In the early twentieth century, education legislation was often passed based on arguments that new laws were needed to force immigrants to learn English and "Americanize." We provide the first estimates of the effect of statutes requiring English as the language of instruction and compulsory...

In the early twentieth century, education legislation was often passed based on arguments that new laws were needed to force immigrants to learn English and "Americanize." We provide the first estimates of the effect of statutes requiring English as the language of instruction and compulsory...

Immigration to democratic nations generates new groups of potential voters. This paper investigates how the electorate share of immigrant groups influences their likelihood of becoming politically mobilized, focusing on the mechanism of coalition formation with the Democratic Party. Using newly...

We estimate the impact of piped water and sewers on property values in mid-19th century Chicago. The cost of sewer construction depends sensitively on imperceptible variation in grade, and such variations in grade delay water and sewer service to part of the city. This delay provides...

Cities in the United States dramatically expanded spending on public education in the years following World War I, with the average urban school district increasing per pupil expenditures by over 70 percent between 1916 and 1924. We provide the first evaluation of these historically...

Housing is the most important asset for the vast majority of American households and a key driver of racial disparities in wealth. This paper studies how residential segregation by race eroded black wealth in prewar urban areas. Using a novel sample of matched addresses from prewar American...

During the late 1930s, the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) created a series of maps designed to summarize spatial variation in the riskiness of mortgage lending in different neighborhoods. The HOLC maps, in conjunction with contemporaneous maps produced by the Federal Housing Agency (FHA),...

Recent work has argued that zoning is responsible for racial segregation, disparities in public goods provision, growing regional inequality, and exploding housing costs in productive areas. However, the slow-moving nature of land regulation's effects suggests a crucial need for historical...