CHICAGO AND ITS ENVIRONS
Chicago, the metropolis of the West, remembered in the South since
the World's Fair as a far-away city of hope from which come all great
things; unceasingly advertised through its tremendous mail order and
clothing houses, schools and industries until it became a synonym for
the "North," was the mouth of the stream of negroes from the South. It
attracted all types of men, brought them in, encouraged them and
cared for them because it needed them. It is estimated that within
the period of eighteen months beginning January, 1916, more than fifty
thousand negroes entered the city. This estimate was based on averages
taken from actual count of daily arrivals.
There were at work in this city a number of agencies which served to
stimulate the movement. The stock yards were sorely in need of men. It
was reported that they had emissaries in the South. Whether it is true
or not, it is a fact that it was most widely advertised throughout the
States of Mississippi and Louisiana that employment could easily be
secured in the Chicago stock yards district. The report was circulated
that fifty thousand men were needed, and the packers were providing
houses for migrants and caring for them until they had established
themselves. The Illinois Central Railroad brought hundreds on free
transportation with the understanding that the men would enter the
employ of the company. The radical negro newspapers published
here urged negroes to leave the South and promised employment and
protection. It is indeed little wonder that Chicago received so great
a number.
The most favorable aspect of their condition in their new home is
their opportunity to earn money. Coming from the South, where they
were accustomed to work for a few cents a day or a few dollars a week,
to an industrial center where they can now earn as much in an hour
or a day, they have the feeling that this city is really the land
overflowing with milk and honey. In the occupations in which they are
now employed, many of them are engaged at skilled labor, receiving the
same and, in some cases, greater compensation than was paid white men
in such positions prior to the outbreak of the war. Talking with a
number of them the investigator obtained such information as, that men
were working at the Wilson Packing House and receiving $3 a day; at
the Marks Manufacturing Company for $3.75; as lumber stackers at $4 a
day, at one of the rolling mills for $25 a week, and on the railroads
at $125 a month. The large majority of these migrants are engaged in
the packing houses of Chicago where they are employed to do all
sorts of skilled and unskilled labor with the corresponding
compensation.[110]
It was soon discovered that the needs of the migrants could not all be
supplied by money. Something had to be done for their social welfare.
Various agencies assisted in caring for the needs of the 25,000 or
more negro migrants who, it is estimated, have come to Chicago within
three years. The Chicago Renting Agents' Association appointed a
special committee to study the problems of housing them and to confer
with leaders in civic organization and with representative negroes.
The Cook County Association considered the question of appointing
some one to do Sunday School work exclusively among the newcomers.
The Housing Committee of the Chicago Women's Club arranged for
an intensive survey of housing conditions. The negroes themselves
organized to help the recently arrived members of the race. Negro
ministers, lawyers, physicians and social workers cooperated in
handling the problem through churches, Sunday Schools and in other
ways.[111]
The negroes residing in Chicago, who came from particular States in
the South organized clubs to look after the migrants from their
own States. The result was that an Alabama Club, a Georgia Club,
Mississippi Club, Tennessee Club and so on were formed. Committees
from these clubs met the train and helped the newcomers to find
homes and work. The chief agency in handling the migrant situation
in Chicago was the local branch of the National League on Urban
Conditions among Negroes. The work which the league did for the
migrants as set forth in the report of 1917 was of three kinds:
employment, housing and adjustment or assimilation. The policy of
the Urban League with regard to employment was to find and, where
possible, to open new occupations hitherto denied negroes. The housing
problem was urgent. The most that the league was able to do thus
far was to find lodging, to assist in finding houses. Lodging
accommodations for more than 400 individuals were personally inspected
by several women volunteers. It is impossible to do much else short of
the construction of apartments for families and for single men.
The league's first efforts to assimilate the new people started
with their entrance to the city. To see that they received proper
directions upon reaching the railroad station was an important task.
It was able to secure the services of a volunteer travelers' aid
society. This agent met trains and directed migrants to destinations
when they had addresses of relatives and friends. In the absence of
such they were sent to proper homes for lodging, and to the league
office for employment.
