The Negro at Work in New York City Part 2

The causes of concentration in cities are the following:

I. The Divorce of Men from the Soil.[33] The diminis.h.i.+ng relative importance of elementary wants, improvements in scientific cultivation and in agricultural machinery, and the opening of distant and virgin fields by better transportation have reduced the relative number of workers needed on the soil.

II. The Growth of Commercial Centers.[34] This went hand in hand with the Agrarian Revolution. Trade has been the basis of city founding.

The prevailing influence in determining location has been "_a break in transportation_." Where goods are transferred and where, in addition, owners.h.i.+p changes hands, urban centers grow up. Wealthy cla.s.ses arise which require others to supply their increasing and varied wants.

III. The Growth of Industrial Centers.[35] The pa.s.sage of industry from the household, handicrafts and domestic systems to that of the factory, with the invention of power machinery and modern methods of transportation and communication, draws population away from the rural districts to the industrial centers.

IV. Secondary or Individual Causes.[36] (a) The s.h.i.+fting demand for transfer of labor from agricultural to industrial production was met by the economic motive of workers. (b) Political action has influenced city growth; legislation affecting trade and the migration of labor; centralization of governmental machinery in the cities; legal forms of land tenure, _etc._ (c) Social advantages such as better education, varied amus.e.m.e.nts, higher standard of living, intellectual a.s.sociations and pursuits, draw people to urban centers, while desire for the contact of the moving crowds, for the excitement and apparent ease of city life, serve to make the rural districts distasteful.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The most comprehensive study of city growth is _The Growth of Cities in the 19th Century_, by A.F. Weber, vol. xi, _Columbia University Studies in History, Economics and Public Law_ (New York, 1899), pp. 1-478. The meaning of city and urban population is that used by Weber: An agglomerated population of two thousand to ten thousand for towns, more than ten thousand for cities, more than one hundred thousand for great cities. _Cf._ p. 16.

[2] See footnote at the end of this chapter. Weber, _op. cit._, pp.

146-154.

[3] Weber, _op. cit._, pp. 167-68; 173-74; 201-207. See also footnote at end of chapter.

[4] Twelfth Census, _Bulletin 8, Negroes in the United States_, p. 29.

[5] Weber, _op. cit._, pp. 24-27, 162.

[6] Coman, _Industrial History of the United States_, Revised edition, (New York, 1910), pp. 308-9.

[7] Kelsey, The Negro Farmer, (Chicago, 1903), pp. 5-103; _vide_ pp.

24-28. Du Bois, _The Negro Farmer_ in _Bulletin 8_, (Twelfth Census), pp. 79-81.

[8] DuBois, _op. cit._, p. 77.

[9] Kelsey, _Some Causes of Negro Emigration: Charities_, New York, vol. xv, no. 1, pp. 15-17; _cf._ DuBois, _op. cit._, pp. 73-74.

[10] _Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1909, table 143_, p.

261.

[11] Kellor. _Out of Work_, pp. 73, 83.

[12] Cf. Tucker, _Negro Craftsmen in New York_, in _Southern Workman_, September, 1907, p. 550.

[13] For statute provisions of state governments, see _Twenty-second Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, Labor Laws of the United States_, pp. 129, sec. 4165; 133-135, secs. 6345-6856; 146-147, secs.

3695-3696, 3905, 4057; 153, secs. 5357-58, 5383; 155-56; acts of 1901, no. 101, secs. 1-3; acts of 1905, no. 49, secs. 1-3; 157-59, act no.

219, sec. 1; act no. 225, secs. 7-18; 278, secs. 2530, 2641-42; 281, sec. 3233-34; 291, sec. 4732; 495-501, secs. 1350, 2722-2739A; 706, sec. 2139; 1228-29, secs. 2717-2720; 1231-32, secs. 338, 358; 1251-52, secs. 3794, 4339-42; 1339-40, sec. 3657D. _Vide_ also, _Digest and Summaries of Certain Cla.s.ses of Laws Affecting Labor_,--_Mechanics'

Liens_, pp. 37-38, 43, 44, 49, 50, 55, 61-62, 70-72, 74.

[14] The laws referred to are framed in terms of the regulation of contracts of employment, violation of contract, and contracts of employment with intent to defraud. Breach of contract in either set of cases is usually a misdemeanor (criminal act instead of a civil tort) with a penalty of fines (or imprisonment in Florida). Often in practical operation, they place the tenant and farm laborer at the discretion or mercy of the landlord. The writer has made repeated visits to many rural communities in Ala., Ga., Fla., Miss., and La., and has observed how these legislative measures serve as barriers to thrift among the landless Negro farmers. A number of the youths have expressed their conviction that since their fathers and mothers have acc.u.mulated nothing after years of labor on the land, they do not intend to stay on the plantation to repeat the process. For provisions of statutes: See Commissioner of Labor, _op. cit._, pp. 133-34, secs.

