Chapter IV, which deals with the endeavors of John Woolman to

emancipate and elevate the Negro race, will be of unusual help to students of Negro history. Around Woolman and his coworkers, beginning in 1760, centered the effort toward the liberation of the race, which engaged the attention of the Friends, especially during the struggle for the rights of man. Carrying the doctrine of natural rights to its logical conclusion, Woolman was among the first to insist that Negroes had a natural right to be free both in body and mind. To this end, therefore, he bore testimony against slavery wherever he traveled in this country and abroad; and down to the close of his career he lived up to the conviction that all men are born equal before God "Who hath made of one blood all nations that dwell upon the face of the earth."

NOTES

Miss A. H. Smith, who during the last seven years has served the Association as Office Manager and Assistant to the Secretary-treasurer, has recently retired from the service. The Association is immeasurably indebted to Miss Smith for the faithful service which she has rendered the cause, and it will be difficult to fill her position. Although offered opportunities for earning a larger stipend elsewhere, she remained with the Association because of her interest in the work which it has been prosecuting. The Association wishes her well and earnestly hopes that she may be welcomed in some other field of usefulness.

The American Catholic Historical Society has announced a prize of $100 offered by this society for the best historical essay on the subject "Catholic Missionary Work Among the Colored People of the United States (1776-1866)." The prize money has been donated by the Most Rev. Sebastian Messmer, Archbishop of Milwaukee.

All persons who are interested in the welfare and progress of the Negroes of the United States are eligible to compete for the prize under the conditions specified by the Society. The conditions are:

The subject must be treated within the years specified (1776-1866). Although the history of Catholic missionary activity among the colored people of this country during the colonial period is not barred, the essays shall be judged upon their value for the years 1776-1866.

The essays shall be typewritten on one side of the page only, and shall not be less than 4,000 words and may not exceed 8,000 words.

All essays entered for the prize must be received by the Secretary of the American Catholic Historical Society, 715 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, not later than December 1, 1923.

Each essay shall be signed with a motto and accompanied with a sealed envelope marked on the outside with the same motto and enclosing the writer's name and address.

The committee appointed to act as judges for the competition is composed of: the Rev. Peter Guilday of the Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C, Chairman; Dr. Lawrence Flick, of Philadelphia; Thomas F. Meehan, associate-editor of "America," New York; Dr. T. W. Turner, of Howard University, Washington, D. C.; and the Rev. Joseph Butsch, S. S. J., of St. Joseph's Seminary, Baltimore.

An arrangement has been made whereby contestants seeking guidance in research work in the preparation of the essay can obtain aid by writing to the chairman of the committee of judges.

* * * * *

The Oxford University Press has published a history of _The Partition and Colonization of Africa_, by Sir Charles Lucas. This work includes the territorial rearrangement resulting from the recent war.

Through _East and West_, London, S. B. de Burgh Edwardes has published _The History of Mauritius, 1507-1914_. A Mauritian himself, he has had every opportunity to write a readable and interesting volume.

_The History of the Conquest of Egypt, North Africa, and Spain_, by Ibn Abd Al-Hakam, is now being published through the Yale University Press in its Oriental Series. This work is the earliest account of Mohammedan conquests extant. It is edited from manuscripts in London, Paris and Leyden, by Professor Charles C. Torrey.

Herbert Jenkins, London, has brought out _The Mad Mullah of Somaliland_, by Douglas J. Jardine, an officer of the British administration in Somaliland from 1916 to 1921.

_The Royal Chronicle of Abyssinia_, an extract translated from the Ethiopic Chronicle in the British Museum by H. Weld Blundell, has been published by the Cambridge University Press.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SPRING CONFERENCE OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF NEGRO LIFE AND HISTORY HELD IN BALTIMORE, APRIL 5TH AND 6TH, 1923

The conference enjoyed the welcome and hospitality of Morgan College where the morning and afternoon sessions were held on the 5th, and of the Baltimore Public School System, the Druid Hill Avenue Branch of the Young Men's Christian Association, and the Bethel A. M. E. Church, which provided for the day sessions of the second day and for both evening sessions. The success of the meeting was due in a large measure to the cordial reception given the Association by Dr. J. O. Spencer, the president of Morgan College, and by Dr. Pezavia O'Connell and Dean L. M. McCoy. Mr. Mason A. Hawkins, Dr. Frederick Douglass, Dr. A. L. Gaines, and Mr. S. S. Booker willingly cooperated in the same way with respect to the meetings in the city.

The first session was held at Morgan College on Thursday at 11 A.M. Dr. Pezavia O'Connell, who presided, delivered an able address impressing upon the students of the institution the importance of the work undertaken by the Association. He was then followed by the officers of the Association, who outlined in detail the history, the purposes, and the achievements of the organization. Other remarks were later made by Miss Georgine Kelly Smith, who proved to be a very effective speaker in directing attention to certain neglected aspects of Negro life.

At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the officers of the Association assembled with the faculty of Morgan College in a joint meeting to acquaint the instructors with the plans and procedure of the Association and to secure their cooperation in the extension of this work through some local organization which may direct its attention to the collection of Negro folklore and to the preservation of the records of the Negroes in Maryland. Much interest was aroused and steps were taken to effect such an organization.

The first evening session was held at 8 o'clock on the same day at Bethel A. M. E. Church in the city of Baltimore. On this occasion the Spring Conference was welcomed to the city by Mr. Mason A. Hawkins, the principal of the Colored High School, who briefly discussed the importance of the work and the opportunity which it afforded Baltimore for becoming better informed as to what is being done for the uplift of the race through this scientific effort. The response to this address was made by President G. A. Edwards of Kittrell College. He made a favorable impression upon the audience by directing attention to the importance of securing the cooperation of a large number of persons with an intelligent interest in the race. He emphasized the fact that such a significant task should not be neglected and left to the sacrifices of the few persons of vision who, without adequate support, may unduly toil in the prosecution of this task and thus fail to succeed because of bearing a burden which should be shared by all.

The principal addresses of the evening were delivered by Dr. J. O. Spencer, Dr. C. G. Woodson and Dean Kelly Miller. Dr. Spencer discussed the subject "Thinking Straight on the Color Line." He deprecated the lack of information on the Negro and showed how, in the midst of ignorance as to the actual achievements of the race, persons have learned to hate men of color because they are not acquainted with them. To remedy the situation, then, there must be a universal interest in the study of Negro life and history. Dr. Woodson sketched in brief the record of the Negro from time immemorial, mentioning the important contributions of the race to civilization and the necessity for the study of this record to inspire the race with a hope of greater achievement and to disabuse the mind of the white man of the idea of racial superiority. Dean Kelly Miller spoke on the worthwhile qualities of the Negro. His aim was to show that every race has in it certain elements which are peculiar to that group, thus giving it in this respect a chance to make a contribution which can come from no other source. He, therefore, emphasized the importance of encouraging the best in all races and giving to each every possible opportunity for development. Among the exceptional qualities which he ascribed to the Negro are patience, meekness, the gift of music, the sense of art, response to religion, and brotherly love.

The first session of the second day was held at 1 o'clock P.M., at the Douglass Theatre. This occasion was that of an assembly of the members of the Association, together with the students and faculty of the Baltimore Colored High School and other members of the local teaching corps. The important address was delivered by Professor John R. Hawkins, president of the organization. The purpose of this discourse was to outline in the simplest and most effective way possible the necessity for children knowing more about themselves and about their ancestors. The speaker endeavored to show how the achievements of the Negro have been omitted from the textbooks studied by the youth in the public schools so as to impress the Negro with the superiority of other races and the so-called inferiority of their own. These students were urged, therefore, to avail themselves of the opportunity to become acquainted with this neglected aspect of history through supplementary reading in the home, in clubs, and in literary circles. How this would stimulate the mind of the youth and inspire them to greater achievement through knowledge of the distinguished service of others of their race in the past, was eloquently emphasized by the speaker. Some remarks were made by President G. A. Edwards of Kittrell College and Dr. C. G. Woodson.

At 3 o'clock P. M. the Spring Conference assembled at the Druid Hill Avenue Branch of the Y. M. C. A. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss Negro history from the various points view of the teacher, the minister, the editor, and the professional man. The discussion was opened by Mr. L. S. James, principal of the Maryland Normal and Industrial School, with a brief survey of the situation in Maryland with respect to the development of the Negro schools and especially in the matter of teaching Negro history. His very informing address was well received. Then, appeared Mr. G. Smith Wormley of the Myrtilla Miner Normal School, Washington, D. C. He presented Negro history from the point of view of the teacher. He treated the matter pedagogically, setting forth the purpose of the teaching of history and at the same time urging upon his hearers the necessity for teaching the leading facts of Negro history by correlating them with the topics of history as it is now offered in the schools. His illuminating discourse made a favorable impression and evoked discussions from various persons.

