CHAPTER VII_The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921

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.[124] 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.[125]

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.[126] 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.[127]

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.[128]

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.[129]

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.[130]

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.[131]

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.[132] The male laborers were largely engaged

in the ammunition plants where they received an average wage of $2.60

per day.[133] 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.[134] 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.[135]

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.[138]

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.[139]

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.[140] 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.[141]

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.[142]

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.[143]

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.[144]

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.[145]

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.[146] 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.[147] 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.[148]

"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