When M—— G—— came to Chicago in 1900 he thought it "the biggest place in the world and the world didn't reach much further. Life is easier here because you can make more money. Working conditions are better than in the South, but they could be better still." He worked as a butler in the South, but when he came to Chicago he got out of personal service and became a laborer in the Stock Yards. Later he went to Gary, Indiana, to the steel works, where he is earning about $40.00 a week. His wife is doing clerical work in a mail-order house and is going to night school three nights a week to learn typing.

H—— B—— with his family left Mississippi in 1916 and came to Chicago, where he found work as a coal heaver at $3.20 a day. His wife sorted paper in a junk house at $10.00 a week, and his daughter entered a canning department at the Stock Yards at $18.00 a week. When Mr. B—— was interviewed in June, 1920, he was working in the Stock Yards and earning $27.00 a week for an eight-hour day. He said he didn't have to work nearly as hard here as in the South and was earning enough money so his wife could stay at home. "In the South you had to work whether you wanted to or not unless you were very sick. White people did not work there as they do here. They made the Negro do the work. Men and women had to work in the fields. A woman was not permitted to remain at home if she felt like it. If she was found at home some of the white people would come to ask why she was not in the field and tell her she had better get to the field or else abide by the consequences. After the summer crops were all in, any of the white people could send for any Negro woman to come and do the family washing at 75 cents to $1.00 a day. If she sent word she could not come she had to send an excuse why she could not come. They were never allowed to stay at home as long as they were able to go. Had to take whatever they paid you for your work."

M—— H—— "likes the air of doing things here." He is able to earn enough to keep the family without having his wife go out to work. There are four "youngsters," the oldest being eight years old. Mr. H—— came to Chicago in 1918 from Tennessee. He complained that there was not much work for a man in his home town. He did whatever odd jobs turned up. People there were talking about the chances in Chicago, so he came here and went to work as a monument setter on the West Side. Later he found a better-paying job in a mattress factory and was able to send for his family. He is now working in a foundry and makes $35.00 a week but finds it hard to live on this. If he can go to night school he feels he will be able to earn more money.

Mrs. L—— works as an entry clerk in a mail-order house and likes everything connected with the place. She used to be a maid in a private family but says she wouldn't work in service again "for any money. I can save more when I'm in service, for of course you get room and board, but the other things you have to take—no place to entertain your friends but the kitchen, and going in and out the back doors. I hated all that. Then, no matter how early you got through work you could only go out one night a week—they almost make you a slave. You can do other work in Chicago and you don't have to work in such places."

Mrs. L—— had taught school in Atlanta, Georgia. After her husband died she had tried to get back in the school but could not. Friends here advised her to move to Chicago, so she sold her property in 1915 and came here. She got work in the Stock Yards but gave music lessons on the side to help keep up expenses. "I hated the surroundings at the Yards and the class of people who worked there, so when I had a chance to work in a mail-order house I changed. The first work here was filing. I learned it very quickly and tried so hard to make good that they made me a supervisor." She likes the freedom of the North and the opportunities to advance in work. Her ambition is to get into the public schools as a teacher.

Miss T—— S——, twenty-two years old, started to work when she was fourteen, helping her mother cook for a large family in Lexington, Georgia. Her mother died when she was about seventeen, and she continued to work in the same family about three years. Then some relatives persuaded her to come north with them in 1919. She worked as a waitress in Chicago until her cousin got her a job in a box factory. "I'll never work in nobody's kitchen but my own any more. No, indeed! That's the one thing that makes me stick to this job. You do have some time to call your own, but when you're working in anybody's kitchen, well, you're out of luck. You almost have to eat on the run; you never get any time off, and you have to work half the night, usually. I make more money here than I did down South, but I can't save anything out of it—there are so many places to go here, but down South you work, work, work, and you have to save your money because you haven't any place to spend it."

Many of those interviewed were grateful for the opportunity to work overtime at overtime rates. A number complained that they were able to spend but little time with their families, or in recreation, because they were compelled to live in districts far from the plants in which they worked, so that two, and often three, hours a day were wasted on the cars. The Negroes who had come to Chicago within the past two or three years as a rule were satisfied with conditions of work, including hours, wages, and treatment.

2. COMPLAINTS ABOUT CONDITIONS OF WORK

Among the Negroes who had lived in Chicago for a longer period the most insistent complaint was lack of opportunity for advancement or promotion. This was occasionally coupled with the complaint that foremen discriminated in favor of the white workers. In certain industries no complaint of treatment by foremen was made, while approximately 10 per cent of those interviewed in three industries (mentioned below) complained of discrimination in favor of white workers, in the distribution of work, in recognition of efficiency, or in permitting the earning of overtime rates. The industries registering the greatest percentage of complaints were: (1) foundry and iron and steel mills, (2) Stock Yards, and (3) railroad dining-car and Pullman service. The common complaints in each of these fields are considered briefly below.

Foundries and iron and steel manufacturing.—The ninety-three Negro employees interviewed in fourteen establishments in this field were of different grades of skill: fifty-nine unskilled, twelve semi-skilled, nineteen skilled, and three apprentices to skilled trades. The length of time in the plant varied from a week to twenty years (forty-one employees less than one year, and eighty less than five years). To the inquiry, "Is anything wrong with your conditions of work?" fifty answered, "No"; sixteen complained that hours were too long (in these cases the men were working a twelve-hour day and a seven-day week); ten complained of low wages; six that foremen or straw bosses were not fair in the distribution of work or of "heats"; four complained that straight-time pay only was allowed for overtime, three that working gangs were reduced without decreasing the work demanded or increasing the pay of the men who remained; one thought that Negroes were paid lower wages than white workers; one said the work in his plant was much dirtier than it need be; and two were dissatisfied because shower or locker accommodations were insufficient.