Of seventeen women who had worked as house servants in their former homes, seven were found in factories, three in offices, two in stores, and five in unskilled manual labor.
Some of the transitions in occupation are especially interesting. One oil-field worker in the South had become a shoemaker. A farmer had become a postal clerk. A former superintendent of a label factory attended high school during the adjustment period and became an undertaker. One who was a schoolboy in the South worked in a hotel on coming to Chicago but became a grocer. A barber in Kansas City became first a painter in Chicago, then a janitor. A bottler from Memphis, Tennessee, went to work in the Stock Yards but became a canvasser. A farmer from Alabama worked first in the Yards and later in woolen mills.
One man was a porter in a store in Mississippi. In Chicago he became a chauffeur. A farmer from Louisiana on arriving worked as a butcher and then secured employment in a tannery. A porter in a wholesale grocery in Memphis, Tennessee, who worked first in Chicago as a lard maker in a packing-house, later became a building laborer. A preacher from Tennessee worked at Swift's packing-house until he could become established in a church.
A Mississippi plumber who served as a butter maker for a time after reaching Chicago became a contractor within three years. A hotel porter from Alabama came to Chicago in 1918 and went to work in a steel foundry and later in a soap factory. A farmer who worked on shares in Georgia tried work in the Stock Yards in Chicago, but changed to a paint shop. An Alabama man who worked in a sawmill there found a job in a steel foundry in Chicago, and later went to the Stock Yards. A man who worked in an ice plant in Texas became a railroad porter after coming to Chicago and then found a job as a butcher at the Stock Yards.
A man who began life as a bootblack in Atlanta came to Chicago in 1893 and sold newspapers until he could enter business for himself. For many years he has been a jeweler. In the South his wife was a musician by profession. To aid her husband in his struggle she worked in a box factory for a time after arriving in Chicago.
Clergymen sometimes abandon their profession for more remunerative employment. One of these came to Chicago from Boston in 1904. For a time he worked as a fireman and later in a packing-house. One who served as a waiter on first coming to Chicago became an insurance agent, and another, who was a reporter on a Negro newspaper on arrival in Chicago, became the manager of a manufacturing company.
Few migrants continued in Chicago the employment in which they worked in the South.
The family histories show that the Stock Yards industry absorbed many of the migrants, and a large number went to work in the steel mills and iron foundries, as well as in lighter manufactures.
Many Negro women have become hairdressers and manicurists after a course in a school of "beauty culture" which also teaches the use of cosmetics. Considerable skill is often required in this work, and the earnings often supplement very substantially the husband's income and may be sufficient to make an individual self-sustaining in case of need. Hairdressing is most frequently done in the homes.
An occasional teacher, cateress, or seamstress was found among the Negro women. Some of them remained in personal-service occupations, but a decided tendency was noticeable toward office and factory employment.