The infamous “security maps” made in the 1930s by the Home Loan Owners’ Corporation (HOLC), rating supposed mortgage lending risk in urban neighborhoods across the United States, have long been considered the quintessential expression of racist redlining policy. However, a number of misunderstandings and unwarranted speculations about how these maps were made and used have proliferated. Using previously unexamined correspondence, this article establishes that HOLC could not have used the maps for loan denials, did share them with the Federal Housing Administration but not with private industry, and highly improvised their production with numerous methodological inconsistencies, including with regard to race.

长期以来，人们一直认为，房屋贷款所有者公司（HOLC）在1930年代制作的臭名昭著的“安全图”对美国城市社区中的抵押贷款风险进行了评级，这是种族主义的改组政策的典型代表。然而，关于如何制作和使用这些地图的许多误解和无端的猜测激增了。通过使用以前未经审查的信函，本文确定了HOLC无法将这些地图用于拒绝贷款的情况，确实与联邦住房管理局共享了这些地图，但没有与私营企业共享，并且在生产方法上存在许多方法上的不一致之处，包括种族方面的高度不一致。