Among those prompted to speak were Mrs. N. F. Mossell of Philadelphia, who spoke of history from the point of view of the child, showing how necessary it is to supply the young people with elementary reading matter, serving as a stepping stone to the teaching of the more difficult phases of the record of the Negro. Dr. George F. Bragg explained how the minister is concerned with the history of the Negro and briefly summarized the important contributions of Negro ministers not only to the history of the race, but to the preservation of its records. Mrs. Ella Spencer Murray expressed her interest in the work and outlined how each one might aid the movement by soliciting members and subscribers throughout the country, especially among white persons who may be neutral or indifferent as to what the Negro has achieved.

Mr. S. W. Rutherford, the Secretary-Treasurer of the Association, delivered a short address to point out how by organized effort, with courage and concentration, the movement may be further promoted and the work expanded throughout the country by cooperating with the Director who should and must have the support of all interested in the Negro. Bishop John Hurst then mentioned briefly the necessity for more publicity, and expressed his interest in securing a fund adequate to the employment of a staff to popularize the work and increase the income of the Association. Dr. Thomas E. Brown, of Morgan College, delivered a short address emphasizing the necessity for a more scientific study of the records and directing attention to the undeveloped possibilities of the race which cry for the attention of those scholars with the necessary training to treat the records of this group scientifically.

The session closed with an address by Ex-Congressman Thomas E. Miller of South Carolina. He proved to be an attractive figure at the sessions of the Association, being a man well advanced in years, one who served in local offices during the Reconstruction and finally reached Congress. He restricted his remarks to the discussion of the free Negro prior to the Civil War, the class to which he himself belonged. He asserted that many free Negroes were never known. Because of the fear of disclosing their status, many of them were recorded as slaves. In the same way, some of their important achievements were kept in secret for the reason that freedom of conduct in their case was proscribed by public opinion. Furthermore, he stated that they were often misunderstood because they are reported as having hated the slaves. He then explained the relations of the free Negro to the whites and to the slaves, bringing out how they were subjected to punishment for associating with the bondmen, and, therefore, became estranged from them by the processes of safeguarded instruction in the caste system of the South.

At the second evening session at the Bethel A. M. E. Church, two important addresses were delivered. The first one, "Hints on Race History from an Old Book" by Prof. Leslie P. Hill, proved to be unusually instructive. This discourse was based upon Abbé Grégoire's _Litterature des Nègres_, intended to emphasize the unusual achievements of the Negroes as a proof that because of their superior intellect they were entitled to freedom. Mr. Hill directed very little attention to the characters well known in this country, restricting his remarks largely to those who rose to prominence in European countries where their records have never been studied to the extent of impressing the historians of this country.

Then appeared Dr. William Pickens, the Field Secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who delivered a very enthusiastic address on "Negro History in the Public Schools." Dr. Pickens showed not only how uninformed the white people are as to the record of the Negro, but that the race itself knows very little of what it has achieved. He briefly mentioned a number of instances connected with the local history of Maryland, of which the people themselves living on the very soil on which these events took place, knew nothing. He then adversely criticized the attitude of the public school systems toward the teaching of Negro history and urged his hearers to take seriously the question of memorializing and influencing educational authorities to incorporate into their courses of study textbooks on Negro history setting forth the truth as it is. He urged, moreover, that in the meantime while such a battle is being waged to reach this end, the Negroes themselves should through clubs and literary circles make a systematic study of such works.

* * * * *

THE JOURNAL

OF

NEGRO HISTORY

VOL. VIII., NO. 4 OCTOBER, 1923

ABRAM HANNIBAL, THE FAVORITE OF PETER THE GREAT

Abram Hannibal, more commonly known as the "Negro of Peter the Great," or "Peter's Negro" was one of the quaintest figures in the Russian history of eighteenth century. From slavery to mastership and riches his peculiar fate led him. He began his life under yoke in Africa but died a general and wealthy landlord of the frozen North, leaving his children and grandchildren to be prominent in the politics and literature of Russia.

The name of "Peter's Negro," no doubt, belongs to history; but comparatively little is known of him, many important details of his biography being still incomplete and unascertained. Outside of the Russian sources there were Hannibal's own memoirs, written in French, but not long before his death Abram burned them. About the beginning of nineteenth century there appeared Hannibal's biography in German, written by a certain Helbig (_Russische Gunstlinge_), but hardly anything trustworthy could be learned from this work. As far as we know, nothing was ever published of "Peter's Negro" in English. Even the Russian sources are mainly official records and dry documents, not of a great historical value, if of any. The best information about Hannibal may be obtained from the unfinished novel _The Negro of Peter the Great_ (1827) and other works by Pushkin, Hannibal's great-grandson, the famous writer and founder of the modern school of nineteenth century literature in Russia.

Some of later historians doubt many of the assertions of Pushkin, holding that, great as the poet was, he nevertheless was subject to the common human weakness of exaggerating one's forefathers' merits. The important facts of his career, however, have been learned. In the year 1705, as for many years before and after, thousands of Negroes were made prisoners and brought from the interior to the coasts of the dark continent to be shipped to the slave markets of America and Asia. Among others there was a little boy, barely eight years of age, whom Arabs, his masters, called Ibrahim. He was sold to the Turks and, the same year, brought to Constantinople. His fate could be easily guessed. He was wanted for a slave in a rich Turkish home, or perhaps an overseer in a harem. He became the latter after being brutally handled.

But at that time Savva Ragusinsky, a Russian nobleman, after a short stay in Turkey was preparing to leave for his home country. He wanted to bring a present of some kind to his Czar Peter, the stern reformer of Russia, afterwards called "the Great." Ragusinsky knew the Czar's love for curious objects and thought nothing better than two live black boys could win him Peter's favor. The Czar had at his court many servants of different races, brought to St. Petersburg from all over the world, but only a few Negroes were among them.

Ragusinsky bought or, according to some documents, simply stole several Negro boys, who only a few months before were brought to the slave-shacks of Sultan Selim II. One of these, who started on a long trip to their new Northern home, was the little Ibrahim. The Czar liked the rare present and almost from the beginning distinguished Ibrahim from other slaves. The boy was unusually bright for his age. He quickly picked up the Russian language and alphabet, and before long began to feel that the court of St. Petersburg was his home. Peter kept Ibrahim in his apartments, and Ibrahim accompanied the Czar in latter's journeys through Russia and foreign countries, not as a servant but rather as one of the family. When because of the war of Russia with Sweden, Peter had to be constantly with his army, Ibrahim shared with his friend-master all the dangers and privations of bivouac-life.

In 1707, while in Vilno, Ibrahim was christened in Orthodox faith. His father-in-Christ was the Czar himself, who was assisted in this task by the Polish queen, the wife of King Augustus. The little Negro was given a new name of Peter, but he cried and refused to answer it, preferring his old Arab name. The Russians, however, could not get used to the strange Oriental sound and called him Abram instead of Ibrahim. His surname--Hannibal--was given to him by the Czar in memory of the famous Carthaginian.

In 1716 Peter went on his second tour of Western Europe with Hannibal as usual accompanying him. Among other countries they visited France, and here Hannibal was left to begin his studies more seriously. Hannibal, then 19 years old, showed fair capacity for mathematics and physics. Supplied by the Czar with money and other means of assistance, he entered a military engineering academy in Paris, where he remained for about 2 years. He joined the French army afterwards, which was then engaged in the war against Spain, and participated in many battles. He proved to be an able engineer and a good commander. In one of the battles--"an underground combat," as it is related in an eighteenth century document--Hannibal was wounded in the head, but not dangerously, and was brought back to Paris.

Hannibal stayed in Paris till 1723, communicating with the Czar by letters which are preserved in St. Petersburg state archives. Hannibal complained in them that the Russian treasury and Peter himself almost completely forgot about him, compelling him to live in great poverty on the verge of starvation. If he could obtain no allowance, Hannibal wrote, he would have to walk from Paris to Moscow, begging alms on the way.

