The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921

Finally, if by some means the American Federation of Labor should succeed in compelling its affiliated unions to abolish the color line in their respective constitutions and admit the Negro to full membership in their unions, the Negro will be granted a right long denied him, the right of working on terms of equality with the other race, if he can demonstrate his competence to do so. It will give him a chance to enter all of the skilled and therefore better paid trades and the opportunity to be judged on his merits in them. If this barrier of race discrimination is thoroughly broken down, moreover, there will be open to the Negro paths long closed to him, the effect of which cannot fail to elevate to an appreciable degree his status in the industrial world. Then, by enjoyment of this right, the Negro will no longer in effect be excluded from the higher type of occupations and pushed into those commonly regarded as menial and held in disdain.553

Chapter VII

THE EFFECTS OF THE MIGRATION UPON THE MIGRANTS THEMSELVES

We pass on now to the study of the effects of the movement upon the migrants themselves, or to a consideration of the behavior of the Negroes under the existing economic and social conditions in the new environment. This obviously involves an examination into the results of the efforts exerted by the newcomers in order to become adjusted to their new surroundings. In this regard the thing that was primal and most fundamental was the economic interest, or the interest of self-maintenance, which, as has been shown, was the most powerful force operating to draw the Negroes to the North. This interest was satisfied by the admittance of the Negroes in large numbers into lines of work hitherto closed to them; but these were for the most part unskilled occupations. It is estimated that of the thousands of Negroes who moved North about 90 per cent of them were engaged in unskilled work and that the other 10 per cent performed either semi-skilled or skilled labor.554 This was especially true of the Negro workers who were employed in the large steel plants in the State of Pennsylvania. In the larger establishments of this sort almost fully 100 per cent of them did common labor, while in some of the smaller plants a few were sometimes found doing labor which required some skill. When employers were asked why this was the case they generally replied in a two-fold manner: first, the Negro migrants were inefficient and unstable; and secondly, the opposition on the part of white laborers to work with Negroes prohibited their employment of them to do skilled work.555

What has just been said sums up very briefly the whole situation regarding the efforts of Negroes to maintain themselves in the North. We wish, however, to continue this in a more specific way by making a little survey of the occupations and wages of Negro migrants in a few of the cities of the North and West. Although accurate information in this respect is meagre, yet that which will be given is undoubtedly authoritative, being based on specific studies of the labor and wage conditions of the newcomers in the cities named and which, therefore, may also be regarded as typical of the same conditions in most of the other cities not herein considered. The advanced reports of the Federal census of 1920 contain as yet no information of this sort and there were so many changes between 1918 and 1920 that it is still difficult to describe these conditions accurately.

The occupations and wages of these migrants throw further light on the situation. In Pittsburgh it was found that of 493 migrants who stated their occupations, 95 per cent were engaged in unskilled labor in the steel mills, the building trades, on the railroads, or were acting as servants, porters, janitors, cooks, and cleaners. Of this same number only 4 per cent were employed at what might be called semi-skilled or skilled work such as puddlers, mold-setters, painters, and carpenters. A further study revealed that out of 529 laborers only 59 had been doing skilled work in the South, and that of the rest a very large number had been rural workers.556 While most of the workers were engaged in unskilled labor, their wages nevertheless were much in advance of those they had received in the South. These wages were as follows: 62 per cent of the workers received from $2 to $3 per day; 28 per cent received from $3 to $3.60 per day; and 5 per cent over $3.60 per day. The other 5 per cent of them received less than $2 per day, which was the same wage they had worked for before coming North.557

This same investigation also brought out the fact that many of these migrants were exercising a good deal of economy and thrift. For example, 15 per cent of 162 families had savings, 80 per cent of 139 married men with their families elsewhere were sending money home, and nearly 100, or 46 per cent of 219 single men interviewed were contributing to the support of parents, sisters or other relatives. Most of these contributions amounted each to about $5 per week. Fifty-two persons were remitting from $5 to $10 per week, while seven were sending home over $10 per week.558

In Detroit where Negroes were hired largely by automobile firms or by firms making parts or accessories of automobiles, some interesting conditions were observed. The large majority of those so engaged did unskilled work, whereas only a very small number were found in the skilled or semi-skilled work. Also a very large number of men and women obtained employment as domestic and personal servants. For example, during a period of one year, ending November 15, 1917, one Negro employment office in this city secured jobs for 10,000 Negro workers, both men and women. In addition, the wages paid these laborers were found to be very satisfactory. A careful study of 194 workers showed that their monthly wages ran thus: One received between $30 and $39, three between $40 and $49, six between $60 and 69, twenty-nine between $70 and $79, and ninety-six between $80 and $89, six between $90 and $99, and twenty-seven between $100 and $119, twenty-one between $120 and $129, and four $140 or more, a month. The other one of this number received a wage of $6 per day. Hence the prevailing wages of colored male workers in Detroit were from $70 to about $119 per month, since the wages of 159 of the 194 interviewed ranged between these two amounts. The prevailing wage for women was $2 per day.559

