bois and the Women of Hull-House, 1895-1899". The American Sociologist. 19 (4): 301–311. ISSN 0003-1232.
  4. ^ a b c d Du Bois, W. E. B.; Eaton, Isabel (1996). The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-1573-1.
  5. ^ Horne, Gerald (2010). W. E. B. Du Bois: a biography. Greenwood biographies. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-34980-5.
  6. ^ "W.E.B. Du Bois | Roper Center for Public Opinion Research". ropercenter.cornell.edu. Retrieved 2026-05-08.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Men of the Month: A Social Worker". The Crisis. Vol. 10, no. 2. June 1915.
  8. ^ Woloch, Nancy (1997). Early American Women: a Documentary History, 1600-1900. Internet Archive. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-071527-1.
  9. ^ Hull-House maps and papers, a presentation of nationalities and wages in a congested district of Chicago, together with comments and essays on problems growing out of the social conditions. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. New York: T.Y. Crowell. 1895.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  10. ^ "Black Domestic Workers". Women & the American Story. Retrieved 2026-05-08.
  11. ^ Boles, Dorcas Davis; Hopps, June Gary; Clayton, Obie; Brown, Shena Leverett (2016). "The Dance Between Addams and Du Bois: Collaboration and Controversy in a Consequential 20th Century Relationship". Phylon (1960-). 53 (2): 34–53. doi:10.2307/phylon1960.53.2.34. ISSN 0031-8906.
  12. ^ College Settlements Association (1897). Annual report: From October 1, 1896 to October 1, 1897. Cambridge: Co-Operative Press.
  13. ^ Hauhart, Robert C. (2015). "American Sociology's Investigations of the American Dream: Retrospect and Prospect". The American Sociologist. 46 (1): 65–98. ISSN 0003-1232.
  14. ^ Booth, Percy N. (1900). "Review of The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 15: 100–102. ISSN 0002-7162.
  15. ^ "Letter from W. E. B. Du Bois to Society for Ethical Culture". credo.library.umass.edu. 21 March 1938. Retrieved 2026-05-08.
  16. ^ Mary White Ovington (1914). How The National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People Began.
  17. ^ "Robert Gould Shaw House - DRS". repository.library.northeastern.edu. Retrieved 2026-05-08.
  18. ^ a b "Program celebrating the fifty-year anniversary of Robert Gould Shaw House, Inc. - DRS". repository.library.northeastern.edu. Retrieved 2026-05-08.
  19. ^ "Staffordville". Stafford Springs Press. 19 January 1916. p. 3.
  20. ^ "Connecticut, U.S., Death Records, 1897-1968". Ancestry. 16 May 1937.
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