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Abstract
The levels and trends of the United States black mortality are among the important issues which have occupied social scientists since the Civil War. In the present research an attempt is made to estimate the adult mortality of the black population in the period 1870-1900 utilizing recently-developed techniques for processing incomplete or defective death registration data. The estimates are presented in the form of expectation of life rather than mortality rates.
In Chapter II the estimates obtained from the techniques that use dealth statistics by age and assume population stability are presented. Chapter III contains the estimates arrived at from the use of the techniques that do not require stability but still utilize the death statistics by age. These results are compared with the estimates obtained in Chapter II. An attempt is made to estimate the mortality levels and trends utilizing the techniques based on population age distributions only, without use of death statistics. These estimates are given in Chapter IV.
Finally, a summary of the results is given in Chapter V with a comparison to previous estimates and estimates for the white population for the same period. After a thorough study and careful scrutiny, a final estimate of expectation of life at age 10 is given for each decade. These estimates are then interpreted in the light of the socioeconomic conditions of the United States black population that prevailed before and after emancipation.
The estimates indicate a slight deterioration of adulthood mortality during the period, though the decline ceased towards the end of the 19th century. While the drop in the expectation of life at age 10 for the entire period was 1.70 years for males and 1.81 for females, the drop between 1880-1890 and 1890-1900 was .16 for males and .60 for females.