In 1917 a study was made of the living conditions of seventy-five families who had moved North to Chicago and who had been in this city one year. The investigation discovered that the heads of these families were employed in stockyards, Pullman service, loading cars, fertilizer plants, railroad shops, cleaning of cars and taxis, junk business, box and dye factories, foundries and hotels, steel mills, as porters, in wrecking companies, in bakeries, and in the making of sacks. Inquiry into the wage conditions of sixty-six of these workers showed that four were earning less than $12 per week, twenty-two from $12 to $14.99 per week; twenty-seven were receiving $15 per week, and five between $15 and $20 per week. Of the remaining number three were ill and five were unemployed.560

Shortly after the Negro migration had begun, The Associated Colored Employees of America, with headquarters in New York City, came into existence for the purpose of helping Negro misfits in Northern industries, and also to secure a proper distribution of Negro labor both in the South and in the North. This organization discovered that 2,083 Negro men and women in New York City were engaged in twelve different occupations, but that only one was employed at his calling. The rest of them were rendering menial service as porters, elevator operators, chauffeurs, waiters, common laborers, and so on. The females were employed as chambermaids, waitresses, and as workers in other unskilled occupations. Many of these workers were graduates of Hampton, Tuskegee and other industrial schools of the South, and most of them had been attracted to the North by promises of better wages, better schools and better living conditions than could be obtained in the South. Although no statement was made regarding the wages they were receiving, it is at once obvious that by being in these unskilled positions these migrants were not earning what they would have earned had they been employed at jobs of the higher type.561

Because of the varied and extensive industrial activities and the great demands for labor, many migrants were attracted to the State of New Jersey, and especially to the city of Newark. It is estimated that 6,000 male and 1,000 female workers were employed in the several industries of this city.562 The male laborers were largely engaged in the ammunition plants where they received an average wage of $2.60 per day.563 They were also employed to a great extent in the unskilled work in chemical plants, transportation, trucking, shipyard work, leather factories, iron molding, foundries, construction and team driving.564 The females found employment in toy factories, shirt factories, clothing factories, and glue factories at an average wage of about $8 per week. In the shell-loading plants and piecework occupations, however, their wages were much higher. Besides, work was supplied them in tobacco factories, celluloid manufacturing plants, food production, leather-bag making and trunk manufacture, and in assorting cores in foundries.565

A survey of the labor and wage conditions among the migrants in the city of Hartford indicated that the males were employed in the factories and foundries and that most of them were doing unskilled work, although here and there a few were doing skilled work. Some had shown, moreover, that they possessed the capacity and energy sufficient to establish enterprises of their own as means of self-maintenance, for there were found among them a first-class restaurant, fine barber shops, first-class shoe shop, six grocery stores and three tailor shops for cleaning, pressing and repairing; and each enterprise was doing a thriving business. The wages of those working in the factories and foundries were $4 per day. The females, on the other hand, were employed mostly in domestic service, and their average wage was $9 or $10 per week. The girls and a few of the women were employed in the department stores as helpers and cleaners at wages ranging from $7 to $9 per week. About 250 of them were employed also as tobacco strippers and received wages of from $10 to $12 per week. Besides, the working conditions, on the whole, were reported to be very satisfactory.566

Most of the Negroes who were employed in the foregoing instances had been former employees in the cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar cane, turpentine and lumber industries of the South. Their coming to the North in search of work suddenly forced them into factories, foundries, ammunition plants, automobile establishments, packing industries, and into various other forms of work which were entirely different from those to which they had been accustomed at home. Attached to these occupations was a set of mores, wholly new to the Negroes, and with which they had, first of all, to make themselves familiar. It goes almost without saying, therefore, that at the beginning the Negroes experienced much difficulty in trying to adjust themselves to these new labor conditions. Among these newcomers, moreover, there were two types of laborers, namely, those who were intelligent, industrious, and thrifty. In this class were many students and men with responsibilities, who had been carefully selected by the labor agents. The second type was composed of men who had been picked up promiscuously and transported to the North. These were for the most part single men and in habits were shiftless and undependable; and in numbers this class far exceeded the former type. It will, therefore, be of interest to know what was the behavior of the Negroes in the various industries in which they were employed.

