Negro Economic Life

NEGRO ECONOMIC LIFE Following emancipation, in 1865, the large majority of Negroes gainfully employed were in agriculture. In 1890 there were 1,362,713 Negro agricultural labourers; in 1920, 1,192,504. In 1910 more than one-fourth of the Negro female population ten years of age and over were employed in agriculture. By thrift and hard labour the land-owning Negro farmer has arisen. Of 746,717 Negro farmers in 1900, 25.1% were owners, 0.2% managers and tenants; in 1920, of 925,708 Negro farmers, 23.5% were owners, 0.2% managers and 76.3% tenants. The value of land and buildings owned by Negro farmers in the Southern States was in 1900, and $552,178,137 in 1920.

Industrial Workers and Artisans.—Between 1850-60 there were cases of slaves manning cotton factories and working suc cessfully in iron mines, furnaces and tobacco factories. The post war development of the southern cotton mills, however, turned to white labour. The slave artisan became an important factor in the ante-bellum economic organization of the South. Even be fore the Revolutionary War Negro slaves were employed in New Jersey as iron workers, sawmill hands, wheelwrights, tanners, coopers, shoemakers, etc., and as early as 1708 white mechanics felt the competition of slaves in Pennsylvania. Employment in the North was mainly in semi-skilled and unskilled occupations, Negroes following the prevailing occupations of the locality; barbers, bakers, carpenters, clothiers, domestics, hairdressers, labourers, seamen, and waiters. There were a few physicians, clergymen, merchants and traders and saloon and restaurant keepers. As late as 1908-10, a study of Negroes at work in New York city found over 70% of the men and 89% of the women gainfully employed in domestic and personal service.

In 1900, there were in the United States 275,149 Negroes in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits, or 6.9% of those gain fully employed, and 209,154 in trade and transportation (5.2%) ; by 1920 there were 960,039 in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits and 540,451 in trade and transportation (11.2%).

In 1920 about 73.4% of the Negro population of the northern States was living in ten industrial districts where immigrant labour had largely supplied the surplus of workers prior to 1914.

In the South wages paid Negroes are generally somewhat less than those paid whites in the same occupations. In the North industrial wages are about the same for occupations to which Negroes are admitted. Negro workers are handicapped in both sections, however, by restrictions on promotion to higher jobs, by greater difficulty in obtaining employment by exclusion from unions and by less security of tenure. In the building trades and some other fields increasing numbers of Negroes have been ad mitted to unions and are thus overcoming these barriers.

The Professional Class.—In 1920 there were 19,571 Negro clergymen. Before the Civil War there were Negro teachers who conducted private schools in the North and in the South for children of free Negroes. Law and custom forbade teaching slaves.

With freedom, the greatest outreach of Negroes was for educa tion, and teachers increased accordingly. There were 29,727 Negro teachers, professors and college presidents in 1910 and 36,626 in 1920.

In 186o there were 14 physicians and a Negro dentist in Mas sachusetts; five dentists in Philadelphia and one physician in St. Louis. The number of Negro physicians, surgeons and den tists had increased to 3,555 in 1910 and to 4,819 in 1920. There were 41,324 Negroes in professional service in 1900, and 80,183 in 1920. The proportion in professional service of all Negroes gainfully employed, however, remained the same, 3.7%.

Trade and Commerce.—The Negro Year Book estimates that there were 4,000 Negroes in business in 1866. These were usually small enterprises such as those of blacksmiths, shoemakers, bar bers, tailors, caterers and hotel keepers. Here and there Negroes of marked ability developed enterprises of proportions before 186o. There were a few foundries, rope and cordage factories, drygoods and grocery stores and similar establishments. The intervening decades show slow but substantial growth. There were over 50,000 Negro business establishments in 1920 and about 70,000 in 1926.

Life insurance among Negroes has grown rapidly in

20 years and is now the largest business owned and operated by them. The first old line, legal reserve Negro life insurance company was organized in 1912. There were already several industrial life companies, and several white companies were carrying Negro risks. In 1926, there were 28 Negro companies, with business in force amounting to $243,534,500, of which $96,064,700 was old line, legal reserve, $97,018,263 industrial and $50,451,537 sick and accident insurance; and employing 9,100 Negroes as offi cers, agents and clerical force; their net income for the year of $1,509,467 and their gross assets of $11,170,191 represent finan cial resources within the Group. Fire insurance has been of recent development. The first stock company was organized in Georgia in 1919 and was merged in 1922 with the only Negro fire insurance company now existing. In 1926 this company had $200,800 capital, surplus and $371,590 total assets.

In 1926 there were about 33 savings and commercial banks exclusively of the standard stock type. There are probably be tween 3o and 5o building and loan associations, mutual savings and savings and loan or investment associations owned and oper ated by Negroes.

Property Ownership.—In 1920 in five northern cities Ne groes owned from 27% to 41.9% of the homes they occupied and in nine southern cities, from 20.2% to 40.4%. Of the Negro homes owned in 1910, there were 346,867 reported free of encumbrance and 123,044 encumbered, and 18,788 unknown.