Pushkin, however, asserts that his great-grandfather while in Paris was well provided for by Peter with money and had an unlimited opportunity to mingle in the French society circles. His appearance aroused curiosity; his wits, education and war record respect. His black curls with a bandage over them--his wound did not heal completely for a long time--could be frequently seen amid white wigs of the French aristocrats. He was well received in the best salons of Paris, being everywhere known as "le nègre du Czar." The Duke of Orleans, who as a regent ruled over France at that time, favored Hannibal with his attention and when in 1723 Peter asked Abram to come back to Russia, the regent tried to persuade Hannibal to remain in France, promising him a brilliant military and court career. Although the Czar permitted Hannibal to take his own choice between France and Russia, the young man decided to return to St. Petersburg.

Thus, contradicting Hannibal's complaining letters, Pushkin describes his great-grandfather's sojourn in Paris. He evidently based his testimony on the family accounts, which as almost any such narratives contain perhaps more fiction than history. But, on the other hand, the historians, who contradict Pushkin, have no other proof of their infallibility than these Paris letters of Hannibal.

Reliable information concerning Hannibal after his return to Russia, however, is not so scarce. Immediately upon his arrival in St. Petersburg, Hannibal was appointed an officer in the Preobrajensky Guard-regiment. He became an "engineer-lieutenant" in the "Bombardir-company," of which the Czar himself was the captain. But another crisis was reached when, according to Pushkin, it appeared about that time that Hannibal was a son of a Negro king, and his elder brother came from Africa to St. Petersburg with an offer of a rich ransom for Hannibal. He met with no success, as Hannibal himself did not want to return to the village on the banks of Niger.

The situation did not seem so favorable for Hannibal, moreover, when in 1725 Peter the Great died. Menshikov, former pie-peddler and life-long favorite of the late Czar, elevated himself to the position of sole adviser to Peter's widow, Catherine I. He alone virtually ruled Russia for several years. When Catherine I died and young Peter II sat on the throne, Menshikov wanted the boy Emperor to marry his younger daughter. He feared, however, his numerous enemies at the court, among whom he counted Hannibal, the young Czar's instructor in mathematics. Consequently Hannibal was exiled to Siberia in 1727. Officially he was neither arrested nor deprived of his rank and property. He was sent to the borders of China with orders to "transfer from the town of Selenginsk into another location" and to "take an exact measure of the Great Chinese Wall." Menshikov evidently thought that the severe Siberian frosts would sooner or later kill the young African. But Hannibal being strong and healthy and accustomed from childhood to cold climate withstood the hardships of the Siberian wilderness.

In 1729 he fled from Selenginsk but was arrested before he could reach Europe. His papers and valuables taken from him, Hannibal was brought to Tomsk, a city in Western Siberia. There for some time he was kept as a prisoner, although his salary as an officer was still paid. In January of 1730 he was freed but not permitted to leave Siberia. He was appointed to serve in the Tomsk garrison as a major.

Soon afterwards St. Petersburg was the scene of a new coup-d'etat. Anna, a niece of Peter the Great, was summoned to the Russian throne. Counts Dolgorukov became the most powerful persons at the court. New hopes were aroused in Hannibal, as the Dolgorukovs were his friends, since the time he and they lived in France. Hannibal without asking or waiting for permission left Tomsk, but when some time after he arrived in St. Petersburg he learned that Dolgorukovs lost their influence as suddenly as they won it, that they were arrested, and after all their estates had been confiscated, were exiled to Siberia. Great dangers threatened Hannibal as a Dolgorukovs' friend. Biron, erstwhile a stable man but now adviser and lover of Anna, sought Hannibal's life. Field-marshal Minich, commander-in-chief of the Russian army, however, saved Hannibal by granting him a commission to inspect fortifications in Lifland. In a little village near Reval, then, Hannibal lived in obscurity for 10 years, fearing every day the arrival of a messenger from St. Petersburg with an order for his arrest.

Before his coming to Lifland, Hannibal married the beautiful daughter of a Greek captain by the name of Dioper. Almost from the first day of their marriage he began to suspect her infidelity. The birth of a white baby-girl proved his suspicions and justified their divorce. The Russian court sent Hannibal's wife to a convent, and Hannibal married Christina-Regina Von-Sheberg, a Lifland German woman. She gave birth to five sons, all of whom were mulattoes. His first wife's white daughter he kept in his home, gave her a good education and a considerable dowry, but never permitted her to come before his eyes.

In November of 1741 Elisabeth, a daughter of Peter the Great, was proclaimed the Empress of Russia. She immediately returned from exile all former favorites of her father. Among these was Hannibal, on whom she showered various honours. He was given the post of commandant of city of Reval. About ten villages with several thousands of white slaves were presented to him as his personal property. He was decorated with medals and ribbons and asked to come to St. Petersburg. He preferred, however, to stay on his newly acquired estates.

Other important tasks awaited him. In 1752 he was commissioned to fix the Russo-Swedish boundary line. In 1756 he was one of the members of the Ladoga Canal Commission and also of the Commission for the Inspection of the Russian Forts. In 1762, with a rank of general in chief, he retired from public service, being then an old man. His services were remembered at the court for a long time after, however, for once Catherine II asked him to compose a plan of St. Petersburg-Moscow Canal.

During his last years he was frequented by spells of sudden fear, the consequence of his old sufferings. He was especially afraid of the sound of a bell, imagining that his persecutors were coming again. Under one of these spells, as we mentioned above, he destroyed his memoirs not long before he died in 1782 in his eighty-fifth year.

He did not want his sons to join the army or be at the court, fearing they might be involved there in dangerous intrigue. Ivan, his elder son, joined the army against his will, and only after he won fame as a brilliant victor over the Turks could he on his knees receive his aged father's forgiveness. Ivan Hannibal distinguished himself not only as a strategist but as a man of a great personal valor as well. He participated in the Russian naval expedition to Greece and captured Navarin, a Turkish fort, in 1770. He was the hero of the Chesma battle. Returning to Russia in 1779 he founded the city of Kherson in the Ukraine, of which he was appointed a governor. Later Ivan Hannibal quarreled with Count Potemkin, lover of Catherine the Great and ruler of Southern Russia. The Empress defended Hannibal and decorated him, but he left the service and went to live in one of his numerous estates. There in 1801 he died.

His brother Ossip (Joseph) was a naval officer in the Black Sea Fleet and for several years navigated the Mediterranean. Of other sons of Abram Hannibal very little is known. Ossip's daughter Nadejda, a Creole of striking beauty, married Pushkin, of an ancient Russian noble family. In 1799 a son was born to them and named Alexander, who later won fame as the greatest poet of Russia. He was killed in 1837, while duelling with a diplomat over the honor of Pushkin's wife, who was not worth her great husband's noble love.

While all the works of Pushkin could be bound together in one volume, thousands of books have been written on him and on what he created. Numerous monuments are erected in his honor all over Russia; special magazines entirely dedicated to him are published; and in famous paintings by distinguished Russian artists are pictured different periods of Pushkin's short life. When you look at these paintings, black curls, olive skin and thick lips speak to you of Pushkin's race. He himself was proud of it, all but worshipping his great-grandfather in many of his verses.

ALBERT PARRY

THE MOVEMENT OF NEGROES FROM THE EAST TO THE GULF STATES FROM 1830 TO 1850

The migration of Negroes to the Gulf States, during the years 1830 to 1850, was from the point of view of the Negroes themselves wholly involuntary. The blacks, being at that time preponderately slave, accompanied their masters to new homes in the South and Southwest or constituted the traffic of the domestic slave trade. Explanation of their migration must be sought, therefore, not in any unrest that may have been manifested by the Negroes, but rather in the causes that underlay the movement of the masters to new homes, and that enabled the domestic slave trade to become a profitable enterprise.

This migration, which in some ways assumed a peculiar aspect, bears a definite relation to three general circumstances. In the first place, there was a comparative decline in the productiveness of the seaboard border slave States. In the second, the accessibility to the new lands and practically virgin soils of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana invited the migration of innumerable planters from the border States to this new region. Finally, the rapidly increasing demand of the planters of the Gulf region for slave labor with which to cultivate cotton and other native products tremendously stimulated the domestic slave trade.

Although the seaboard border States, led by Virginia, sent south the bulk of the slaves, it must not be thought that the migration was alone from these States. In fact, as early as 1840,[1] not only Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Delaware, but also North Carolina became slave-exporting areas. Later, too, when the impoverishment of her lands made impossible the further extension of cotton culture, South Carolina joined with these other States and Georgia in exporting slaves to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and, after 1845, to Texas.

