1896- Poverty as a Cause of Mortality

In “Poverty as a Cause of Mortality,” (1896) Rosa Morehead Bass discusses how the conditions of poverty lead to disease and death amongst black families, particular in the city. “The manner in which they live breeds discontent, hatred and envy, and consequently they fight, kill each other, and rob and murder the more fortunate. Their misery is one of the devil’s workshops and they are his tools,” she writes of the working class, illustrating the divide between the black elite and the race as a whole (31).