{"id":135,"date":"2024-12-03T14:17:27","date_gmt":"2024-12-03T19:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/?p=135"},"modified":"2024-12-03T14:17:27","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T19:17:27","slug":"why-did-black-migrants-go-to-the-rust-belt-and-why-did-they-choose-some-cities-over-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/?p=135","title":{"rendered":"Why did black migrants go to the Rust Belt, and why did they choose some cities over others?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div style=\"min-height:492px\" id=\"datawrapper-vis-GFJC4\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\" defer src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/GFJC4\/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\" data-target=\"#datawrapper-vis-GFJC4\"><\/script><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/GFJC4\/full.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/noscript><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Great Migration, from the early 1900&#8217;s into the 1940&#8217;s, saw a dramatic shift of the American black population away from the South and towards northern cities. The industrial steel towns of the Rust Belt were prime destinations for these migrants, and the populations of the 4 cities in the chart above increased most dramatically over many other northern towns. But why were population increases greater in Milwaukee and Cleveland in this map? Why did eastern seaboard cities have still greater black migrant population increase? And what factors led to the migration to the north in the first place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"min-height:524px\" id=\"datawrapper-vis-FMmFc\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\" defer src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/FMmFc\/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\" data-target=\"#datawrapper-vis-FMmFc\"><\/script><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/FMmFc\/full.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/noscript><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It would seem counterintuitive at first that the map of the data from 1910-1940 shows that the percentage increase of black migrants was larger in the comparatively smaller cities of Cleveland and Milwaukee, there were more jobs and space for black migrants in Chicago and Pittsburgh, but if we look at charts of the actual numbers of steelworkers by race, we can see that the greater <em>percentage <\/em>increase in these towns is due to the almost nonexistent black population in Cleveland and Milwaukee before 1910. Pittsburgh and Chicago saw greater numerical growth, if not percentage growth. As figure 2 shows, percentage increase was greater in the larger towns earlier, even with the miniscule population of black workers in the smaller cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"min-height:297px\" id=\"datawrapper-vis-mfVVm\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\" defer src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/mfVVm\/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\" data-target=\"#datawrapper-vis-mfVVm\"><\/script><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/mfVVm\/full.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/noscript><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"min-height:496px\" id=\"datawrapper-vis-r29CM\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\" defer src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/r29CM\/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\" data-target=\"#datawrapper-vis-r29CM\"><\/script><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/r29CM\/full.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/noscript><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The question then becomes, why did black migrants move to these towns specifically, and how did the causes of the exodus more broadly shape where black migrants went? The industrial steel towns, Chicago in particular, had long recognized the need for labor, particularly labor that was willing to work in dangerous conditions and was less willing to cause unrest by organizing and striking. As discussed in my post on this site about steelworkers opportunities and ethnicities, the initial way for steel magnates to avoid labor troubles was to hire immigrants, they made up a disproportionate chunk of the steel workforce, as can be seen in Figure 3. But even in these early days, black workers were also seen as a labor force that could be hired to avoid these issues, according to the account by Alfred B., the son of a black migrant steelworker who grew up in Homestead, his father worked through the famous Homestead Steel Strike of 1895, showing that many black workers were excluded from white unions, and could therefore be used as replacement labor in a strike.<sup><a href=\"#footnote_1_135\" id=\"identifier_1_135\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-identifier-link\" title=\"&ldquo;B., Alfred, April 21, 1976, Tape 1, Side 1.&rdquo; Migrant Voices. Accessed December 3, 2024. https:\/\/digital.library.pitt.edu\/islandora\/object\/pitt%3A31735073054458-01\/viewer.\">1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These magnates made deliberate efforts to encourage black migration in these early days, industries put advertisements in black newspapers in the south advertising work in the north, and many black folks chose to take these opportunities. They wrote back home and their telling of the relatively more tolerant conditions in the north and the better pay than jobs in the south encouraged even more migration.<sup><a href=\"#footnote_2_135\" id=\"identifier_2_135\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-identifier-link\" title=\"The Chicago Commission on Race Relations. The negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a race riot. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1923.\">2<\/a><\/sup> The industrial jobs in these cities were migration pull factors, but in the case of Chicago specifically, the multiple rail lines leading from the south directly to Chicago facilitated black migration to the city.<sup><a href=\"#footnote_3_135\" id=\"identifier_3_135\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-identifier-link\" title=\"The Chicago Commission on Race Relations. The negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a race riot. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1923. pg 87\">3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"min-height:278px\" id=\"datawrapper-vis-GNMZg\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\" defer src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/GNMZg\/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\" data-target=\"#datawrapper-vis-GNMZg\"><\/script><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/GNMZg\/full.