In 1869, the Negro caterers had such a large share of this business that the dozen leading ones came together and formed the Corporation of Caterers which was a sort of pool to control the conduct of the business and which was so enlarged after three years under the name of the United Public Waiters Mutual Beneficial Association, that the original purpose was largely sidetracked.[73]
There is little direct evidence available for the period from about 1875 to 1909. The census of 1900 gave a return of Negroes in occupations which may indicate proprietors of establishments, but there is no way of ascertaining whether they owned, operated or were employed in such lines of business. There were in all 488 distributed as follows: Among the males, boarding and lodging-house keepers 10, hotel-keepers 23, restaurant keepers 116, saloon keepers 27, bankers and brokers 5, livery-stable keepers 9, merchants and dealers 162 (retail 155, wholesale 7), undertakers 15, clock and watchmakers and repairers 2, manufacturers and officials 36, and photographers 22. The females included boarding and lodging-house keepers 50, milliners 9, and photographers 2. A goodly number of Negro enterprises are very probably represented in this list. That this is true is evident from the large number of enterprises in the various lines of business that were found by the canvass of 1909. We may safely infer that the period was one of considerable growth in both the number and variety of business establishments. We shall, therefore, turn our attention to the result of the canvass of the last-named year.
3. THE NATURE OF THE ESTABLISHMENTS IN 1909
The first question which naturally arises is how many Negro business enterprises were in Manhattan in 1909. At the meeting of the National Negro Business League in New York City in 1908, a paper was read on "The Negro Business Interests of Greater New York and Vicinity." This paper gave a total of 565 enterprises. But as this included 100 dressmaking and 14 stenography and typewriting, this estimate doubtless included some cases that upon closer analysis could not have been designated as business establishments.
A Negro business directory of New York City in 1909 gave names and addresses of 567 establishments. Upon investigation some of these could not be found at addresses given. From his own canvass, the writer estimates the number of bona-fide business enterprises in Manhattan to have been about 475. Of this number, records of 332 were secured and the remainder were either visited or certified by reliable testimony. Of the 332 records, 15 have been excluded either because the firm has ceased to do business or the records were too incomplete for use in this monograph; eight of the remainder were corporations and will be treated below separately. This left 309 establishments upon which to base conclusions. These establishments were so distributed as to be fully representative of the whole. According to the kind of service or goods offered to the public, these 309 establishments were as follows:
| Barber shops | 50 |
| Groceries | 36 |
| Restaurants and lunch rooms | 26 |
| Barber shops | 50 |
| Groceries | 36 |
| Restaurants and lunch rooms | 26 |
| Tailoring, pressing, etc. | 24 |
| Coal, wood and ice | 19 |
| Hotel and lodging houses | 17 |
| Employment agencies | 14 |
| Express and moving vans | 12 |
| Undertakers and embalmers | 11 |
| Pool and billiard Rooms | 10 |
| Dressmaking and millinery | 8 |
| Hairdressers | 8 |
| Printers | 5 |
| Saloons and cafés | 5 |
| Miscellaneous | 48[74] |
| Total | 309 |
Two facts are evident. The largest number of the enterprises are the outgrowth of the domestic and personal service occupations and they are mainly enterprises that call for small amounts of capital.
4. OWNERSHIP OF ESTABLISHMENTS
The Negro goes into business mainly as an independent dealer. In the large majority of cases he does not enter into a partnership and even when he does, there are rarely more than two partners. Out of the 309 enterprises in 1909, there were only 49 partnerships and 44 of these were firms of two partners only. There were only three firms with three partners each, one firm with four members and one with five members. To these may be added the eight corporations mentioned above.