Progress of the Negro in Texas

[Washington, D.C.]: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1936. 8pp. Original printed self wrappers, 8 x 5 inches, printed as a ten-panel, fold-out booklet. Moderate staining and soiling, minor edge wear, short closed tear to bottom edge throughout. Good plus. A scarce pamphlet published to educate the attendees of the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition on African-American life. The work was compiled by Charles E. Hall, touted here as a "Specialist" in "Negro Statistics" on behalf of the U.S Department of Commerce. The publication features demographic data regarding the African-American population in Texas, with detailed statistics on population (with a table of census data back to 1850), birth rates, "marital condition," family size, home ownership, illiteracy, school attendance, occupations, prison populations, religion, agricultural employment ("Texas Colored Farmers"), retail store ownership, "Negro Market Areas," and "Negro Religious Bodies." The last page presents a complete list of the African American population in 1930 by county, and the penultimate page prints an advertisement for a new publication on "Negro Progress" titled Negroes in the United States 1920-1932. According to his introduction, Hall compiled the work to highlight the contributions of African Americans, who are now "celebrating, with other citizens, the Centennial of their native or adopted State." The present pamphlet appears to be one of three works on African-American life in Texas specially produced for the 1936 Centennial Exposition, along with W.E.B. Du Bois's What the Negro Has Done for the United States and Texas and the Commerce Department's A Selected List of Books By and About the Negro.