The decline in the productiveness of some of the seaboard border slave States has been ascribed to various causes. The failure to rotate crops and the lack of proper and sufficient fertilizer necessary to prevent an impoverishment of the soil some hold to be primary causes. The almost complete dependence upon unskilled, unintelligent slave labor, the conviction prevalent everywhere in slave territory that such labor made that of white men dishonorable, together with the failure to develop fully the manufacturing facilities at hand, have been also generally advanced to explain the decline, particularly, of Maryland and Virginia.

The chief agricultural staple of these States was tobacco. The characteristic soil of the region--a sandy loam--while warm and stimulating was easily exhausted,[2] especially when the planters had improper and inefficient fertilizer, traceable in some measure to a numerical deficiency of live stock, and the incessant culture of tobacco, without crop rotation. The price of tobacco, moreover, was throughout the years from 1818 to 1840 exceedingly low and, at the same time, the newer States of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, as well as the Carolinas and Georgia, were producing large quantities of tobacco. The net result in Virginia and Maryland, therefore, was to make the culture of the plant exceedingly unprofitable.[3] It is held that the soil-exhausting character of tobacco culture, together with the falling prices of the plant, constituted the dominant factors in the decrease in value of agricultural lands of Virginia from $206,000,000 in 1816 to $80,000,000 in 1829.[4]

If the impoverishment of the land through tobacco culture was one factor in the declining productivity of Virginia and Maryland, the almost complete use of unskilled Negro slave labor, particularly in the former State, was decidedly another. Not only was slave labor costly, in that the non-producers, as well as the constant workers, had to be provided for, but also because of the overwhelming ignorance and inertia of such labor. "The grand secret of the difference between free labor and slave labor," wrote a former Virginia resident to the _New York Times_, "is that the latter is without intelligence and without motive."[5] A large tobacco planter of Virginia adds to this his testimony that the slave's incapacity to perform duties complex in nature, or requiring the least intelligence, precluded the cultivation there of the finer grades of tobacco.[6] While, therefore, the Negro slave was tractable and capable of hard work, he was, without strict supervision, a most unproductive worker. The universal employment of the slave despite his ignorance and inertia doubtless furnishes one clue to the failure of Virginia to exploit, in a reasonable degree, her manufacturing resources.[7]

This costly failure has been ascribed also to the reluctance of white labor to perform any duties to which slaves might be assigned. Slave owners and white laborers held in mutual repugnance the employment of white men at such tasks. According to Olmsted,[8] slave owners have held that the poor whites would refuse to do such work if possible, and, if compelled to submit, would do only so much as they found absolutely necessary. Under all circumstances they do such work reluctantly and "will not bear driving." "They cannot be worked to advantage with the slaves, and it is inconvenient to look after them, if you work them separately."

The natural consequence of the policy thus pursued by Virginia was, despite the fact of her early command over greater wealth and a larger population than the other States, to force her to descend, in part, from her former high estate.[9] A comparison of values of the agricultural lands of Virginia and Pennsylvania, in 1850, shows those of the latter, although of smaller acreage, to have a larger sale value an acre and a larger total value. A similar comparison between Virginia and New Jersey gives the same result.

That the conditions stated as obtaining in 1850 had long existed there seems to be no lack of evidence. Thomas Marshall made, in the Virginia legislature of 1831-'32, searching and detailed statements of the declining wealth and productivity of the State.[10] Such conditions as he pictured made plain that the planters of Virginia must either improve their lands by rehabilitating the soil, acquiring better farming implements, and improving their plow animals,[11] or migrate to the more promising lands elsewhere, or sell their slaves. The records show that by some planters one or another of these methods was adopted. Moreover, Maryland, a sister State of Virginia, because of the exhaustion of her soil by tobacco culture, found essential to her relief the same procedure.[12] With reference to Maryland, the census of 1840 shows an actual decrease over that of 1830 in the slave population[13] of the commonwealth.

To what parts, then, did these slaves go? The theatre of the largest expansion of slavery[14] was the "Western Cotton Belt," the section which shall be herein considered, comprehending parts of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Eastern Texas. The chief distinction between the soils of these States constituting the Atlantic Coastal Plain from Virginia to South Carolina and those of the "Western Cotton Belt" is the occurrence of extensive limestone belts in the latter. "The soils in these limestone belts are largely residual, calcareous and usually have a humus content, which gives the soil its black color"[15]--hence the name "Black Belt." The soils of these belts contain much clay and require careful preparation, but they are durable and extremely fertile. Moreover, an excellent water navigation[16] extending well into the region constituted an additional factor in the extension of the cotton culture and of Negro slavery into this territory.

According to Phillips,[17] the lands of the "Western Cotton Belt," most preferred in the early period, lay in two main areas, the soils of both of which were more lasting and fertile than those in the interior of the Atlantic States. "One of these areas formed a crescent across south-central Alabama, with its western horn reaching up the Tombigbee River into northeastern Mississippi." The soil of this area was of black loose loam. Everywhere it was thickly matted with grass and weeds, except where there was visible "limestone on the hill crests and prodigious cane brakes in the valleys." This tract known locally as the prairies or "Black Belt" was smaller than the other which extended along the Mississippi, on both sides, from northern Tennessee and Arkansas to the mouth of the Red River. This tract contained broad alluvial bottoms, as well as occasional hill districts of rich loam, the latter being especially noticeable around Natchez and Vicksburg. The broadest expanse of these bottoms, the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, received but few migrants prior to the middle "thirties." The planters seem to have settled first in the bottoms, while the other choice lands were competed for by the large and smaller planters, as well as the poor farmers.

These lands were not only, by soil and climate, ideally suited to the production of cotton, but they were reasonably cheap in price. As late as 1849 there was much uncultivated, though fertile agricultural land in each of the cotton-growing States. At that time the total acreage and the area in use in several of the Gulf States were listed as follows:[18]

State Total No. of Acres Acres Owned Alabama 32,462,080 15,911,520 Louisiana 29,715,840 6,263,822 Mississippi 30,174,080 15,811,650

There was under these circumstances small wonder that there migrated planters from the worn-out lands of the seaboard slave States, including the less fertile districts of Georgia,[19] and parts of Kentucky and Tennessee. In the absence of statistics giving the exact number of slaves migrating thus with their owners, the estimates of contemporaries and of later writers may be serviceable. _The Virginia (Wheeling) Times_ said[20] that intelligent men of that day estimated the number of slaves exported from Virginia, during the year 1836, to be 120,000, of whom two-thirds (80,000) were carried south by their masters. The _Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine_ (vol. ii, 411, July, 1837) gives the _Natchez Courier_ as the authority for the estimate that during 1836 as many as 250,000 slaves, some of whom were accompanied by their masters, were transported from the older slave States to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas.[21] P. A. Morse, of Louisiana, writing in 1857, says that "the augmentation of slaves within the cotton States was caused mostly by the migration of slave owners." On the basis of sources accessible to him, Morse estimated that three-fifths of the slaves removed from the border States to the farther South, from 1820 to 1850, migrated with their masters.[22] Accepting the "three-fifths estimate" of Morse, Collins has made deductions which indicate that approximately 15,900 slaves went south annually with their masters during the decade from 1830 to 1840; while during the next decade the annual migration was about 9,000.[23]

One of these migrant planters,[24] who, in 1835, left his tidewater estate in Gloucester County, Virginia, was Colonel Thomas S. Dabney. Prompted by the necessities of his family to seek more favorable soil, he sought land in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, finally settling in the one last mentioned. Colonel Dabney carried with him more than two hundred slaves, established himself on a plantation of four thousand acres, and each year contrived, by clearances, to put under cultivation an additional hundred acres. Planters of this type, with large numbers of slaves and sufficient funds to extend their holdings, tended to concentrate both slaves and lands in a few hands.

If the demand for new lands brought great numbers of slaves southward during the years from 1830 to 1850, there were also at work forces which caused many other slaves to be exported in the domestic slave traffic. The extension of the cotton culture in the more southern States, the increased exportation of cotton, the advancing profits therefrom, the development of large sugar plantations in Louisiana, and the decreased average working life of the slave created among the planters of this region an extraordinary demand for slave labor. At the same time such seaboard States as raised tobacco were suffering from a depression in the tobacco markets. The African slave trade, moreover, had been legally suppressed, thus rendering the seaboard and other border slave States the sole legal source of supply for the slave labor required by the lower South.