6845-46; 147, sec. 5030; 284, chaps. 703-704, secs. 1146-1148.

[15] _Economic a.n.a.lysis of American Prejudice_, by Dr. Wm. L. Bulkley, in _The Colored American Magazine_, July, 1909, pp. 17, 19. 20-21.

[16] _Cf. Darkest America_, by Kelly Miller in _New England Magazine_, April, 1904.

[17] _Vide_ Hoffman, _The General Death Rate of Large American Cities_, 1871-1904, in _Quarterly Publications of the American Statistical a.s.sociation_, new series, vol. x, no. 73, March, 1906. Mr.

Hoffman says: "While the general death-rate is of very limited value for the purpose of comparison in the case of different localities, it is, I am satisfied, after a very careful investigation and much experience, of quite considerable value in making local comparison of the present health conditions with the past."

[18] _Op. cit._, pp. 5-8. The cities are Baltimore, 1871-1904; New Orleans, 1871-1904; District of Columbia, 1876-1904; Louisville, Ky., 1890-1904; Memphis, Tenn., 1876-1904.

[19] _Op. cit._, pp. 7-8. (Italics are mine.)

[20] In the _Biennial Report of the Board of Health of New Orleans, La., 1906-1907_, this diagram of Mr. Hoffman is reproduced with the following comment: (p. 113) "The colored mortality has not only been excessive, but has borne no relation whatever to the white mortality curve, being on the ascending scale at times when the white mortality was clearly on the decrease." A comparison with Mr. Hoffman's words about the two death-rates quoted above and a glance at the curves supply sufficient commentary upon this biased view.

[21] _Mortality Among Negroes in Cities_, Atlanta University Pubs., no. 1, (Atlanta, Ga., 1896), p. 51; _vide_ pp. 21-25; and 2nd ed., 1903, pp. 11-15.

[22] _Annual Reports of the Health Department of the City of Richmond, Va._, 1906, p. 22; 1907, p. 34; 1908, pp. 39-40.

[23] _Cf._ Ray Stannard Baker, in _American Magazine_, Feb. and March, 1908, and _Following the Color Line_, (New York, 1909), pp. 54-55.

[24] For a large body of facts and opinions on this point see _Atlanta University Pubs., no. 8_, pp. 64-79; 108-110; 154-190. Personal observation during residence of the past twelve years in Louisville, Ky., Memphis and Nashville, Tenn., Atlanta, Ga., Chicago, and New York, and during visits to Baltimore, Md., Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., Norfolk and Richmond, Va., Savannah and Augusta, Ga., Chattanooga, Tenn., Birmingham and Mobile, Ala., New Orleans, La., and smaller cities has afforded the author of this essay considerable opportunity to know at first-hand this phase of Negro city life.

[25] _Atlanta University Pubs., no. 9, Notes on Negro Crime: Crime in Cities_, by M.N. Work (Atlanta, Ga., 1904), pp. 18-32; _cf._ pp.

49-54. _Vide_ also Kellor, _Experimental Sociology_, pp. 250 _ff._

[26] _Op. cit._, p. 22.

[27] _Ibid._, pp. 26-29 _pa.s.sim._

[28] _Op. cit._, p. 32.

[29] Philadelphia is the only city which has had adequate study.

_Vide_ DuBois, W.E.B., _The Philadelphia Negro_, (Philadelphia, 1889) and Wright, R.R., Jr., _The Negro in Pennsylvania, a Study in Economic History_ (Philadelphia, 1912).

[30] _Vide_ Weber, _op. cit., pa.s.sim._

[31] _Ibid._, 232 _ff._; 241 _ff._; 283 _ff._; 346-364, _pa.s.sim._

[32] A suggestive study on this phase of the city problem has been published recently: _Industrial Causes of Congestion of Population in New York City_, by E.E. Pratt, Ph.D., (New York, 1911), pp. 5-262.

[33] Weber, _op. cit._, pp. 161-169; 223.

[34] _Ibid._, pp. 171-173; 181-182; 223-224.

[35] Weber, _op. cit._, pp. 184-191.

[36] _Ibid._, pp. 210, 213-222.

CHAPTER II