PUBLIC LECTURE: The Clearing House Blues, or �Numbers� in Harlem
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A free public lecture by Shane White, Challis Professor of History and Australian Professorial Fellow at the 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, then, is 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.
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