The income of some of the plantations on these fresh lands was immense.[25] It was considered not uncommon for a planter in Mississippi or Louisiana to receive an income of thirty thousand dollars annually. Extremely prosperous planters, it is said, took in from $80,000 to $120,000 in a single year. The enormous profits arising from such investments in the face of the unusual demand for slaves enabled prices of bondmen to rise inordinately high. Thus it was that a prime field hand, a Negro between the ages of twenty and thirty years, could command a price varying from five hundred to twelve hundred dollars,[26] and, in some cases, fourteen hundred dollars or more. In fact, slave traders rapidly grew rich from the traffic. One is reported as having earned thirty thousand dollars in a few months, while Franklin and Armfield, members of a firm with headquarters in Alexandria, are said to have earned more than thirty-three thousand dollars in a single year.[27]

The effect of the growing demand for labor, reflected in the high prices being offered for slaves, tended to concentrate the interest of the Virginia planter on his slaves, as it had been hitherto concentrated on tobacco.[28] Prompt and efficient methods were devised whereby Negroes were made ready for the market.[29] Olmsted was informed by a slave-holder that in the States of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, as much attention was paid to the breeding and growth of Negroes as had been hitherto given to the breeding of horses and mules.[30]

As to the precise number of slaves exported in response to the high prices paid for them, there seems to be no conclusive evidence. Resort must be had, therefore, to estimates of contemporaries and later writers. _The New Orleans Advertiser_ of January 21, 1830, says: "Arrivals by sea and river within a few days have added fearfully to the number of slaves brought to the market for sale. New Orleans is the complete mart for the trade--and the Mississippi is becoming a common highway for the traffic."[31] In the summer of 1831, moreover, New Orleans reported, in one week, the arrival of 381 slaves, nearly all of whom were from Virginia.[32]

Not all of the exportations of slaves were by sea as is attested by records of Sir Charles Lyell, Basil Hall, and Josiah Henson.[32a] At a later period, Featherstonhaugh tells of an overland expedition of slaves to the South. Of this coffle of slaves he says:[33] "Just as we reached New River, in the early grey of the morning, we came up with a singular spectacle, the most striking one of the kind I have ever witnessed. It was a camp of Negro slave-drivers, just packing up to start; they had about three hundred slaves with them, who had bivouacked the preceding night in chains in the woods; these they were conducting to Natchez, upon the Mississippi River, to work upon the sugar plantations in Louisiana. It resembled one of those coffles of slaves spoken of by Mungo Park, except that they had a caravan of nine waggons and single-horse carriages, for the purpose of conducting the white people, and any of the blacks that should fall lame, to which they were now putting their horses to pursue their march. The female slaves were, some of them, sitting on logs of wood, whilst others were standing, and a great many little black children were warming themselves at the fires of the bivouac. In front of them all and prepared for the march stood, in double file, about two hundred male slaves, manacled and chained to one another."

In the year 1831 there set in a reaction[34] against the importation of slaves into the Gulf States as a result of fear from troubles like Nat Turner's insurrection. Louisiana in 1831, and Alabama and Mississippi in 1832, passed laws prohibiting the importation of slaves into those States. The Alabama law was repealed in December, 1832, that of Louisiana in 1834, and that of Mississippi in 1846. Moreover, there is no evidence to show that these laws really checked importations. The fright engendered by the slave insurrection in Virginia was not sufficient to triumph over the practical demands for such labor. Collins holds that during the years from 1832 to 1836 the largest migration of Negroes to the South and the Southwest occurred.[35]

Since cotton was the prime factor in effecting the prosperity of the Southwest, and its extension of culture and advance in price dictated largely the demand for slaves, the number of slaves yearly exported may bear some relation to the price of cotton. After 1835, the price of cotton declined.[36] This, together with the panic of 1837, caused a falling-off in the domestic slave trade, except in 1843, and the low price of cotton which continued until 1846 and hindered the revival[37] of the traffic in men. In 1843, however, five thousand slaves were sold in Washington as compared with two thousand in the previous year. These increased sales were doubtless in some measure due to the decline in the price of tobacco,[38] and the renewed activity of the sugar industry, incident to a new duty on that product.[39] For the whole decade from 1840 to 1850, however, a decrease in the slave traffic is shown by the fact that the per cent of increase in the slave population in the cotton States was barely half as great as during the previous decade.[40]

Some time after 1845, however, the demand for slaves seems to have exceeded the supply. A writer in the _Richmond Examiner_ of 1849 is quoted as having said: "It being a well accustomed fact that Virginia and Maryland will not be able to supply the great demand for Negroes which will be wanted in the South this Fall and Spring, we would advise all who are compelled to dispose of them in this market to defer selling until the sales of the present crop of cotton can be realized, as the price then must be very high for two reasons: first, the ravages of the cholera; and secondly, the high price of cotton."[41]

Three important events seem to have stimulated the slave trade during this period. First, there came the admission of Texas as a State in December, 1845; second, the increase in the price of cotton from 1845; and, third, the discovery of gold in California. The first of these opened to development a vast cotton country, which could be legally supplied with slave labor only through the domestic trade. The second event, the rise in the price of cotton, gave a new impetus to the production of cotton, and the California gold rush infused new life into all avenues of trade.[42] During this period and the decade following, Collins says that because of the great demand for slaves the price of them increased one hundred per cent; yet no evidence of a large increase in the traffic is shown.[43]

TABLE NO. 1 TOTAL COTTON CROP IN BALES:[44] 1833 1,070,000 1837 1,081,000 1840 2,178,000 1843 2,379,000 1849 2,727,000

PRODUCTION OF COTTON BY STATES--(POUNDS):[45]

===================================================== TABLE NO. 2 | | | | 1826 | 1833 | 1834 ---------------+------------+------------+----------- Virginia | 25,000,000 | 13,000,000 | 10,000,000 North Carolina | 18,000,000 | 10,000,000 | 9,000,000 Louisiana | 38,000,000 | 55,000,000 | 62,000,000 Alabama | 45,000,000 | 65,000,000 | 85,000,000 Mississippi | 30,000,000 | 70,000,000 | 85,000,000 -----------------------------------------------------

COTTON PRODUCTION IN POUNDS:[46]

TABLE NO. 3 1839 790,479,275 1849 987,637,200

The statistics of cotton production and prices further elucidate this question. Table No. 1 shows a continuous increase in the production of cotton during the successive periods considered. Table No. 2 depicts the declining significance of Virginia and North Carolina as cotton-producing States and the shift of the lead of cotton production to the Gulf States. Table No. 3 shows the total production of cotton in the years considered and is significant, in that it emphasizes the important cotton-producing areas. During these years Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia, together, produced more than two-thirds of the total cotton crop.[47] Table No. 4 is self-explanatory, while Table No. 5 shows the yearly fluctuations of the average price of cotton after 1840.

AVERAGE PRICE A POUND OF COTTON IN FIVE-YEAR PERIODS:[48]

TABLE NO. 4 1830-1835 10.9 cents 1835-1840 14.4 cents 1840-1845 8.1 cents 1845-1850 7.3 cents

AVERAGE PRICE A POUND OF COTTON:[49]

TABLE NO. 5 1835 16.8 cents 1836 16.8 cents 1840 8.6 cents 1841 10.2 cents 1842 8.1 cents 1843 6.1 cents 1844 8.1 cents 1845 6.0 cents 1846 7.9 cents 1847 10.1 cents 1848 7.6 cents 1849 6.5 cents

In the years 1835 and 1836, the price is high relative to the later years in the two decades, and, assuming the continued demand for cotton, should have stimulated the domestic slave traffic by effecting a large demand for slaves at high prices. The lowest price is reached in 1845, followed by a rise till 1847, and then a decline in 1848 and 1849. That the demand for slaves was not at this time abated must be traceable to the fact that not more than three-fifths[50] of the slaves in the Cotton States were engaged in the production of cotton, while other occupations, notably sugar-production in Louisiana, demanded an increased quota.

The statistics of slave population are designed to show the increases of that type both in the States of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and in selected areas within these States. In 1850, the civil subdivisions, as counties or parishes, which possessed the greatest density of slave population in Texas, as well as in the other States named, were located in those areas of the most fertile soil for producing cotton or cane. This concentration is but an evidence of the influence of these factors in calling forth the slave migration to the Southwest.

