The lending record of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) has received little attention compared with HOLC’s residential security maps. Specifically, the extent to which HOLC practiced racial and ethnic discrimination in the process of making and servicing more than a million loans to homeowners during the Depression has not been carefully examined. Using primary sources including HOLC publications, newspaper articles, 1930 census data, and mortgage records from Philadelphia, this research shows that HOLC did make loans to African Americans, Jews, and immigrants. Evidence suggests, however, that HOLC supported racial segregation in the process of reselling properties acquired through foreclosure.
Abrams, C.1946. The future of housing. New York: Harper.
2.
———. 1955. Forbidden neighbors. New York: Harper.
3.
Allen, R. C. 1950. The Home Owner’s Loan Corporation: An experiment in American finance. MBA thesis, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
4.
Bartelt, D.1993. Housing the “underclass.” In The “underclass” debate: Views from history, edited by M. Katz. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
5.
Bauman, J. F.1987. Public housing, race, and renewal: Urban planning in Philadelphia, 1920-1974. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
6.
Biles, R.1991. A New Deal for the American people. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.
7.
Bradford, C.1979. Financing home ownership: The federal role in neighborhood decline. Urban Affairs Quarterly14:313-35.
8.
Bridewell, D. A. 1938. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board and its agencies. Manuscript, Library of Congress.
9.
Cohen, L.1990. Making a New Deal: Industrial workers in Chicago, 1919-1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10.
Coode, T. H.
, and J. F. Bauman. 1981. People, poverty, and politics: Pennsylvanians during the Great Depression. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press.
11.
Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB)
. 1934. Employees in the field service of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
12.
———. 1940. Helping the delinquent borrower.Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
13.
———. 1942. Federal Home Loan Bank Administration and its agencies. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
14.
Federal Housing Administration
. 1938. Underwriting manual. Washington, DC: Federal Housing Administration.
15.
Goering, J.
, and Ron Wienk, eds. 1996. Mortgage lending, racial discrimination, and federal policy. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
16.
Hanchett, T. W.1998. Sorting out the New South city: Race, class, and urban development in Charlotte, 1875-1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
17.
Harriss, C. L.1951. History and policies of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.
18.
Hillier, A. E. (Forthcoming). Redlining and the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation. Journal of Urban History.
19.
Hoagland, H. E.
, and L. D. Stone. 1961. Real estate finance. Homewood, IL: Irwin.
20.
Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC)
. 1934. Manual of rules and regulations of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
21.
———. 1944. Report of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
22.
Jackson, K. T.1985. Crabgrass frontier: The suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.
23.
Massey, D. S.
, and N. A. Denton. 1993. American apartheid.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
24.
Metzger, J. T. 1999. Social capitalism in American cities: Financial institutions and community development. Doctoral diss., Columbia University.
25.
———. 2000. Planned abandonment: The neighborhood life-cycle theory and national urban policy. Housing Policy Debate11 (1): 7-40.
26.
Mohl, R. A.1987. Trouble in paradise: Race and housing in Miami during the New Deal era. Prologue19:7-21.
27.
Mohl, R. A.
, and N. Betten. 1986. Steel city: Urban and ethnic patterns in Gary, Indiana, 1906-1950. New York: Holmes and Meier.
28.
Philadelphia Housing Association. 1935. Sheriff sales. In Housing in Philadelphia (in the Temple University Libraries: Urban Archives, Philadelphia Housing Association collection, series VI, box 339, folder 110), pp. 21-2.
29.
Philadelphia Realty Directory and Service. 1926-58. Philadelphia: Curtis Publishing Company.
30.
Radford, G
. 1996. Modern housing for America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
31.
Squires, G.
, ed. 1992. From redlining to reinvestment. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
32.
Sugrue, T.1996. The origins of the urban crisis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
33.
Thomas, R. W.1992. Life for us is what we make it: Building black community in Detroit, 1915-1945. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
34.
Yinger, J.1995. Closed doors, opportunities lost: The continuing costs of housing discrimination.New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
