Occupations

Limited Opportunities

As the South began to industrialize in the late 1800s and early 1900s, business owners excluded African Americans from skilled jobs in Southern factories, and white unions in the North discriminated against blacks as well. As a result, blacks were increasingly limited to unskilled positions in lumber, mining, and shipping industries—rural industries in need of cheap labor at remote locations. Work conditions in labor camps were poor, and wages were low.

Such conditions forced many African American women to enter the workforce in the late 1800s to provide their families with muchneeded income, a pattern that was unique to the black community. In 1870, for example, about 49 percent of black women in the nation worked, in contrast to just 16.5 percent of white women. The overwhelming majority of black women who worked held jobs in the service industry as laundresses, servants, and cooks. Although some black men and women tried to advocate for better working conditions, social barriers in the South made their efforts largely futile.

By 1900, nearly 85 percent of African Americans in the South worked as laborers, farmers, planters, farm managers, servants, waiters, and laundry workers. The comparatively lucrative building and railroad industries were still inhospitable to blacks. To escape such discrimination and low wages, African Americans in the South began to migrate to Northern cities in search of opportunities.

Northern Migration

The first arrivals in the North from the South found harsh practices of discrimination and occupational segregation, but unskilled and semiskilled jobs in stockyards, meatpacking plants, and mills were available. By World War I, about 12,000 African Americans worked as railroad porters for the Pullman Company, which hired only blacks for this service position.

During World War I, African Americans took over jobs vacated by white soldiers, but the majority of these were unskilled jobs. Regardless, the number of African Americans who held jobs in automobile plants, steel mills, and meatpacking plants increased, and wages for these positions were higher than those offered in the South. Black women held the least desirable industrial jobs, and they also worked as domestics in the homes of white employers. Very few were hired to fill coveted clerical and sales positions. Many blacks lamented the obstacles that such arrangements posed to African American family life.

During and after World War II, while male workers were again serving as soldiers overseas, large numbers of black female service workers moved into the industrial workforce, along with many white women. African American men also continued to leave agricultural jobs in favor of industry.

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