SLAVE POPULATION IN THE GULF STATES:[51]

========================================= TABLE NO. 6 | | | | 1830 | 1840 | 1850 ------------+---------+---------+-------- Alabama | 117,549 | 253,532 | 342,844 Louisiana | 109,588 | 168,452 | 244,809 Mississippi | 65,659 | 195,211 | 309,878 Texas | ....... | ....... | 58,161 -----------------------------------------

PER CENT. SLAVE INCREASE BY DECADES:[52]

TABLE NO. 7 1830-1840 1840-1850 Alabama 115.68 35.22 Louisiana 53.70 45.32 Mississippi 197.31 58.74 Texas ...... .....

CONCENTRATION OF MIGRATION UPON SELECTED AREAS: ALABAMA:[53]

====================================== TABLE NO. 8| | | Counties | 1830 | 1840 | 1850 -----------+--------+--------+------- Barbour | ..... | 5,548 | 10,780 Chambers | ..... | 7,141 | 11,158 Dallas | 7,160 | 17,208 | 22,258 Greene | 7,420 | 16,431 | 22,127 Loundes | ..... | 12,569 | 14,649 Macon | ..... | 5,580 | 15,596 Madison | 14,091 | 13,265 | 14,326 Marengo | 2,987 | 11,902 | 20,693 Montgomery | 6,450 | 15,486 | 19,427 Perry | 4,331 | 10,343 | 13,917 Pickens | 1,630 | 7,764 | 10,534 Russell | ..... | 7,266 | 11,111 Sumter | ..... | 15,920 | 14,831 Wilcox | 4,070 | 8,292 | 11,835 -------------------------------------

CONCENTRATION OF MIGRATION UPON SELECTED AREAS (continued): MISSISSIPPI:[54]

===================================== TABLE NO. 9| | | Counties | 1830 | 1840 | 1850 -----------+--------+--------+------- Adams | 9,649 | 8,740 | 14,395 Claiborne | 6,174 | 7,743 | 11,450 Hinds | 3,197 | 13,375 | 16,625 Jefferson | 6,702 | 9,176 | 10,493 Lowndes | 1,066 | 8,771 | 12,993 Madison | 2,167 | 11,533 | 13,843 Marshall | ..... | 8,250 | 15,417 Monroe | 940 | 6,460 | 11,717 Noxubee | ..... | 7,157 | 11,323 Warren | 4,183 | 10,493 | 12,096 Wilkinson | 7,877 | 10,894 | 13,260 Yazoo | 2,470 | 7,237 | 10,349 -------------------------------------

CONCENTRATION OF MIGRATION UPON SELECTED AREAS (concluded): LOUISIANA[56] (concluded):

====================================== TABLE NO. 10| | | Parishes | 1830 | 1840 | 1850 ------------+--------+--------+------- Ascension | 2,813 | 4,553 | 7,266 Feliciana, E| 3,652 | 7,571 | 9,514 Feliciana, W| 6,345 | 8,755 | 10,666 Iberville | 4,509 | 5,887 | 8,606 Madison | ..... | 3,923 | 7,353 Natchitoches| 3,570 | 6,651 | 7,881 Orleans | 16,603 | 23,448 | 18,068 Point Coupee| 4,210 | 5,430 | 7,811 Rapides | 5,321 | 10,511 | 11,340 St. James | 5,027 | 5,711 | 7,751 St. Landry | 5,057 | 7,129 | 10,871 St. Mary's | 4,304 | 6,286 | 9,850 Tensas | ..... | ..... | 8,138 --------------------------------------

TEXAS:[57]

TABLE NO. 11 Counties 1850 Austin 1,549 Bowie 1,641 Brazoria 3,507 Cass 1,902 Cherokee 1,283 Fayette 1,016 Fort Bend 1,554 Grimes 1,680 Harrison 6,213 Lamar 1,085 Matagorda 1,208 Nacogdochea 1,404 Nueces 1,193 Red River 1,406 Rusk 2,136 San Augustine 1,561 Walker 1,301 Washington 2,817 Wharton 1,242

The average increase of slave population in the States considered was 103.30 per cent for the decade from 1830 to 1840, while that of the next decade was less than half so great, being 51.41 per cent.[55] These percentages, though both significant, cannot be explained wholly in terms of Negro migration. If the estimate of the increase in slave population by births over deaths be for each decade twenty-eight per cent,[58] and if from 1830 to 1840 forty thousand and from 1840 to 1850 fifty thousand foreign Negroes were imported[59] into the country as slaves, the number migrating from the more Northern States was materially smaller than at first appears to be the case. Phillips says that from 1815-1860, the volume of the slave trade by sea alone averaged from two thousand to five thousand[60] annually; but Dew, in 1832, estimated that six thousand slaves were annually exported from Virginia.[61] Collins, moreover, has made most elaborate calculations in this matter.[62] Accepting the estimate of Morse that three-fifths of the slaves who went south during the period from 1820 to 1850 migrated with their masters, Collins has deduced that the average annual export of Negroes for sale, during the decade from 1830 to 1840, was 10,600; and of the next decade, 6,000. On the basis of the principle underlying this calculation, it would follow that approximately 15,900 slaves migrated south with their masters during the earlier decade; while 9,000 went annually in this way during the decade from 1840 to 1850. Finally, if this principle of calculation be accepted, and the facts upon which it is based be well founded, approximately 26,500 Negroes found their way annually to the cotton and contiguous territory during the period from 1830 to 1840; while from 1840 to 1850 the annual number was 15,000.

What were some effects of this vast migration of Negro slaves to the Gulf States? The mere concentration of a large slave population in this region gains significance when it is considered in its numerical relation to the whites. Throughout the two decades from 1830 to 1850, there was a progressive increase in the white population here, and yet, in 1850, the whites in Alabama exceeded the slaves by less than one hundred thousand. In Louisiana the excess was 11,000; while in Mississippi the slaves were in the majority by some 14,000.[63] This situation was fraught with great possibilities. Would the slaves undertake a servile insurrection? To this dangerous aspect much thought was given, and thorough precautions were taken to protect the whites against such an upheaval. The immediate effect of this movement of the slaves to the Gulf Regions, however, was the final commitment of that section to a regime of slavery and the unification of a solid South based on interests peculiar to that section.

Although the emancipation of the blacks as a result of the Civil War has made possible the movement of not a few Negroes away from the Gulf Region, they still form a substantial portion of the population. They supply as in former days the bulk of the cotton hands. Many live in ignorance and in poverty, disfranchised and subjected to the economic exploitation of the ruling classes. They have therefore been a potent force in the creation of a social problem, the solution of which seems not yet to be found, except it appears in the present migration of these Negroes to industrial centers in the North.

A. A. TAYLOR

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Hammond, _The Cotton Industry_, I, 53 (cited from _Slavery and the Internal Slave Trade_, 12).

[2] Emerson, _Geographical Influences in American Slavery_, 18 (Bulletin, Amer. Geographical Society, xliii).

[3] Collins, _The Domestic Slave Trade_, 23 (cited from Hunt's _Merchants' Magazine_, vi, 473).

[4] _Ibid._, 26.

[5] Olmsted, _Cotton Kingdom_, II; App. C, 382.

[6] _Ibid._, 89.

[7] _Ibid._, 365 (cited from the _Lynchburg Virginian_, date not given).

[8] _Ibid._

[9] _Ibid._, II, 364-5, 367, 369, 303-4; I, 11, 35. See also App. A2, _Census of 1850_.

[10] Ambler, _Sectionalism in Virginia_, 193.

[11] Phillips, _American Negro Slavery_, 185.

[12] De Bow's _Review_, x, 654.

[13] _Compendium, Seventh Census_, 1850, 84.

[14] Emerson, _op. cit._, 118.

[15] _Ibid._, 171.

[16] _Ibid._, 118.

[17] Phillips, _op. cit._, 173.

[18] De Bow, _op. cit._, vii, 166.

[19] Hammond, _op. cit._, I, 53.

[20] Collins, _op. cit._, 52.

[21] _Ibid._, 52.

[22] _Ibid._, 62.

[23] _Ibid._, 64, 65.

[24] Phillips, _op. cit._, 179, 180.

[25] Collins, _op. cit._, 27.

[26] Collins, _op. cit._, 28.

[27] _Ibid._ (cited from Mary Tremain, _Slavery in District of Columbia_, 50).

[28] Olmsted, _Seaboard Slave States_, I, 278-279.

[29] _Ibid._, I, 280-281.

[30] Olmsted, _Cotton Kingdom_, II, note, 58.

