The Negro at Work in New York City Part 1

The Negro at Work in New York City.

by George Edmund Haynes.

PREFACE

This study was begun as one of the several researches of the Bureau of Social Research of the New York School of Philanthropy, largely at the suggestion of Dr. Samuel McCune Lindsay, the director, to whose interest, advice and sympathy its completion is largely due. Sincere thanks are due the Bureau for making the investigation possible.

The material was gathered between January, 1909, and January, 1910, except about four weeks in August, 1909, during the time that I was pursuing studies at the School of Philanthropy and at Columbia University.

The investigation necessarily involved many questions concerning the personal affairs of many Negroes of New York and it is a pleasant duty to acknowledge the unvarying cheerfulness with which they rendered a.s.sistance in securing the facts.

I wish to acknowledge especially the help of Dr. William L. Bulkley in making possible many of the interviews with wage-earners, of Dr.

Roswell C. McCrea for criticism and encouragement in preparation of the monograph, and of Dr. E.E. Pratt, sometime fellow of the Bureau of Social Research; Miss Dora Sandowsky for her careful and painstaking tabulation of most of the figures. They should not be charged, however, with responsibility for any of the errors that may be detected by the trained eye.

The study as now published is incomplete. Part I, the Negro as a Wage-earner and Part II, the Negro in Business, were to be supplemented by Part III, the Negro in the Professions. But the time absorbed in gathering the material for the first two parts prevented the securing of a sufficient amount of personally ascertained data for the third; it seemed best to concentrate on the first two for the sake of thoroughness.

The summaries following the data on the several points and at the end of each chapter, and the conclusion at the end of the volume contain some repet.i.tions which may be open to criticism, but they have been retained with the hope of making the monograph useful to those who wish to know the conclusions from the succession of figure upon figure and percentage upon percentage, without necessarily going through these details. At the same time, anyone who may wish to weigh the inferences in the light of the facts has the details before him.

Conditions among Negroes in Philadelphia have been adequately studied in the work of Dr. W.E.B. DuBois and Dr. R.R. Wright, Jr. It is to be hoped that some time soon the need of similar inquiries in other cities--East, West, North and South--may be realized and that provision may be made in this way for the guidance of the growing impulses of those who wish to better conditions in urban centers.

I am aware that there are good reasons for criticism of these pages.

But what has been done was done in the search for the truth, that the enthusiasm of reform may be linked with the reliability of knowledge in the efforts to better the future conditions of the city and the Negro.

GEORGE EDMUND HAYNES.

FISK UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TENN., APRIL 1, 1912.

PART I

THE NEGRO AS A WAGE EARNER IN NEW YORK CITY

CHAPTER I

THE CITY[1] AND THE NEGRO--THE PROBLEM

The city of to-day, the growth of the past century, is a permanent development. Dr. Weber has effectively treated the history, nature, causes and effects of the concentration. He shows[2] that the percentage of urban population has varied in different countries; and that this is due mainly to the varying density of population and to the diverse physical features of the countries which have been differently affected by the Industrial Revolution and the era of railroads. The causes of this concentration have been the divorce of men from the soil, the growth of commercial centers, the growth of industrial centers, and such secondary and individual causes as legislation, educational and social advantages.

In the United States, city growth has been affected by all of the several causes that have operated in other countries, modified at times and in places by exceptional influences.[3]

In the discussions concerning the Negro and his movement cityward, it is often a.s.sumed that his migration is affected by causes of a different kind from those moving other populations; or that it is not similar in respect to the movement of the white population under similar conditions; or that the concentration can result only in dire disaster both to himself and to the community into which he moves.

Such facts as are available suggest that these a.s.sumptions are ill-founded. The efforts that are being put forth to improve rural conditions and to advance agricultural arts among Negroes are highly commendable and effective. The thesis of this chapter is that, notwithstanding improvements resulting from these efforts for rural districts, wherever similar causes operate under similar conditions, the Negro, along with the white population, is coming to the city to stay; that the problems which grow out of his maladjustment to the new urban environment are solvable by methods similar to those that help other elements of the population.

In the first place, so far as we know now, the general movement of the Negroes, speaking for the South, does not seem to have been very different from that of the whites. Professor Wilc.o.x says,[4]

It is sometimes alleged that the migration to cities, which has characterized nearly all countries and all cla.s.ses of population during the last half century, has affected Southern whites more than Southern negroes, and that the latter race is thus being segregated in the rural districts. That such a movement may have gone on, or may now be in progress, in parts of the South can neither be affirmed nor denied on the basis of the present figures, but it may be said with some confidence that, as a general statement applied to the whole South, it is not correct.

To be sure the negroes const.i.tute 32.6 per cent of the population of the country districts in the entire South and only 30.9 per cent of the city population, but an examination of the figures (Census 1900) for the several divisions and states will show that what is in some degree true of the South as a whole is not true of most of its parts.