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/noscript><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"min-height:309px\" id=\"datawrapper-vis-KXRj2\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\" defer src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/KXRj2\/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\" data-target=\"#datawrapper-vis-KXRj2\"><\/script><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/KXRj2\/full.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/noscript><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These factors continued to influence black migration, but the smaller growth in these cities compared to eastern seaboard towns still needs to be explained. The main reason, as can be seen in the two charts above, is the Great Depression. Steel jobs declined dramatically, and this stifled the pull factor of industrial jobs in the North. Black migrants were more likely to look for employment elsewhere, and there were other pull factors like a search for educational opportunity<sup><a href=\"#footnote_4_135\" id=\"identifier_4_135\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-identifier-link\" title=\"The Chicago Commission on Race Relations. The negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a race riot. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1923. pg 83\">4<\/a><\/sup> that could be better served in larger cities like New York. And though it was limited, the better pay and conditions allowed for some black migrants to experience upward mobility, these people would find better conditions and experiences in more upscale black neighborhoods, like Harlem in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Overall, Black migrants came to these steel cities to find work, and this was encouraged by the industries in these towns, to increase a strike-proof labor force. These workers rote back home and encouraged more people to follow them north, and this led to a greater increase in black migration to the North generally. When industrial jobs dried up during the Depression, the push factors of Southern discrimination and the pull factors of educational opportunity still encouraged migration, but the steel cities no longer were the most attractive option for black migrants without good industrial jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Works Cited<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Chicago Commission on Race Relations. <em>The negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a race riot<\/em>. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1923.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cB., Alfred, April 21, 1976, Tape 1, Side 1.\u201d Migrant Voices. Accessed December 3, 2024. https:\/\/digital.library.pitt.edu\/islandora\/object\/pitt%3A31735073054458-01\/viewer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">U.S Census Bureau, 1910 Census: Volume 4. Population, Occupation Statistics,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.census.gov\/library\/publications\/1914\/dec\/vol-4-occupations.html\">https:\/\/www.census.gov\/library\/publications\/1914\/dec\/vol-4-occupations.html<\/a>&nbsp;,Accessed 09\/25\/2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">U.S Census Bureau, 1920 Census: Volume 4. Population, Occupations,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.census.gov\/library\/publications\/1923\/dec\/vol-04-occupations.html\">https:\/\/www.census.gov\/library\/publications\/1923\/dec\/vol-04-occupations.html<\/a>, Accessed 09\/26\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">U.S Census Bureau, 1930 Census: Volume 4. Occupations, by States. Reports by States, Giving Statistics for Cities of 25,000 or More,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.census.gov\/library\/publications\/1933\/dec\/1930a-vol-04-occupations.html\">https:\/\/www.census.gov\/library\/publications\/1933\/dec\/1930a-vol-04-occupations.html<\/a>, Accessed 09\/27\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">U.S Census Bureau, 1910-1940: Data on Percentage increase of black population in U.S cities. Compiled and cleaned by Dr. Erin Bush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n<ol class=\"footnotes\"><li id=\"footnote_1_135\" class=\"footnote\">\u201cB., Alfred, April 21, 1976, Tape 1, Side 1.\u201d Migrant Voices. Accessed December 3, 2024. https:\/\/digital.library.pitt.edu\/islandora\/object\/pitt%3A31735073054458-01\/viewer.<span class=\"footnote-back-link-wrapper\"> [<a href=\"#identifier_1_135\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-back-link\">&#8617;<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><li id=\"footnote_2_135\" class=\"footnote\">The Chicago Commission on Race Relations. <em>The negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a race riot<\/em>. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1923.<span class=\"footnote-back-link-wrapper\"> [<a href=\"#identifier_2_135\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-back-link\">&#8617;<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><li id=\"footnote_3_135\" class=\"footnote\">The Chicago Commission on Race Relations. <em>The negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a race riot<\/em>. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1923. pg 87<span class=\"footnote-back-link-wrapper\"> [<a href=\"#identifier_3_135\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-back-link\">&#8617;<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><li id=\"footnote_4_135\" class=\"footnote\">The Chicago Commission on Race Relations. <em>The negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a race riot<\/em>. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1923. pg 83<span class=\"footnote-back-link-wrapper\"> [<a href=\"#identifier_4_135\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-back-link\">&#8617;<\/a>]<\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Great Migration, from the early 1900&#8217;s into the 1940&#8217;s, saw a dramatic shift of the American black population away from the South and towards northern cities. The industrial steel towns of the Rust Belt were prime destinations for these migrants, and the populations of the 4 cities in the chart above increased most dramatically&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-projects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsonlarsen.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}