II. THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO INDUSTRIES IN 1910 AND 1920
Of the Negro population of 44,103 in Chicago in 1910 the gainfully occupied numbered 27,317. The distribution of this number, according to industrial classification, is given in Table XIX, which shows that 60 per cent of all such Negroes were engaged in domestic and personal service, as compared with 15 per cent in manufacturing and 3 per cent in clerical occupations.
| Industries | Both Sexes | Percentage | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing and mechanical | 4,071 | 15 | 3,073 | 998 |
| Transportation | 1,852 | 7 | 1,849 | 3 |
| Trade | 1,241 | 5 | 1,148 | 93 |
| Public service | 224} | 4 | {224 | 0 |
| Professional | 963} | {640 | 323 | |
| Clerical occupations | 934 | 3 | 771 | 163 |
| Domestic and personal service | 16,389 | 60 | 9,426 | 6,963 |
| Agriculture, mining, and unclassified | 1,643 | 6 | 1,306 | 337 |
| Totals | 27,317 | 100 | 18,437 | 8,880 |
1. METHOD AND SCOPE OF INVESTIGATION
To discover the industries in Chicago which were employing Negroes in appreciable numbers in 1920, preliminary questionnaires were sent to 850 employers compiled from lists furnished by: (1) the Chicago Association of Commerce (covering 591 establishments, with a total of 350,000 employees); (2) the Employment Department of the Chicago Urban League; (3) the Illinois Free Employment Bureau; (4) the Federal Employment Bureau; and (5) the classified telephone directory.
Questionnaires were returned by 460 establishments of 850 to which they were mailed. We are satisfied that the replies received cover the field of Negro labor, and that no establishments of importance in this field have been overlooked. Table XX shows the results:
| Negroes Employed | Number of Establishments | Total Negroes Employed |
|---|---|---|
| No Negroes | 264 | 0 |
| Less than five Negroes | 59 | 111 |
| Five Negroes or more (manufacturing) | 69 | 12,854 |
| Five Negroes or more (non-manufacturing) | 68 | 9,483 |
| Totals | 460 | 22,448 |
Answers came from 156 manufacturing establishments employing fifty-one or more wage-earners. The representative character of this group is indicated by the fact that over three-fourths of the total wage-earners in Chicago engaged in manufacturing in 1914 were employed in factories of this class. The United States Census of Manufactures for 1914 reported the total number of wage-earners employed in manufacturing in Chicago in that year as 313,710; of this number, 244,827, or 78 per cent, were employed in 1,032 establishments employing fifty-one or more wage-earners. The 156 questionnaires therefore represented 15 per cent of the 1,032 establishments in this class (in 1914) and included 107,403 wage-earners, or almost 44 per cent of the total wage-earners in this class and 30 per cent of the total wage-earners engaged in manufacturing in 1914.
Questionnaires reporting Negro employees were returned by 104 manufacturing establishments of all classes. Of these, sixteen employed one to fifty wage-earners, representing a total of 435 wage-earners; and eighty-eight employed fifty-one or more wage-earners, representing a total of 78,919 wage-earners.
Since thirty-five of the manufacturing establishments reporting Negro labor (or 33 per cent of the 104 so reporting) employed less than five Negroes each, or a total of seventy Negroes in all, while sixty-nine employed 12,854 Negroes, or 99.4 per cent of the total Negroes reported by manufacturing establishments, it seemed advisable in this report to consider only those employing five Negroes or more, in order not to give undue weight to conditions where only a relatively few Negroes were concerned. A similar situation was disclosed by the returns furnished by non-manufacturing establishments, and the returns from twenty-four employing a total of forty-one Negroes have been disregarded in this report in order to give proper weight to conditions in the sixty-eight employing five or more Negroes which reported a total of 9,483 Negroes.[56] The combined number of establishments, both manufacturing (69) and non-manufacturing (68), employing five or more Negroes each was 137.