Therefore, it is of importance to note that the movement of white and Negro populations toward cities tends to be coincident. We may get some indication of these movements of white and Negro populations cityward by comparing the growth of their numbers in the princ.i.p.al Northern and Southern cities from 1860 to 1900.

The Negro population has shown a greater increase than the white in each southern city taken separately for the entire period, 1860 to 1900, but together the movement of the white and Negro populations was similar except between 1860 and 1870. That fourteen of the southern cities show an excessive proportional increase of Negro population between 1860 and 1870 is probably due (1) to the very small proportionate Negro population in each of these cities in 1860, the Negroes being almost entirely in the rural districts, and (2) to the exceptional influences following the Civil War which uprooted the rural Negro population that was proportionately larger than the white.

The truth of this is corroborated by the per cent of increase by decades for these southern cities taken together. Comparisons with the white population in Northern cities were not made because of the influence of foreign immigration of whites. The per cent of increase of the populations in Southern cities from 1860 to 1870 were white 16.7 per cent, Negro 90.7 per cent; from 1870 to 1880, white 20.3 per cent, Negro 25.5 per cent; from 1880 to 1890, white 35.7 per cent, Negro 38.7 per cent; from 1890 to 1900, white 20.8 per cent, Negro 20.6 per cent; from 1900 to 1910, white 27.7 per cent, Negro 20.6 per cent. That is, when the proportion between the urban and rural populations of blacks and whites becomes normal, and exceptional influences no longer bear upon the Negro, the two populations show about the same rate of increase in their migrations to these Southern cities. The percent of increase of the Negro population for eight Northern cities (counting all the boroughs of New York City as now const.i.tuted as one) was as follows: 1860-1870, 51 per cent; 1870-1880, 36.4 per cent; 1880-1890, 32.3 per cent; 1890-1900, 59.2 per cent. The larger liberty of Northern cities was coupled with the economic call of better wages. And this probably may account for the fact that Southern cities show an increase of whites of 7.7 per cent more than of Negroes between 1900-1910. The migration to both Southern and Northern cities is graphically ill.u.s.trated in the accompanying diagram.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Diagram I: PER CENT INCREASE OF WHITES AND NEGROES]

Both the diagram and the table support the conclusion that the movement of the white and Negro populations to these cities have been similar under similar conditions and influences.

In like manner such statistics as are available show that the causes that have concentrated the white population in urban centres have operated likewise to send the Negro thither.

I. The Divorce of the Negro from the Soil.--With other rural populations improvements in agriculture have made fewer workers necessary. In the case of the Negro, the main moving force from the rural districts since 1860 has been the breaking down of the old regime. The decades from 1840 to 1890, except 1870 to 1880, or the period of the "industrial paralysis" after the panic of 1873, were decades of remarkable urban growth in the United States.[5] The first two decades of this time were the years of violent slavery agitation.

Then followed the Civil War and the boon of freedom, which gave rise to an unusual mobility of Negro labor. The inevitable _Wanderl.u.s.t_ which sudden social upheaval entails was increased by Ku-Klux terrorism and the breaking down of the slave plantation system.[6]

Thousands of the wandering freedmen flocked to the Union army posts which were located in towns and cities.

This was only the beginning. The landless freedman furnished occasion for the creation of the share-tenant and crop-lien systems. In many cases these handicaps often became intolerable under dishonest merchants, unscrupulous landlords, and ill-treatment by overseers.[7]

All this tended to loosen the hold of the Negro tenant upon the soil.

Simultaneously with these dominant forces in agriculture, another began to be felt. The one crop of cotton or tobacco taxed the land in many sections year after year until it was worn out. In 1899, 70.5 per cent of Negro farmers reported cotton as the princ.i.p.al source of income. Tobacco formed the princ.i.p.al source of income of 16 per cent of Negro farmers in Virginia, of 30.1 per cent in Kentucky and of 18.7 per cent in Maryland.[8] Compared with the growing industrial pursuits, these old agricultural lands no longer offer attractive returns.[9]

Again, where thrift, improvement in agricultural methods and knowledge develop, just as among other farmers, there begins to be a surplus of hands to the cultivator, and Negroes turn toward better paid employment in the urban centres.

It is true that there are large uncultivated, virgin areas of the Southwest, especially in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, that are calling loudly for farm labor. The population these areas can support is very considerable and the returns to labor are better than in many of the older agricultural sections. Granting this, the tendency of modern civilization and improvements in facilities for transportation favors the urban centers. So that migration is easier toward the city than away from it or toward these untilled agricultural areas. _The Negro is in the population stream._

II. The Migration of the Negro to Industrial and Commercial centers.--A study of the growth of the Southern cities shows influences at work similar to those of other sections. Statistics of manufactures of the United States Censuses are not altogether conclusive or reliable, but they measurably indicate conditions. We turn to these records for light upon the Southern situation.

