Progressive-Era Racism and Another ‘Blaming the Victim’ Narrative: Thomas Nixon Carver’s “Make the Name ‘N*gger’ Honorable” (1905)

Abstract

This note reproduces a brief article by Thomas Nixon Carver, a leading Progressive Era American economist on what was then called the ‘Negro Question’. This virtually unknown piece represents a striking in-stance of blaming the victim for her/his condition which is to be found in the economic literature of the period.