Chester's neighborhoods, largely white and black middle- and working-class, were generally segregated by race, income and social status.
[1] The increase in industrial manufacturing due to economic production related to World War I brought massive and disruptive growth to Chester.
The Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. opened in 1917 to build tanker ships,[2] the idled Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works shipyard was revived as the Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation[3] and the Baldwin Locomotive Works in nearby Eddystone produced locomotives and railway gun carriages for the war.
[7] Black workers lived in filthy and overpopulated segregated work camps hastily erected near factories.
The increase in prostitution, crime and drunken behavior in Bethel Court was blamed on the black population in Chester.
[12] On July 27, the mayor of Chester, Wesley S. McDowell, ordered all hotels, pool halls and liquor stores closed; forbade the carrying of weapons and implemented a curfew after dark.
Delaware County Sheriff John H. Heyburn, Jr. declared a "state of riot" in Chester and forbade public assembly in the city.
[12] By July 30, seven people had been killed, twenty-eight suffered gunshot wounds,[16] 360 arrested[10] and hundreds treated for injuries at the hospital.