The performance of the Negroes in this regard is well seen in the railroad and steel industries which employed many thousands of them. In these we find that the deportment of the Negro workers was such as to cause a great deal of labor turn-over. This was due largely to the fact that these concerns hired mostly single men who were shiftless and given to wandering from place to place. For example, the Pennsylvania Railroad, in 1917, after a year of importation of thousands of Negroes from the South had less than 2,000 in its employ. The Baltimore and Ohio and New York Central roads, after having done likewise, had less than 1,000 Negroes occupied. Each of these roads experienced a demand for labor and was trying to fill the depleted ranks by further importations from the South. Again, in 1917, the Erie Railroad reported that among 9,000 Negroes brought from the South during a period of six or seven months a full labor turn-over occurred every eleven days. Of this number only the first two thousand remained long enough to work out the transportation that had been furnished them. In most of these cases the Negroes, after reaching the North, remained in the railroad camps only long enough to draw a first pay or until they learned of the opportunity for higher wages in other fields. Sometimes they would not wait even long enough to try the work and quarters after their transportation had been paid, but would start at once for other places.567

The steel mills in Pennsylvania, like the railroads, also found it difficult to keep a stable Negro labor force. At the Coatesville Midvale plant it was necessary to bring in 150 new workers each week in order to keep the labor force up to the normal standard. This same plant was compelled to hire from 2,500 to 2,800 men a month to keep a steady force of 5,500 employed, and the turn-over was twice as great among the Negro as among the white workers. The Carnegie steel plant at Youngstown reported that 9,000 or 10,000 Negroes had been hired and that in the meantime it was necessary to keep hiring five men to have every two jobs filled. Even other plants paying the highest wages, moreover, were compelled to hire 200 or more per month in order to keep up a force of 600 men.568 They would not stay in one place any length of time, but continued to move in search of better wages and accommodations. They could not be persuaded in many cases to wait until pay-day for their earnings, but would not be content if they could not get some of it in advance according to their custom in this regard in the South. In behalf of this they offered the most flimsy pretexts, and often spent this money for very unwholesome things.569

Thus, in 1917, it was concluded that the Negroes were not as yet adapted to the heavy and pace-set work in the steel mills, that they were accustomed to the easy-going plantation and farm work of the South, and that it would take them some time to become adjusted. It seemed that the roar and clangor of the mills made the Negroes a little dazed and confused.

In the city of Detroit the actions of the Negroes in the industries were highly pleasing to some of the employers, whereas to others they were just the reverse. The employers held two lines of adverse criticism against the Negro as a workman. In the first place, they complained that the Negro was too slow; that he did not have the speed which the routine of efficient industry demands; and that he lacked that regularity demanded by the routine of industry day by day. In the second place, the Negro was disinclined to work out-of-doors when the cold weather set in; and, in this respect, he was considered unsatisfactory, because his labor could be depended upon only at certain seasons of the year.570

Reports from Newark, New Jersey, likewise showed that the Negroes were having trouble in adjusting themselves to the new conditions. The female migrants manifested an unadaptability to housework, being accustomed to outdoor work on the farms. In factories and freight-yards men and boys when overheated would throw off their outer clothing just as they would in the mild South, with the consequence that they were often attacked by grip and pneumonia. The unaccustomed roads and pavements and long hours of toil caused the migrants to lose many days' work. In fact, outdoor work was attended with so many hardships that the Negroes began to apply only for indoor work. Again, it is said that the fumes in munition factories made many of them temporarily ill, thus necessitating their seeking other work even at lower wages. Explosions in ammunition plants, moreover, threw many out of work and frightened away many more to other occupations which seemed more secure. Thus, these difficulties and hardships attached to their new jobs together with the strangeness of their surroundings caused the Negroes to be very irregular in the performance of their work.571

Mr. Eugene K. Jones, the executive secretary of an organization interested in the economic and social welfare of the Negroes in Northern cities, affirms that the testimony of many of the employers was to the effect that the Negroes were rather inexperienced, frequently undependable, and were of a roaming nature, being easily tempted to change their places of employment on account of such inducements as small increases in wages, shorter hours, and easier work. Nevertheless, he takes the position that enough testimony is available to show conclusively that Negro labor in the North, on the whole, was extremely promising. This position is taken on the following grounds: (1) That the Negroes were loyal to their employers; (2) that they took a proprietary interest in their employers' plants; (3) they did not either strike or become easily inflamed against their employers; (4) they were tractable; and (5), above all, most of the Negroes who proved unreliable did so because they had no hope on the job, or because they had been chosen from a group of idle loafers in some Southern city or community where real opportunity for training for the Negro is unknown.572

Next in importance among the efforts of the migrants to adjust themselves to the Northern environment was that of securing shelter. It has already been shown that the housing of the newcomers developed into a very serious problem and that unusual steps had to be taken in order to meet the emergency. It was indicated also that this unprecedented housing situation gave rise to high rents and caused much congestion or overcrowding among the Negroes. Our aim here, therefore, is simply to expand this further by means of specific examples in order to furnish a more complete picture of this housing problem, especially as it concerned the migrants themselves.

According to a report on housing conditions in Newark, New Jersey, we are informed that old dilapidated buildings, long closed as undesirable for habitation, were opened and rented to Negroes. These houses were rented out as housekeeping apartments regardless of the fact that there were no facilities for such purposes. Kitchen ranges, lavatories, baths, and toilets were either altogether absent or inadequate. In a majority of these houses no heat facilities were supplied, and the consequence was that whole families were accustomed to crowd around a small kerosene stove in stuffy rooms with no ventilation, where all the housekeeping was done, and where frequently the whole family slept together to keep warm. Furthermore, a study of fifty-three families, consisting of three hundred persons—one hundred and sixty-six of whom were adults, and one hundred and thirty-four children—showed that all were crowded into unsanitary, dark quarters averaging 4-2/7 persons per room. These families paid a total rent of $415.50, an average of $7.86 per family for these very poor quarters in the worst sections of the city.573

As to housing conditions in Pittsburgh, it is reported that of four hundred and sixty-five migrants interviewed, 35 per cent lived in tenement houses, 50 per cent in rooming houses, about 12 per cent in camps and churches, and only 2.5 per cent in what may be called single private family residences.574 It was further shown that of 157 families investigated to ascertain the number of rooms per family, 77, or 49 per cent, lived in one room each, 33, or 21 per cent, lived in two-room apartments and only 47 families, or 30 per cent, lived in apartments of three or more rooms each.575 It was discovered, moreover, that sleeping quarters were not only in bed-rooms, but also in attics, basements, dining-rooms, and kitchens. In many cases the houses in which rooms were located were dilapidated dwellings with the paper torn off, the plaster sagging from the naked lath, windows broken, ceiling low and damp, and the whole room dark, stuffy and unsanitary. In a great number of cases, also, the houses had very poor water facilities and filthy toilet conditions, because of the total absence of sewerage connections. In spite of these conditions, however, rent charges for these quarters were comparatively high.576 "As to housing conditions among the single men in this city, it was discovered that only 22 out of more than three hundred of them had individual bed-rooms. Twenty-five per cent of these lived four in a room, and twenty-five per cent lived in rooms used by more than four people. Thirty-seven per cent of them, moreover, slept in separate beds, 50 per cent slept two in a bed, and 13 per cent slept three or more in a bed."577

Still further, when the designated Negro quarters in Pittsburgh became congested, there grew up new colonies in various places elsewhere.578 In many instances the houses in these colonies were those which had been abandoned by foreign whites at the outbreak of the European War. Some of these structures had been formerly condemned by the City Bureau of Sanitation, but were opened again to accommodate the migrants from the South. For these inadequate dwelling places Negro occupants were compelled to pay comparatively high rents, which ranged from $10 to upwards of $25 per month.

An investigation made in Cleveland in 1917 revealed the fact that Negroes were living in cramped unsanitary quarters two or three families per suite, and that in this regard there was very little relief in sight. Rents had increased far out of proportion, ranging from 50 per cent to 75 per cent higher for Negro than for white tenants. There were instances in which rents had jumped from $25 to $45, from $16 to $35 and the like.579 An examination into conditions of housing in Detroit indicated that a majority of the houses were in very bad repair, many of them being actual shanties. Less than one-half of these houses were equipped with bath-rooms or inside toilets. Rents were also exceedingly high. The average rent a room of houses occupied by Negroes was $5.90, whereas the average rent a room for the city at large was only $4.25. The prevailing rent a Negro family ranged between $20 and $44 per month. It was estimated that the increase in rent of houses occupied by Negroes during eighteen months was all the way from 50 per cent to 350 per cent.580

A study of 407 families in Detroit, moreover, showed that 209 of them kept lodgers as a means of procuring money to pay the high rents. One hundred of these kept no lodgers; the other 98 were doubtful or unknown. The prevalent size of each family was from two to four persons, exclusive of lodgers; and 146 families were found living each in two or more rooms. Thus when the size of the families, consisting each of two or three persons, including lodgers, and the number of rooms occupied per family were considered, it was found that there was much overcrowding, which meant a serious hindrance to healthy and decent family life.581

In regard to the housing situation in Chicago, the Secretary of the National Urban League reported that the Negroes were living in a limited area similar to that of the most Negroes in Harlem, New York City. In the former place, the houses occupied by the migrants were the old one-family type, were unsanitary, and in a serious state of disrepair. Two years previous to the exodus 300 or more of these houses were vacant; but during the migration of the Negroes they all became occupied, many of them having been converted so as to house two or more families. The report further states that the Negro newcomers had pushed over into the white residential section and were occupying houses, vacated by the whites, at an increase of 20 per cent or more in rent. No new houses were being built, in spite of the serious demand for them. The result of this, therefore, was further excessive increases in rental rates, which greatly enhanced the tendency to overcrowd.582