[31] Collins, _op. cit._, 46, 47 (from the _African Repository_, V, 381).

[32] _Ibid._, 47 (from _Niles Register_, Nov. 26, 1831).

[32a] Basil Hall, _Travels in North America_, III, 128, 129; Sir Charles Lyell, _A Second Visit to the United States_, II, 35; Henson, _Uncle Tom's Story of his Life_, 53.

[33] Featherstonhaugh (G. W.), _Travels in America_, 36.

[34] Collins, _op. cit._, 128, 130, 132-3.

[35] Collins, _op. cit._, 54, 55 (cited from Hammond, _The Cotton Industry_, App. I).

[36] De Bow's _Review_, xxiii, 475.

[37] Hammond, _op. cit._, App. I.

[38] Collins, _op. cit._, 54 (from De Bow, _Ind. Resources_, iii, 349).

[39] _Ibid._, 54 (De Bow, _Ind. Resources_, iii, 275).

[40] De Bow's _Review_, xxiii, 477.

[41] _Richmond Examiner_, 1849.

[42] Collins, _op. cit._, 54, 55 (from Hammond, _Cotton Industry_, App. I).

[43] _Ibid._, 56. (_Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin_, 149; De Bow's _Review_, xxvi, 649).

[44] _Compendium, Seventh Census_, 1850, 191.

[45] De Bow's _Review_, xxiii, 477.

[46] Collins, _op. cit._, 32 (_Statistics of Agr., 42, Census of 1890_).

[47] _Compendium, Seventh Census_, 1850, 191.

[48] _Ibid._, 191.

[49] Collins, _op. cit._, 32.

[50] De Bow's _Review_, xxiii, 477.

[51] _Compendium, Seventh Census_, 1850, 191, 84.

[52] De Bow's _Review_, xxiii, 477.

[53] _Census of 1830_, 98-101; _Census of 1840, Compendium_, 54; _Census of 1850_, 421.

[54] _Census of 1830_, 102-3; _Census of 1840, Compendium_; _Census of 1850_, 497.

[55] De Bow's _Review_, xxiii, 476.

[56] _Census of 1830_, 104-107; _Census of 1840, Compendium_; _Census of 1850_, 473.

[57] _Census of 1850_, 503-4.

[58] _Ibid._, 476.

[59] Collins, _op. cit._, 64, 65.

[60] Phillips, _op. cit._, 195.

[61] Hammond, _op. cit._, I, 53 (from Dew in the _Pro-Slavery Argument_, 399).

[62] Collins, _op. cit._, 64, 65.

[63] _Compendium, Seventh Census_, 1850, 63.

NEGROES IN DOMESTIC SERVICE IN THE UNITED STATES[A]

INTRODUCTION

The term _Domestic Service_ as used in this study will include those persons performing household duties for pay. In early colonial history indentured servants performed household duties without pay. They were usually imported convicts, assigned to labor for a term on some estate, receiving only their living and stipulated benefits at the termination of their service.[1] In modern use the word "servant" denotes a domestic or menial helper and implies little or no discretionary power and responsibility in the mode of performing duty.[2]

In this discussion of Negroes in domestic service in the United States the facts presented disclose the part Negroes have had in the changes and developments of domestic service in the United States during the past thirty years.[3] They also show to some extent the relation of Negro domestic workers to white workers and to some of the larger problems in this field of employment.

The primary data used here were gathered in three ways. First, the writer was a dollar-a-year worker of the Woman in Industry Service, United States Department of Labor, in 1919; and while visiting cities in this work obtained from employment agencies some data on domestic service. Secondly, as domestic service Employment Secretary, United States Employment Service, Washington, District of Columbia, from January 1920 to May 1922, the writer kept careful record of pertinent facts with a view to further study and analysis of this information at a later time.

Three different record cards were used at this office. One was for the employer with name, address, telephone number, kind of help desired, work to be done, whether to "sleep in" or "sleep out," afternoons off, breakfast and dinner hour, size of family, wages, etc. Another card was kept for the employee with name, address, birthplace, age, marital condition, number of dependents, grade at leaving school, kind of work desired, minimum wages applicant would accept, names of three recent former employers and their addresses. On the back of this card were written the name of the employer engaging the worker, the date, and kind of work. There was also a card of introduction for the applicant which the employer mailed back to the office.

A personal canvass of eleven employment agencies in New York City and one in Brooklyn was also made in 1923. The records of only two of these agencies were used, because more time could not be given to securing material in this way.

In the third place, in 1923 a general schedule asking questions relating to number, sex, age, marital condition, turnover, efficiency, wages, hours, specific occupations, living conditions and health was sent by mail to employment secretaries in twelve cities North, South, East, and West, with whom contacts had been established through acquaintances and friends. Responses were received from ten of these cities with data for 1,771 domestic and personal service workers.

I. NUMBER AND SEX OF NEGROES IN DOMESTIC AND PERSONAL SERVICE

Because of the difficulties inherent in the classification of occupations the United States Census Bureau has classified all domestic and personal service occupations in one group. It has not been possible, therefore, to ascertain the exact number of workers engaged exclusively in domestic service. For example, the domestic and personal service classification includes indiscriminately barbers, hairdressers, manicurists, midwives, hotel keepers, policemen, cooks, servants, waiters, bootblacks, and the like.

Fifty years ago there were in the United States 2,311,820 persons ten years of age and over engaged in domestic and personal service, 42.1 per cent of whom were males and 57.9 per cent females. During the succeeding thirty years there was an average increase for males and females combined of 108,961 a year. So that in 1900, persons ten years of age and over engaged in domestic and personal service numbered 5,580,657. As far as distinction from domestic service occupations can be made, the number engaged in personal service has continued to increase since 1900. By contrast, during the decade from 1900 to 1910 and from 1910 to 1920 there was a rather steady decline in the number of those engaged in domestic service. However, the two groups of domestic and personal service occupations combined showed that the number ten years of age and over by 1910 had decreased 1,808,098, and by 1920 had further decreased 367,667. Males constituted 6.4 per cent of the decrease from 1910 to 1920 and females 93.6 per cent. The number of children from 10 to 15 years of age engaged in domestic and personal service in 1910 were 112,171. In 1920 the number had decreased to 54,006.

The trend of the number of Negroes in domestic and personal service occupations compared with the general trend of the total number is indicative of the relation of Negroes and Caucasians in these occupations. We may, therefore, discuss the number and sex of Negroes ten years of age and over engaged in these occupations.

In 1900 there were in the United States 1,317,859 Negroes ten years of age and over gainfully employed in domestic and personal service: 681,926 females and 635,933 males. In 1910 the number of females had increased to 861,497 and the males had decreased to 496,100. In 1890 the total number of Negroes ten years of age and over gainfully employed in domestic and personal service constituted 20.7 per cent of the total number so employed and held third place among all nationalities so employed. Negro men held first place among men thus employed and constituted 40.8 per cent of the total number of male domestic workers.[4] This proportion does not take into account the fact that there were about eight white persons to one Negro in the total population. At that time one in every 5.6 Negroes ten years of age and over gainfully employed was in domestic and personal service. In 1900 Negro women domestic workers occupied second place in point of numbers among the total number and outnumbered the Negro male domestic workers 3 to 1, while the white female domestic workers outnumbered the white male domestic workers about 7 to 1.

The census figures dealing with servants and waiters for 1910 and 1920 in five Southern States where Negroes perform practically all of the domestic service and in five Northern States where conditions are quite different indicate the similarity in the trend of the numbers for both races in domestic service. Although the number of waiters increased by 40,693 between 1910 and 1920, the number of other domestic servants so decreased that we have the following figures for waiters and other domestic workers.

_Servants and Waiters 10 years of age and over, in selected States, 1901-1920_

==================================================== TABLE I | | | 1910 | 1920 State +--------+---------+--------+-------- | Male | Female | Male | Female ---------------+--------+---------+--------+-------- Georgia | 8,719 | 38,165 | 7,752 | 38,165 N. Carolina | 5,553 | 28,555 | 4,855 | 21,321 Louisiana | 7,112 | 30,982 | 6,761 | 28,306 Maryland | 8,125 | 32,292 | 6,859 | 26,305 Virginia | 9,535 | 42,797 | 3,144 | 33,781 Massachusetts | 16,969 | 71,853 | 16,574 | 51,941 Ohio | 11,695 | 64,408 | 15,170 | 50,232 Minnesota | 6,581 | 37,207 | 6,134 | 26,969 Pennsylvania | 24,103 | 134,374 | 22,173 | 98,798 New York | 63,395 | 198,970 | 69,869 | 151,455 ---------------+--------+---------+--------+--------

The figures show a decided decrease of domestic servants in both Southern and Northern States between 1910 and 1920, except male servants in Ohio and New York and female servants in Georgia.

