Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia Caterer Thomas J. Dorsey

Perhaps no other city in post-colonial America afforded African Americans as abundant social, economic and political opportunity as did Philadelphia. In the 50 years following the American Revolution, the city became abode to the largest concentration of independent blacks in the North. on the other hand as the 19th century wore upon it became obvious that white citizens of the City of Brotherly be fond of would accept African Americans alone on certain terms. In the economic sphere, the city's growing immigrant population forced blacks on the outside of the skilled professions and likewise hindered their chances at vocation in the emerging industrial economy. Many African Americans adjusted to the contraction of their economic sphere through excelling in the service sector. Catering was single of the fields where African Americans distinguished themselves.

Philadelphia's African-American population managed to dominate the catering industry in the 19th hundred W.E.B. Du Bois, in his seminal inquiry The Philadelphia Negro (Schocken Pres 1967) declared the African-American caterers "as remarkable a trade guild as at any time ruled in a medieval city. [The caterers] took thorough leadership of the bewildered cluster of Negroes, and led them steadily upon to a degree of affluence, tillage and respect such as has probably not at any time been surpassed in the history of the black man in America." One of the wealthiest and greatest in quantity influential of these caterers was Thomas J Dorsey (1812-1875)

Born a slave in Maryland, Dorsey escaped from bondage and carved a place for himself within Philadelphia's emerging African-American elite. Like many African Americans in the 19th hundred Dorsey had made his way North as a fugitive. Although the census reported nearly 11000 independent blacks living in Philadelphia in 1810 it was estimated by means of a committee appointed by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives that there were at least another 4000 fugitive slaves seeking protection in the city.

When Dorsey arrived in Philadelphia in 1836 Pennsylvania's at liberty black community was waging a political battle against infringements of its members' political and social rights. The Pennsylvania Legislature had been debating a bill that would prohibit African Americans from migrating into the state. This bill, before the Legislature in 1832 would also require all unrestrained blacks in the state to carry identification passes. Although this bill was at no time ratified, the African-American population was given a more devastating political thwack in 1837, when the Pennsylvania chief Court reinterpreted the state constitution to gainsay free blacks the right to promised Pennsylvania's free blacks were not re-enfranchised until 1870

The tenuous position of Philadelphia's at liberty black population was further complicated by the agency of racial aggression in the city. African Americans in Philadelphia were the victims of five race riots between 1834 and 1842 alone. The majority of these attacks were instigated through newly arrived Irish immigrants, who were in direct competition with blacks for work in the limited unskilled craft sectors that free blacks had dominated.

Despite the political and social upheaval in the city during this period, the Philadelphia where Dorsey sought to live as a independent man was not entirely bleak. The 1830 saw an increase in tribe dedicated to the abolitionist crusade. The creation of the American Anti-Slavery Society; the efforts of the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society; the distribution of William Lloyd Garrison's fiery newspaper, The Liberator, and the genesis of a national black convention motion were all promising signs for Philadelphia's African-American community. The overall succes of the city's unrestrained black population can be measured to a certain extent--in its astonishing development in the early decades of the 19th hundred from 11,891 in 1820 to 15624 in 1830--an increase of above 31 percent.

After he arrived in Philadelphia, having officially won his freedom in Baltimore, Dorsey exigencyed to find employment. He first appears in Philadelphia public records in 1838 sum of two units years after his reported arrival in the city. His name is listed in A Register of Trades of the Colored nation in the City of Philadelphia and Districts, a pamphlet published through the Pennsylvania Abolition Society in 1838 In this listing of the city's African-American blacksmiths, masons and tailors, Dorsey is shown as conducting a boot- and shoemaking business at 36 N Sixth St Data assembleed in the register demonstrate that the shoemaking trade was single of the most common for the city's at liberty black men, second only to hairdressing as their greatest in quantity widely claimed form of employment

The Philadelphia City Directory, published yearly by dint of private compilers between 1793 and 1940 also reveals information about the occupations and addresses of city residents. Dorsey first appears in the 1844 directory and is listed as a waiter engageed at 3 0sbourne's Court. Further examination of the directories exhibits that Dorsey bounced around among four different eating establishments between 1842 and 1860 on the other hand he remained employed as a waiter from one extremity to the other of that period. He did not consign to himself as a caterer in the directory until 1861