Restricted thus to a few occupations, there is a larger number of competitors within a limited field with a consequent tendency to lower an already low wage scale. In this way the limitations of occupational mobility react upon income, producing a low standard of living, the lodger evil, and social consequences pointed out below ([pp. 80], [89], [144 ff]).
To sum up the occupational condition of Negro wage-earners: The large majority of Negroes are employed to-day in occupations of domestic and personal service. This is partly the result of the historical conditions of servitude, of a prejudice on the part of white workmen and employers, which restricts them to this lower field, and of the inefficiency of Negro wage-earners for competition in occupations requiring a higher order of training and skill. The steady increase in 1890, 1900 and 1905 of numbers employed in occupations other than personal and domestic service is prophetic of a probable widening scope of the field of employment open to them.
FOOTNOTES:
[49] Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, vol. i, p. 135.
[50] Colonial Doc., i, 364.
[51] Laws of New York, 1691-1773, pp. 83, 156; Doc. relating to Colonial History of New York, vol. i, 499; ii, 474.
[52] Doc. relating to Colonial History of New York, iii, 307.
[53] Ibid., ix, 875; iv, 511; Burghermen and Freemen, collection of New York Historical Society, 1885, p. 569.
[54] Ibid., 377 (London Doc. xi); ibid., vi, 1005 (London Doc. xxxii.) "Letter from a gunner to his cousin."