A study of the value of manufactured products of sixteen Southern cities shows that there was a marked increase during the twenty-five years from 1880 to 1905. The industrial centers, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Birmingham, Alabama, have come into prominence in the decade, 1890-1900, and show an increase in value of products of 17.8 per cent and 78.9 per cent respectively. The comparatively small increase during 1890-1900 for Richmond, Va.; Charleston, S.C.; Augusta and Savannah, Ga., and Mobile, Ala., was probably due to unknown local causes and to a reaction during the industrial crisis of 1892-1894 from the excessive increases of the preceding decade. Yet these cities along with nine of the others show remarkable increase in the total value of products for the entire twenty years from 1880 to 1900.

Richmond, with an increase of 39 per cent and Savannah, with an increase of 90.3 per cent, were the only cities which had an increase of less than one hundred per cent in value of products during the score of years from 1880 to 1900. The total increase in value of products from 1880 to 1900 for 14 of the cities (Chattanooga and Birmingham being omitted) was 143.3 per cent. The following comparative statement in Table II shows the increase in the value of products of manufactures in sixteen Southern cities from 1880 to 1905, and gives the detailed figures which are the bases of the preceding conclusion. (See p. 21.)

Along with the increase of production has gone the growth in the average number of wage-earners in manufacturing establishments. Each city made a decided advance in the average number of wage-earners in manufactures during the twenty years from 1880 to 1900. In that period, out of fourteen cities, two increased over 300 per cent in the average number of wage-earners, two cities increased over 240 per cent in the average number of wage-earners, five cities increased over 100 per cent and the remaining five cities showed an increase of 76.3 per cent, 57 per cent, 39.8 per cent, 18.8 per cent, and 7.5 per cent respectively. Chattanooga, Tenn., and Birmingham, Ala., from 1890 to 1900 increased 5.2 per cent and 105.6 per cent respectively. Omitting these, the other fourteen cities taken together increased in the number of wage-earners during the twenty years from 1880 to 1900, 60.9 per cent. Table III, which follows, brings into full view this large and constant increase in the average number of wage-earners in manufacturing establishments, exclusive of proprietors, salaried officers, clerks, _etc._

The industrial pull of Southern cities, then, is shown both by the increase in the average number of wage-earners and in the total value of manufactured products.

There is no reason to doubt that commercial enterprise has operated and kept pace with industrial activity in causing the growth of these urban centers. Figures for the trade of these sixteen Southern cities are not available. However, we have side lights upon the commercial life in the amount of railroad building that has taken place in the South since 1860. In 1860, there were only 8,317 miles of railroad in the thirteen states from Maryland and Delaware to Arkansas and Texas.

In 1900, there were 46,735.86 miles in the same territory, an increase of 461.9 per cent. From 1900 to 1905 this increased to 55,239.22 miles or 18.2 per cent in the five years.[10] Likewise the traffic operations, including total tonnage, and freight, pa.s.senger, express and mail earnings of selected groups of railways covering most of this territory, increased very rapidly from 1890 to 1900. In the ten years, from 1890 to 1900, the tonnage increased from 63,597,120 tons to 121,180,317 tons or 90.5 per cent; and total earnings went from $113,616,184.45 in 1890 to $168,606,233 in 1900, an increase of 48.4 per cent in ten years.

As these industrial and commercial forces affect the population, the Negro without doubt shares to a considerable extent the influence.

That the Negro has been a large labor factor in the South is a patent fact. All the data available indicate that he has been affected by economic influences similar to those which have moved the white population toward the urban centers.

The most decisive set of facts is the growth in the number of whites and Negroes in gainful occupations in Southern cities. The census returns of 1890 and 1900 for a number of Southern cities were sufficient for an inference. For some occupations figures for 1890 were not available, and in other occupations some cities were not reported in 1890. So a selected list of occupations was taken.

The comparisons of those occupations selected are striking. Among the males, for domestic and personal service occupations, from 1890 to 1900, the white wage-earners increased 42.3 per cent and the Negro wage-earners increased 31.1 per cent. Here we see the influence of the growth of wealthy cla.s.ses in the industrial and commercial centers, who require increasing numbers to supply their developing wants. In trade and transportation occupations, while the number of white wage-earners increased 25.2 per cent from 1890 to 1900, the Negro wage-earners increased 39.1 per cent during the same decade. For the same period, in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits, the white workers increased 6.1 per cent and the Negro workers increased 12.1 per cent. This indicates the dependence of the growing industry of the South upon its black male workers and shows how strong upon them is the economic pull.