What has just been said sums up very briefly the whole situation regarding the efforts of Negroes to maintain themselves in the North. We wish, however, to continue this in a more specific way by making a little survey of the occupations and wages of Negro migrants in a few of the cities of the North and West. Although accurate information in this respect is meagre, yet that which will be given is undoubtedly authoritative, being based on specific studies of the labor and wage conditions of the newcomers in the cities named and which, therefore, may also be regarded as typical of the same conditions in most of the other cities not herein considered. The advanced reports of the Federal census of 1920 contain as yet no information of this sort and there were so many changes between 1918 and 1920 that it is still difficult to describe these conditions accurately.
The occupations and wages of these migrants throw further light on the situation. In Pittsburgh it was found that of 493 migrants who stated their occupations, 95 per cent were engaged in unskilled labor in the steel mills, the building trades, on the railroads, or were acting as servants, porters, janitors, cooks, and cleaners. Of this same number only 4 per cent were employed at what might be called semi-skilled or skilled work such as puddlers, mold-setters, painters, and carpenters. A further study revealed that out of 529 laborers only 59 had been doing skilled work in the South, and that of the rest a very large number had been rural workers.[126] While most of the workers were engaged in unskilled labor, their wages nevertheless were much in advance of those they had received in the South. These wages were as follows: 62 per cent of the workers received from $2 to $3 per day; 28 per cent received from $3 to $3.60 per day; and 5 per cent over $3.60 per day. The other 5 per cent of them received less than $2 per day, which was the same wage they had worked for before coming North.[127]
This same investigation also brought out the fact that many of these migrants were exercising a good deal of economy and thrift. For example, 15 per cent of 162 families had savings, 80 per cent of 139 married men with their families elsewhere were sending money home, and nearly 100, or 46 per cent of 219 single men interviewed were contributing to the support of parents, sisters or other relatives. Most of these contributions amounted each to about $5 per week. Fifty-two persons were remitting from $5 to $10 per week, while seven were sending home over $10 per week.[128]
In Detroit where Negroes were hired largely by automobile firms or by firms making parts or accessories of automobiles, some interesting conditions were observed. The large majority of those so engaged did unskilled work, whereas only a very small number were found in the skilled or semi-skilled work. Also a very large number of men and women obtained employment as domestic and personal servants. For example, during a period of one year, ending November 15, 1917, one Negro employment office in this city secured jobs for 10,000 Negro workers, both men and women. In addition, the wages paid these laborers were found to be very satisfactory. A careful study of 194 workers showed that their monthly wages ran thus: One received between $30 and $39, three between $40 and $49, six between $60 and 69, twenty-nine between $70 and $79, and ninety-six between $80 and $89, six between $90 and $99, and twenty-seven between $100 and $119, twenty-one between $120 and $129, and four $140 or more, a month. The other one of this number received a wage of $6 per day. Hence the prevailing wages of colored male workers in Detroit were from $70 to about $119 per month, since the wages of 159 of the 194 interviewed ranged between these two amounts. The prevailing wage for women was $2 per day.[129]
In 1917 a study was made of the living conditions of seventy-five families who had moved North to Chicago and who had been in this city one year. The investigation discovered that the heads of these families were employed in stockyards, Pullman service, loading cars, fertilizer plants, railroad shops, cleaning of cars and taxis, junk business, box and dye factories, foundries and hotels, steel mills, as porters, in wrecking companies, in bakeries, and in the making of sacks. Inquiry into the wage conditions of sixty-six of these workers showed that four were earning less than $12 per week, twenty-two from $12 to $14.99 per week; twenty-seven were receiving $15 per week, and five between $15 and $20 per week. Of the remaining number three were ill and five were unemployed.[130]
Shortly after the Negro migration had begun, The Associated Colored Employees of America, with headquarters in New York City, came into existence for the purpose of helping Negro misfits in Northern industries, and also to secure a proper distribution of Negro labor both in the South and in the North. This organization discovered that 2,083 Negro men and women in New York City were engaged in twelve different occupations, but that only one was employed at his calling. The rest of them were rendering menial service as porters, elevator operators, chauffeurs, waiters, common laborers, and so on. The females were employed as chambermaids, waitresses, and as workers in other unskilled occupations. Many of these workers were graduates of Hampton, Tuskegee and other industrial schools of the South, and most of them had been attracted to the North by promises of better wages, better schools and better living conditions than could be obtained in the South. Although no statement was made regarding the wages they were receiving, it is at once obvious that by being in these unskilled positions these migrants were not earning what they would have earned had they been employed at jobs of the higher type.[131]
Because of the varied and extensive industrial activities and the great demands for labor, many migrants were attracted to the State of New Jersey, and especially to the city of Newark. It is estimated that 6,000 male and 1,000 female workers were employed in the several industries of this city.[132] The male laborers were largely engaged in the ammunition plants where they received an average wage of $2.60 per day.[133] They were also employed to a great extent in the unskilled work in chemical plants, transportation, trucking, shipyard work, leather factories, iron molding, foundries, construction and team driving.[134] The females found employment in toy factories, shirt factories, clothing factories, and glue factories at an average wage of about $8 per week. In the shell-loading plants and piecework occupations, however, their wages were much higher. Besides, work was supplied them in tobacco factories, celluloid manufacturing plants, food production, leather-bag making and trunk manufacture, and in assorting cores in foundries.[135]
A survey of the labor and wage conditions among the migrants in the city of Hartford indicated that the males were employed in the factories and foundries and that most of them were doing unskilled work, although here and there a few were doing skilled work. Some had shown, moreover, that they possessed the capacity and energy sufficient to establish enterprises of their own as means of self-maintenance, for there were found among them a first-class restaurant, fine barber shops, first-class shoe shop, six grocery stores and three tailor shops for cleaning, pressing and repairing; and each enterprise was doing a thriving business. The wages of those working in the factories and foundries were $4 per day. The females, on the other hand, were employed mostly in domestic service, and their average wage was $9 or $10 per week. The girls and a few of the women were employed in the department stores as helpers and cleaners at wages ranging from $7 to $9 per week. About 250 of them were employed also as tobacco strippers and received wages of from $10 to $12 per week. Besides, the working conditions, on the whole, were reported to be very satisfactory.[138]