The great majority of negroes in Chicago live in a limited area known
as the South Side. State Street is the thoroughfare. It is the
black belt of the city. This segregation is aided on one hand by the
difficulty of securing houses in other sections of the city, and on
the other, by the desire of negroes to live where they have greatest
political strength. Previous to the migration, hundreds of houses
stood vacant in the sections of the district west of State Street from
which they had moved only a few years before, when it was found that
better homes were available. The presence of negroes in an exclusively
white locality usually brought forth loud protests and frequently
ended in the abandonment of the block by whites. The old district
lying west of State Street held the worst type of houses. It was also
in disrepute because of its proximity to the old segregated vice area.
The newcomers, unacquainted with its reputation, found no hesitancy in
moving in until better homes could be secured.
Congestion has been a serious problem only during short periods
when the influx was greater than the city's immediate capacity for
distributing them. During the summer of 1917 this was the situation. A
canvass of real estate dealers supplying houses for negroes conducted
by the Chicago Urban League revealed the fact that on a single day
there were 664 negro applicants for houses, and only 50 supplied,
while there were 97 houses advertised for rent. In some instances as
many as ten persons were listed for a single house. This condition
did not continue long. There were counted thirty-six new localities
opening up to negroes within three months. These localities were
formerly white.
An accompaniment to this congestion was the increase in rents of
from 5 to 30 per cent and sometimes as high as 50 per cent. This
was explained by landlords as a return to former standards after the
property had depreciated through the coming in of negroes. A more
detailed study of living conditions among the migrants in Chicago was
made by a student of the School of Civics and Philanthropy. The study
included 75 families of less than a year's residence. In the group
were 60 married couples, 128 children, eight women and nine married
men with families in the South.
How this large group--265 persons--fresh from a region where life
is enlivened by a mild climate and ample space was to find living
quarters in an overcrowded section of two Chicago blocks was a problem
of many aspects. A single furnished room, rented by the week, provided
the solution for each of 41 families, while 24 families rented
homes by the month, four families occupied two rooms each. In some
instances, this meant overcrowding so serious as to threaten morals
and health. The Urban League interested corporations and capitalists
in the construction of modern apartment houses with small individual
apartments. It endeavored also to have the city see the necessity
of preventing occupancy of the physically unfit houses. The league
conducted a campaign to educate the masses in regard to housing,
and payment of exorbitant rents was discouraged. The various city
departments were asked to enforce ordinances in negro neighborhoods.
In this way the league tried to reduce overcrowding and extortionate
rentals.
All of the arrivals here did not stay. They were only temporary guests
awaiting the opportunity to proceed further and settle in surrounding
cities and towns. This tendency appears to have been to reach those
fields offering the highest wages and most permanent prospects. With
Chicago as a center there are within a radius of from one hundred
to one hundred and fifty miles a number of smaller industrial
centers--suburbs of Chicago in which enterprises have sprung
up because of the nearness to the unexcelled shipping and other
facilities which Chicago furnished. A great many of the migrants who
came to Chicago found employment in these satellite places.[112]
One of these towns was Rockford, a city of about 55,000 people before
Camp Grant began to add to its population. It is estimated that there
were about 1,500 negroes in Rockford, 1,000 of whom came in during
1916 and 1917. The Rockford Malleable Iron Company, which never hired
more than five or six negroes until two years ago, has nearly one
hundred in its employ. A timekeeper, five inspectors, a machinist, a
porter, three foremen and twenty of the molders are negroes. The
Free Sewing Machine Company, Emerson and Birmingham, the Trahern Pump
Company and the two knitting factories began also to employ negroes.
The standard wage prevailed, and, while the unskilled work was largely
given to the negroes, there were instances when opportunity was given
for them to follow pursuits requiring skill.
Housing showed every evidence of congestion. The city was unprepared
for the unprecedented increase in population necessitated by the
demands of its factories for men to produce munitions of war. The
workingmen, however, were soon better provided for than in some other
cities. The Rockford Malleable Iron Company conducted two houses
for the accommodation of its employes and rented several smaller
ones.[113] This company had recently purchased a large acreage and
was considering the advisability of building houses for its employes,
including the negro migrants. The Emerson and Birmingham Company and
the Sewing Machine Company had similar plans under advisement.
The Rockford Malleable Iron Company was the first to use negroes. In
the fall of 1916 the first negro employes were brought in from Canton,
Illinois, through a Mr. Robinson then employed by the company as
a molder. There were nine molders in the group. At brief intervals
Tuskegee sent up four, then five, then eight and then six men, most
of whom had had training in machinery and molding. The total number
of Tuskegee boys was 32. Robinson also brought men from Metropolis,
Illinois, and from Kankakee. He made a trip through Alabama and
brought up 15 or 16. Most of these were laborers. Seven laborers came
as a result of correspondence with a physician from Des Moines, Iowa.
