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In the two decades between 1910 and 1930, over
ten percent to the Black population of the United States
left the South, where the preponderance of the Black
population had been located, and migrated to northern
(5) states, with the largest number moving, it is claimed,
between 1916 and 1918. It has been frequently assumed,
but not proved, that the majority of the migrants in
what has come to be called the Great Migration came
from rural areas and were motivated by two concurrent
(10) factors: the collapse of the cotton industry following
the boll weevil infestation, which began in 1898, and
increased demand in the North for labor following
the cessation of European immigration caused by the
outbreak of the First World War in 1914. This assump-
(15) tion has led to the conclusion that the migrants’ subse-
quent lack of economic mobility in the North is tied to
rural background, a background that implies unfamil-
iarity with urban living and a lack of industrial skills.
But the question of who actually left the South has
(20) never been rigorously investigated. Although numerous
investigations document an exodus from rural southern
areas to southern cities prior to the Great Migration.
no one has considered whether the same migrants then
moved on to northern cities. In 1910 over 600,000
(25) Black workers, or ten percent of the Black work force,
reported themselves to be engaged in “manufacturing
and mechanical pursuits,” the federal census category
roughly encompassing the entire industrial sector. The
Great Migration could easily have been made up entirely
(30) of this group and their families. It is perhaps surprising
to argue that an employed population could be enticed
to move, but an explanation lies in the labor conditions
then prevalent in the South.
*About thirty-five percent of the urban Black popu-
(35) lation in the South was engaged in skilled trades. Some
were from the old artisan class of slavery-blacksmiths.
masons, carpenters-which had had a monopoly of
certain trades, but they were gradually being pushed
out by competition, mechanization, and obsolescence,
(40) The remaining sixty-five percent, more recently urban-
ized, worked in newly developed industries---tobacco.
lumber, coal and iron manufacture, and railroads.
Wages in the South, however, were low, and Black
workers were aware, through labor recruiters and the
(45)Black press, that they could earn more even as unskilled
workers in the North than they could as artisans in the
South. After the boll weevil infestation, urban Black
workers faced competition from the continuing influx
of both Black and White rural workers, who were driven
(50) to undercut the wages formerly paid for industrial jobs.
Thus, a move north would be seen as advantageous
to a group that was already urbanized and steadily
employed, and the easy conclusion tying their subse-
quent economic problems in the North to their rural
background comes into question.
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