Institute of Advanced Studies

The Clearing House Blues, or “Numbers” in Harlem

By Shane White, Challis Professor of History, University of Sydney

The most ubiquitous feature of Harlem life between the world wars was the game of “numbers.” Tens of thousands of wagers, usually of a dime or less, would be placed on a daily number derived from statistics put out by the New York Clearing House. The rewards of “hitting” the number, and getting paid off at 600 to one, tempted the ordinary men and women of the Black Metropolis and became a central part of the lives of African Americans who flooded into Harlem after World War 1.

This lecture was about black popular culture in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s: it is about numbers and dream books and the way this form of gambling permeated the blues, African American novels and films in these years.

Shane White is an innovative, prolific, and award-winning scholar of American and African American history. He is author or co-author of Playing the Numbers: Gambling in Harlem Between the Wars (2010), The Sounds of Slavery (2005), Stories of Freedom in Black New York (2002), Stylin’: African American Expressive Culture from its Beginnings to the Zoot Suit (1998), and Somewhat More Independent: The End of Slavery in New York City, 1770-1810 (1991).

Along with colleagues at the University of Sydney he produced the website “Digital Harlem” which Harlem won the American Historical Association’s 2010 Roy Rosenzweig Prize for Innovation in Digital History. 

Wednesday 25 August 2010