From Christiansburg, Virginia, the only negro blacksmith came. The
Urban League also sent up some men from Chicago. The company was so
pleased with the men's service that they called upon the Urban
League for more men and placed in its hands a fund for their railroad
expenses.[114]
Negroes were promoted from time to time and were used in every
department of the shop. One of the men was an inspector. Two new
machines turning out work faster than any other machine were turned
over to the negroes. All of them were given steady work without
being forced to lay off, and their wages were increased. Street car
companies and officials in Rockford have congratulated the men
upon their conduct. Two of the men who came up from the South were
purchasing property.
When the increase in negro population became noticeable, a good deal
of discrimination appeared in public places. The mayor of the
city, therefore, called a conference of the Chamber of Commerce,
of representatives from Camp Grant, hotels, skating rinks and other
public places and read the civil rights law to them. He gave them to
understand that Rockford would not stand for discrimination between
races. When some of the conferees thought they would like to have
separate tables in the restaurants the mayor opposed them and
insisted that there should be no such treatment. One restaurant, which
displayed a sign, "We do not cater to colored trade," was given orders
by the Chief of Police to take it down in fifteen minutes, when his
deputy would arrive with instructions to carry out the law in case the
sign was not removed.
Waukegan, a town thirty miles northwest of Chicago, with a total
population of about 22,000 has approximately 400 negroes, where two
years ago there were about 275. The Wilder Tanning Company and the
American Steel and Wire Company employed the largest number of these
negroes. These firms worked about 60 and 80 respectively. Smaller
numbers were employed by the Gas Company, the Calk Mill, the Cyclone
Fence Company, the Northwestern Railroad freight house and a bed
spring factory and several were working at the Great Lakes Naval
Training Station. A few found employment as porters in barber shops
and theaters. At the Wilder Tanning Company and the American Steel and
Wire Company, opportunity was given negroes to do semiskilled work.
The former was working negroes into every branch of its industry. The
average daily wage here was about $3.[115]
The secretary of the Chamber of Commerce believed that the influx
did not cause anything more than a ripple on the surface. He said: "I
cover everything when I say that, no apparent increase in crime;
no trouble among themselves; no race friction." Theaters began to
discriminate, but soon ceased. The proprietor of the Sheridan Club
stated that he took a group of men to one theater which had shown
signs of discrimination. Each man was told to purchase his own ticket.
The owner observing the scheme admitted them. Very few restaurants
refuse to serve negroes. Only one openly segregated them to a
particular part of the dining-room. Absolutely no trouble was
experienced in the schools. The police commissioner sees that the
negroes have the protection of the law.
East Chicago, an industrial center located about twenty-five
miles from Chicago with a population now made up in large part of
Hungarians, Poles, Italians and negroes, had only one negro family
in 1915. During the month of August, 1916, about 150 negroes came and
others soon followed. At present there are about 75 families, 35 or
40 children of school age and about 450 men working in the industrial
plants. The majority of these newcomers were from the rural districts
of Alabama and Georgia, with a few from Mississippi. A large number of
negroes, moreover, live in Indiana Harbor and in Chicago and work in
East Chicago.[116]
Some of the people went to Indiana Harbor for church services. During
the summer of 1917, an attempt was made to organize a church, but it
was unsuccessful and almost excited a racial conflict. The negroes
from Alabama and Georgia complained about the wickedness of East
Chicago, and declared their intentions of going home, "where they can
sing without appearing strange, and where they can hear somebody else
pray besides themselves." Few racial clashes, however, have followed.
A strike which occurred at Gasselli's Chemical Company was at first
thought to be a protest of the foreigners against the 80 negroes
employed there. Nothing serious developed from it. The only apparent
dangers were in thoughtlessness on the part of negroes in their
conduct. They were too badly needed in industry to be harshly treated
either by the foreigners or their employers.[117]
In Beloit, Wisconsin, as in other cities, it was impossible to find
out with any degree of accuracy the approximate number of negroes.
Estimates of the number ranged from 700 to 2,000, whereas, before the
influx, the black population was as low as 200. The total population
of Beloit is about 20,000. There are now two negro churches, a Baptist
and an African Methodist Episcopal. The Baptist church was said to be
made up entirely of new people. Beloit did not have a negro Baptist
preacher until the migration, and had no negro physicians. Prior to
the influx there was little discrimination, except in some of the
restaurants and occasionally in the theaters. One negro was working
at the post office, and another at the railroad station. Aside from
these, the negro men were practically all laborers and porters.
