By Meg Mering
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Featured Item: 1930s map which divided Lincoln, Nebraska into sections, rating the levels of risk for bank lenders
What is the item?
This map rated the level of risk for lenders by color. The green or aqua sections were the best areas. The blue sections were still desirable. The yellow sections were definitely declining. The sections marked in red (thus the term "redlining") were hazardous.
Interesting tidbits
- The map was largely based on poverty and racial makeup.
- The areas marked as "hazardous" were the parts of the city where African American families lived.
- In 1916, Sheridan Boulevard became the first neighborhood in Lincoln to stipulate that only "those of the Caucasian race" could buy homes. Many African Americans who lived in almost every section of downtown Lincoln were displaced as the University of Nebraska-Lincoln grew and took over properties.
Where can I find out more?
- Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=5/36.704/-99.8
- Interactive Redlining Map Zooms in on America's History of Discrimination https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/19/498536077/interactive-redlining-map-zooms-in-on-americas-history-of-discrimination
- MapMaker: Redlining in the United States https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/mapmaker-redlining-united-states
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| 1930s map rating sections of Lincoln, Nebraska for bank lenders.
Meg Mering is the Metadata Quality Librarian at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln |