Horace R. Cayton, Jr.

Horace R. Cayton, Jr. (April 12, 1903 – January 21, 1970) was a prominent American sociologist, newspaper columnist, and author who specialized in studies of working-class black Americans, particularly in mid-20th-century Chicago. Cayton is best remembered as the co-author of a seminal 1945 study of South Side, Chicago, Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City.

Horace R. Cayton, Jr. was born April 12, 1903 in Seattle, Washington, to newspaper publisher Horace R. Cayton, Sr. and Susie Revels. His mother was daughter of Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first black American elected to the United State Senate. The Caytons maintained an upper middle-class standard of living, including a home in a wealthy, predominantly white neighborhood and employing a full-time Japanese servant. His father was active in Republican politics and had acquaintances throughout the black American intelligentsia, with the iconic Booker T. Washington one memorable house guest.

Cayton grew up in Seattle, where graduating from Franklin High School and later the University of Washington. In 1929 he moved to Chicago to attend graduate school in sociology at the University of Chicago.

In 1934, Cayton went to work as a researcher for the United States Department of the Interior, co-authoring Report on the Negro's Share in Industrial Rehabilitation with George Sinclair Mitchell in 1935.

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