As is true in most small cities, one company took the initiative in
sending for men from the South. The Fairbanks Morse Company was the
pioneer corporation in this respect in Beloit. This company hires at
present 200 men. Most of these came from Mississippi. In fact, Albany
and Pontotoc, small towns in Mississippi, are said to have dumped
their entire population in Beloit. A few from Memphis, Tennessee,
were employed there but the company preferred Mississippians, and had
agents at work in that State getting men for its plant. It was said
to be fair in its treatment of negroes and to pay the standard
wages.[118]
Milwaukee was one of the ready recipients of negro migrants from other
points in the North. Following the outbreak of the war, the consequent
cessation of foreign immigration and the withdrawal of a number of
aliens from the labor market to follow their national colors, a large
demand for negro labor was for the first time created. Milwaukee
apparently could not attract voluntary migration, and the larger
plants were forced to import some 1,200 southern negroes to man their
industries. In 1910, the city had a negro population of 980. There are
now in Milwaukee about 2,700 negroes of whom 1,500 are newcomers, not
only from the South, but from the adjacent States of Illinois, Iowa,
Michigan and Minnesota.[119]
This migration to Milwaukee caused a number of difficulties. The first
difficulty to arise was in the relationship of the migrant to the old
residents of the city. Like the newly arrived foreigners they lived
rather "close lives," had little contact with the people of the
community and as a consequence were slow in changing their southern
standards. This lack of contact was registered in the slight
attendance in the colored churches, which are by far the most common
medium of personal contact among negroes. The leading pastors and
two others who have made unsuccessful attempts to establish churches
complained that the newcomers, although accustomed to going to church
in their old homes, "strayed from the fold" in the large city. There
was also a certain unmistakable reticence on the part of the newcomers
with respect to the negroes of longer residence. The new arrivals
were at times suspicious of the motives of the older residents, and
resented being advised how to conduct themselves. They were for the
most part not in touch with any civic agency. The migrants, therefore,
came into contact with the lower element. The recreations and
amusements of the newcomers were those which the social outcasts
furnished them.[120]
Another anomaly was to be observed in the motives behind the
migration. The most recent European immigrants, unfamiliar with the
character of the plants, having strong bodies and a disposition to
work, are engaged as unskilled laborers. They do not, of course,
remain at this level, but are continually pushed forward by later
comers. The men who filled these lower positions were not the best
type of foreigners. When the war began and this influx from Europe
was stopped, it was for these positions that the plants were forced
to seek men. Negroes were sought in the South, but, unfortunately, the
emphasis was placed on quantity and not quality. Those who were able
to move on shortest notice, those with few responsibilities and few
interests at home, were snapped up by the labor agents. This blunder
has also registered itself in the records of the city and the
character of the negro migrants. This was probably due to the fact
that little is known of Milwaukee in the South. Unlike Chicago,
Detroit, New York and other northern cities, it was not a popular
destination for voluntary migration. Agents who scoured the South for
men testified that in a large number of cases the first question asked
was whether or not Milwaukee was a wet town, for the southern States
have prohibited the sale of liquor. While Chicago got advertisement
in the South through its great mail order business, most of what was
known of Milwaukee related to its breweries.
The negroes here, however, had numerous industrial opportunities.
The manner in which the trades suddenly opened up to them made it
difficult to ascertain the number of negroes so engaged. An intensive
study of a neighborhood showed a much wider variety of skilled negro
laborers and brought to light the cases of many not otherwise known.
One man in touch with the iron workers of the city ventured the
statement that there were perhaps 75 negroes engaged in skilled work
in the iron and steel industries of the city. In a large number of
other plants one or two negroes had succeeded in finding skilled
employment. Firms known to employ negroes in the capacity of skilled
workmen are the Plankington Packing Company, Wehr Steel and Machine
Shops, the National Malleable Iron Works, A.J. Lindeman-Hoverson
Company and the Milwaukee Coke and Gas Company. For the most part
skilled negroes are butchers and molders.[121]
In the case of negroes from the South with trades, however, there
arose a situation which is seldom fully appreciated. A man in the
South may be skilled in such an independent trade as shoemaking,
tailoring, carpentry and the like, but in a northern city with its
highly specialized industrial processes and divisions of labor, he
must learn over again what he thought he had mastered, or abandon his
trade entirely and seek employment in unskilled lines. The wages for
skilled work were for butchers, 55 to 64 cents an hour; for steel
molders, 35 to 47 cents an hour; for firemen, $27 per week; for
chauffeurs, $15 to $30 a week; for shoemakers, $20 a week; stationary
firemen, $24 a week. The mass of negroes, men and women, gainfully
employed in the city was made up of manual laborers. Vacancies for
negroes in industry were made at the bottom. The range of occupations
in unskilled work, however, was fairly wide. They were packing house
employes, muckers, tannery laborers, street construction workers, dock
hands and foundry laborers. Their wages were for foundry laborers,
32-1/2 cents to 35 cents an hour; for muckers, $28 a week; for tannery
laborers, $24 a week; dock hands, 60 cents an hour; and for packing
house laborers, 43 cents an hour (male), and 30-1/2 cents an hour
(female). There were also porters in stores and janitors whose weekly
wages averaged between $15 and $18 per week.
Several firms made strenuous efforts to induce laborers to come from
the South. The Pfister-Vogel Company employed a negro to secure them
for this purpose, and made preparation for their lodging and board.
This representative stated that he was responsible for the presence
of about 300 negroes in the city. Reverend J.S. Woods of the Booker
T. Washington social settlement, who was actively engaged in assisting
the plants, asserted that he had placed over 400. The Albert Trostel
Company paid transportation for nearly 100 men.
The principal industries employing negroes with the number employed
were about as follows:[122]
Number
Firm Male Female
Plankington Packing Co. 78 10
Albert Trostel Leather Co. 75 30
Faulk's Manufacturing Co. 34
Hoffman Manufacturing Co. 2
Tunnell Construction Co. 10
Milwaukee Coke and Gas Co. 38
Pfister-Vogel Tannery 75
A.J. Lindeman-Hoverson Co. 13
National Malleable Iron Co. 22
Solvay Steel Castings Co. 24
Allis Chalmers 70
On December 1, 1917, the Plankington Packing Company employed 93 men
and 27 women. The Pfister-Vogel Company had only 75 men in its employ.
This company, however, within 18 months had employed 300 negroes from
the South.
Concerning the range of wages for negroes in these lines the data
provided by these firms gave some means of information.
Firms Male Female
Plankington Packing Co. 43c to 64c an hour 30-1/2c an hour
Faulk's Manufacturing Co. 35c to 47c an hour
Hoffman Manufacturing Co. 32-1/2c an hour
Tunnell Construction Co. $4 a day
Albert Trostel Co. 40c an hour 30c an hour
Milwaukee Coke and Gas Co. $3.67 to $4.79 a day
A.J. Lindeman-Hoverson Co. $3 to $5 a day
National Malleable Iron Co. 35c an hour to $4 a day
Pfister-Vogel Tannery $22 to $24 a week
The quality of the workingmen is of interest both to the employers and
social workers. To get uniform data employers were asked the principal
faults and principal merits of their negro workmen. To the question,
"What are the principal faults of your negro workmen?" these answers
were given:[123]
None that predominate.
The principal fault of negro workmen is, they are slow and
very hard to please.
Not good on rapid moving machinery, have not had mechanical
training; slow; not stable.
Inclined to be irregular in attendance to work.
Very unsteady.
Leave in summertime for road work.
To the question, "What are the principal merits of your negro
workmen?" these answers were given:
They are superior to foreign labor because they readily
understand what you try to tell them.
Loyalty, willingness, cheerfulness.
The skilled men stick and are good workmen.
Generally speaking they are agreeable workmen.
Quicker, huskier, and can stand more heat than other workmen.
The attitude of white and black workmen toward one another in none of
the plants visited presented anything like a serious situation. The
following are answers to questions relating to this sentiment as
returned by the important industries:[124]
No feeling--no complaints--no comments.
White and black get along well. There was a little trouble
some time ago between a Jewish foreman and his negro workmen.
All the negroes quit. The matter was investigated and the
foreman discharged.
Good.
The relations are favorable, although negroes appear a bit
clannish.
Good fellowship prevails.
Negroes do not stay long enough to get acquainted.
Good in most cases. Very little opposition. They are working
as helpers with whites. Few objections.
As a final effort to get the opinion of employers themselves
concerning the best means of improving their labor, a suggestion from
them on this matter was solicited. Their views are subjoined:[125]
A rather broad question and one that could only be answered
after considerable study. Believe the great trouble with negro
labor has been the fact that a poor class of negroes has been
employed by many. We have a good lot of workers now.
Some means should be devised to get them away from their
general shiftless ways.
Education.
As a negro can be very contented and happy on very little, if
their living conditions were improved and the desire created
in them to improve their condition, this would be a help
towards encouragement in bettering their social condition.
In fact, we feel that anything that would help to better the
social attention of the negro would make him a better workman.
Better housing and supervision through some responsible
organization. Some way to keep sympathetic watch over them.
Without doubt there is an element of truth in each of these comments.
It is unquestionably true that a large number of these men register
by their actions instability, irregularity and general shiftlessness.
Some of these cases are inexcusable, and the only reason for their
connection with the industry is the fact that they were brought from
the South, where they were voluntarily idle, by agents of employers.
The importation merely shifted the scene of their deliberate loafing
and spasmodic contact with work.
Employers in all of the plants know that they have had difficulty
in holding their negro labor, but do not know why. Most of the
men willing to leave the city were unmarried men with few
responsibilities. These are the ones who found employment there and,
being dissatisfied, quit. The highest negro labor turnover was in
the leather factories. But for this there was a reason. The only
employment permitted negroes there was wet and very disagreeable beam
work, and at wages not in excess of those paid by neighboring plants
with a different grade of work. Inquiries among laboring men reveal
reasons plausible indeed to the laborers themselves, which in many
cases would have been found reasonable also by the employers.
It is generally known that all classes of labor of all nationalities
are in an unsettled state. Shifting to the higher paid industries
is common. In consequence the disagreeable and poorly paid ones have
suffered. The instability of negroes, especially in those industries
that have been so hard pressed as to find it necessary to go South for
men, is not so much a group characteristic as an expression of present
tendencies in labor generally.
Reasons of a more intimate nature advanced by the men for changing
jobs are numerous. Among these are dissatisfaction with the treatment
of petty white bosses, the necessity for ready money for the care of
their families, the distance of the plants from the district in which
the negro workmen live[126] and the unpleasant indoor work in certain
factories.
The social condition of negroes in Milwaukee is not alarming. There
are indicated, however, unmistakable maladjustments which require
immediate attention. But even these will not become alarming, if
checked now, when preventive measures can be made practicable,
attractive and easy.
The neighborhoods in which negroes live have long showed evidence of
physical and moral deterioration. The addition of 1,400 negroes
from the South, over 70 per cent of whom were brought to the city by
companies seeking labor, hastened the deterioration and gave rise to
problems where only tendencies existed before. Neighborhood life is
conspicuously lax and the spirit of the community quite naturally
comports with the looseness and immorality of the district. Though
such conditions are plainly evident, no organized influence has been
projected to correct them. As with the neighborhood, so with housing,
crime, delinquency, education, recreation, industry, and the like,
the conditions which retard developmental habits must have constant
vigilance and treatment.
[Footnote 110: Johnson, _Report on the Migration to Chicago_.]
[Footnote 111: Ibid.]
[Footnote 112: The Detroit branch of the Urban League reported, for
example, that a great percentage of its applicants for work were from
Chicago.]
[Footnote 113: The two large houses accommodated fifty to sixty men.
One of these was known as the Tuskegee Club House and housed only men
from Tuskegee Institute.]
[Footnote 114: Johnson, _Report on the Migration to Chicago_.]
[Footnote 115: In May, 1917, the Sherman House on Genesee Street in
the heart of the city became a negro hotel. It has 19 bedrooms and
accommodates 35 men. It was poorly managed and dirty. A barber shop,
pool room and dining room were run in connection with it and were also
poorly managed. The manager of the hotel is one of the newcomers.
A rooming house and dance hall for negroes is operated in another
section of the city. The Wilder Tanning Company was building a hotel
for 50 single men and individual houses of five, six, seven and eight
rooms for families. Houses for white workmen were to be built by the
company after these were completed. Lawrence Wilder, president of the
company, stated that the building of these houses was no "experiment."
"They are being put up to stay." Hot and cold water, hot air, heat,
electric lights, and shower baths will be in the hotel. Single rooms
will rent for $1.25, double rooms $2.50 per week. No women will be
permitted to live in the hotel. A social room will be within easy
access of all occupants. No meals will be served at the hotel, but
will be served at the plant. The houses will be one and two stories
and can be purchased on a monthly basis. A street car line will
connect the plant and the subdivision.
Before the influx the Cyclone Fence Company and the Calk Mill Company
were said to have sworn never to employ negro labor. The Wilder
Tanning Company and the American Steel and Wire Company have standing
invitations for negro men with references.--Johnson, _Report on the
Migration to Chicago_.]
[Footnote 116: They were employed by the Gasselli Chemical Company,
Goldsmiths Detinning Company, the International Lead Refining Company,
the United States Reduction Company, the United States Refining
Company, Hobson and Walker's Brick Yard, the Inland Steel Foundry,
Interstate Mill, the Cudahy Soap Factory and the Republic Rolling
Mill. The Hobson and Walker's Brick Yard employed 200 and provided
houses within the yards for the families of the workmen. The
International Lead Refining Company provided lodging for its men in
remodeled box cars. Wages for ordinary labor ranged from $2.50 to
$4.50 per day. This did not include the amount that might be made by
overtime work. The brick yard employed negroes for unskilled work at
35 cents an hour. A few skilled negroes employed were receiving from
$4.75 to $7 a day.
Negroes are fairly well scattered throughout the foreign residential
section. A small area known as "Oklahoma" or "Calumet" had perhaps the
largest number. The houses were overcrowded, dark, insanitary, without
privacy and generally unattractive. All of the rooms were sleeping
rooms, usually with two beds in a room accommodating six men. Rent was
high, and ranged from $15 to $25 a month for four and five room flats
in very unattractive buildings. Single lodgers paid from $1.50 to
$1.75 a week. Restaurant rates were exorbitant and food was so high
that many of the families bought their provisions in Chicago.
There were no churches or in fact any wholesome social institutions in
town. There were many flourishing saloons. There was one colored pool
room, and one colored restaurant. On occasions, a hall belonging to
the whites was used for dances and socials.--Johnson, _Report on the
Migration to Chicago_.]
[Footnote 117: Following each pay day from twenty to thirty negroes
left for their homes in the South. Some returned when their funds were
about exhausted and worked five or six months more. Others remained at
home for the winter. "It was expected that the brick yard would lose
a very large number on the 8th of November. On the 15th of December
another large contingent leaves for the South."--Johnson, _Report on
the Migration to Chicago_.]
[Footnote 118: There was great congestion in housing, as the negroes
were restricted to certain sections with homes usually kept in
insanitary condition. A very large housing plan of the company
met with objection on the part of the white citizens who sent in a
petition to the City Council against building houses for negroes. The
City Council said they wanted the housing property for park purposes.
The matter was taken to court. The Council condemned the property but
failed to sustain the belief that it was needed for a park. Through
various methods of red tape and legal procedure the matter was
delayed. The company then built houses on a smaller scale. The plans
included two apartment houses that would accommodate six families
each. There were also in the course of erection houses for men with
families to take the place of some improvised huts which the
company had found necessary to use to facilitate the work of the
men.--Johnson, _Report on the Migration to Chicago_.]
[Footnote 119: Before 1910, 114 persons had arrived; between 1911
and 1915, 72; during 1916, 74; during 1917, 102; and during 1918, 40
persons had arrived.]
[Footnote 120: Johnson, _Report on the Migration to Chicago_.]
[Footnote 121: Johnson, _Report on the Migration to Chicago_.]
[Footnote 122: Johnson, _Report on the Migration to Chicago_.]
[Footnote 123: Johnson, _Report on the Migration to Chicago_.]
[Footnote 124: Johnson, _Report on the Migration to Chicago_.]
[Footnote 125: Ibid.]
[Footnote 126: A simple situation of this nature registers itself
without explanation against the character of negroes in the records of
the firms. The Pfister-Vogel Company had a house on Clinton Street
in which lived twenty or more negroes. This location is eight or ten
miles away from the community in which negroes live. There are no
amusements for these young men around Clinton Street. The cars stop
running at a comparatively early hour. If they go to the city they
must either come back in a taxicab or spend the evening away from
home. It is less expensive to spend the evening away. As a result they
are late for work and may not report. If they report, they are tired
and unfit for work. If they do not they are put down as irregular and
unsteady.--Johnson, _Report on the Migration to Chicago_.]