This problem was begun with the idea that the Negro housing problem existed in Blacksburg as in many other cities and towns all over America. The Negro population here was thought to be decreasing as in many rural areas and small towns. Lack of Housing was given as the chief cause of this migration because the financial status of the local Negro was considered to be very good This lack was thought to be due chiefly to the unwillingness of white persons to sell property to the colored. / Master of Science

<p>Montgomery County, Virginia, is a southern Appalachian county founded in 1776. Throughout the county's antebellum history, as with most other regions of the South, four major population groups were visibly present. There were slaves, free blacks, white slaveowners, and white non-slaveowners. Little research has previously been conducted on the antebellum people of the Appalachian South. This work is a social history consisting of cross tabulations of data found in the county's manuscript census reports for 1850 and 1860. County court records also provide much useful information on the people and their activities before the Civil War. Together they form an invaluable source of information on antebellum mountain life as a forgotten segment of southern society. </p> / Master of Arts