The increase in male servants in Ohio and New York may be accounted for by the large increase of waiters in those States. There is no apparent explanation for the lack of change in the figures of female domestic workers in Georgia. It may be said, however, that Georgia has not suffered an actual decrease in its Negro population during the past ten years as have Mississippi, with a 7.4 per cent decrease, Kentucky with a 9.8 per cent decrease, Louisiana with a 1.8 per cent decrease, Alabama with 0.8 per cent decrease, Delaware with a 2.7 per cent decrease, and Tennessee with a 4.5 per cent decrease. This decrease in the Southern States has been due to the migration of Negroes to Northern industrial centers.

For example, the Negro population of Chicago increased from 44,103 in 1910 to 109,456 in 1920; that of New York City increased from 91,709 to 152,467. The number of Negroes in domestic and personal service in these and other Northern industrial centers has increased during the past ten years because the Negroes who have migrated North could enter domestic and personal service more easily than they could other fields of employment.

Since the total number of Negroes in domestic service has decreased while the total Negro population has increased, the question arises as to why the number of domestic and personal service workers has not kept pace with the growth of the Negro population. In twenty years between 1890 and 1910 Negroes in the United States gainfully employed increased about 65 per cent in agriculture, about 66.6 per cent in trade and transportation, about 129.5 per cent in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits, and about 65.3 per cent in domestic and personal service.

The Census of 1920 shows that of the gainfully employed 4,824,151 Negroes ten years of age and over, 45.2 per cent were in agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry; 22.1 per cent were in domestic and personal service; 18.4 per cent were in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits; 9.4 per cent were in trade and transportation; 1.7 per cent were in professional service; 0.8 per cent were in clerical occupations; 1.0 per cent were in public service; and 1.5 per cent were engaged in the extraction of minerals. This increase in occupations other than agriculture and domestic and personal service is largely due to conditions incident to the World War. Because of the 3 per cent immigration restriction, Negroes are being attracted to the North in large numbers and are entering industrial pursuits. For several years at least, this movement will most probably continue.

II. AGE AND MARITAL CONDITION OF NEGROES IN DOMESTIC AND PERSONAL SERVICE

In 1900, 53.4 per cent of all the women sixteen years of age and over engaged in domestic and personal service were from 16 to 24 years of age. Of the Negro women 16 years of age and over engaged in domestic and personal service, 35.1 per cent, or more than one-third, were between the ages of 16 and 24. The percentage in the other age groups of the total number of women 16 years of age and over engaged in domestic and personal service decreased by classes. That of Negro women 16 years of age and over engaged in domestic and personal service decreased by classes until those 55 years of age and over constituted only 9.6 per cent of the total number of Negro women so employed. The modal age of Negro male domestic workers like that of white male domestic workers was from 25 to 44 years. The age distribution of domestic and personal service workers for 1920 is about the same as that for 1900. Because of the incompleteness of the age data obtained from the general schedule sent to employment agencies, they were not used for this study. The average ages of the 9,976 male and female Negro domestic and personal service workers of Washington, D. C., were: 30.5 years for the males and 28.1 years for the females.

In 1900, among Negro women the percentage of breadwinners did not show such a marked decline after marriage as among white women. Of the Negro female breadwinners 32.5 per cent were married, while only 9.0 per cent of the female breadwinners of all the races were married. The percentage of married Negro male domestic and personal service workers is higher than that of married female workers, while the number of widowed and divorced is three and one-half times as great among female as among male domestic and personal service workers. In 1920, 29.4 per cent of all the female domestic and personal service workers 15 years of age and over were married, while 70.6 per cent were classed as single, widowed, divorced, and unknown.

The significance of age grouping and marital condition of Negro domestic workers in their relation to employers is borne out by the testimony of experienced employment agents in New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D. C., Chicago, and Detroit. Women domestic workers between the ages of 20 and 25 are the most sought after by employers. Those between 25 and 35 years of age are next in favor. All of the agents testified to the unpopularity of the young girl domestic worker. She is employed principally because of the tight domestic labor market. Employers apparently feel that a majority of the women beyond the ages of 45 and 50 have become too set in their ways, somewhat cranky, and largely unable to do general housework. The most frequent objections of employers to young girl domestic workers are: They are untrained and inexperienced; they are unwilling to sleep in; they are saucy; and their interest in men company causes them to neglect their work.

The older Negro women in domestic service, realizing that with their advancing years their possibilities for employment become less, often hesitate and even fail to give their correct ages when applying at employment agencies for positions. For example, a New York City agency registered a woman who gave her age as 34, but whose written references, yellowed with age, showed that she had worked for different members in one family for fifty years. Frequently an older woman registrant when asked her age hesitates and ends by saying "just say 'settled woman.'"

In addition to the age situation of Negroes engaged in domestic service, the marital condition of female domestic workers furnishes a perplexing problem for both their employers and themselves. The testimony of employment agents relative to employers' most commonly registered objections to hiring married women for domestic service is: Married women take away food for the support of their families; married women have so many responsibilities and problems in their own homes they oftener than not go out to work with a weary body and a disturbed mind; married women find it difficult to live and sleep on employers' premises.

Besides these problems there is apparently a still more perplexing one for the Negro domestic workers with children of their own or other dependents, namely, how to provide proper care and protection for their dependents while they are away from home at work, especially if the hours are long. Day nurseries are often mentioned as a possible solution for this particular problem, but they exist for Negroes in very few cities of the South. Even in the District of Columbia with a population of servants and waiters--servants largely Negroes--totaling 21,444, there is not one day nursery for Negro children. The other alternative is to get some elderly woman to take care of a child. The usual charge made by such a woman for a limited number of hours during the day is from $5 to $6 a week, the mother furnishing food for the child. With these two items and carfare deducted from a mother's weekly wage of $9 there is little left for other necessities.

The problem of dependents manifests itself also among widowed and divorced Negro women engaged in domestic service. The U. S. Employment Office, Washington, D. C., registered 9,774 Negro women 15 years of age and over for domestic service from January, 1920, to May, 1922. Of this number 5,124 were single, 2,579 were married, 2,071 were widowed or divorced. Of the widowed or divorced 2,056 had from 1 to 5 dependents; 79 had from 6 to 10 dependents. Although no record was made of the number of breadwinners in each of these families, many of these widows expressed their weight of responsibilities by referring to the high cost of living when their children had no one to look to for support but themselves.

Divorced domestic workers and also unmarried mothers constitute marital groups that are not all together negligible. Three of the divorced women sent from the Washington office had the added problem of finding their husbands at their respective places of employment after absences of 5, 2, and 2 years respectively. Among the 5,124 single women registered at the Washington office there were reported 9 unmarried mothers.

In the District of Columbia there is a Training School for delinquent Negro girls, a large number of whom go into domestic service when they are paroled. They are better trained than the average domestic employee, but since the Training School requires them to keep their young babies with them, it is difficult to place them in homes. If they take a room and attempt to do day work they have the difficult problem of getting someone to take care of their children.

The marital condition of 471 new applicants for domestic positions in Indianapolis, Indiana, for 1922, is given in the following table:

_Showing marital condition of 471 women seeking work as domestic servants--Indianapolis, Ind., 1922_

TABLE II Widows 63 Separated from husbands 50 Married and living with husbands 238 Divorced 34 Single 85 Unmarried mothers 1

The large proportion of married persons in the table may be accounted for, in part, by the fact that 51 per cent of the total number had recently come into Indianapolis from the adjoining States of Kentucky and Tennessee.

III. TURNOVER, TRAINING, AND EFFICIENCY OF NEGRO DOMESTIC AND PERSONAL SERVICE WORKERS

The increase of 13,738,354, or 14.9 per cent, in the total population of the United States during the last decade, and a decrease of 367,667 in the domestic and personal service occupations population increases the possibilities of turnover. In 1890, the average tenure of service of a domestic worker in the United States was less than one and one-half years.[5] Ten years later the average length of service of a Negro domestic worker in the seventh ward of Philadelphia was five years less than one month.[6] Many of these workers perhaps had been for a long time in the older families of Philadelphia. Figures for a three-year period, from 1906 to 1908, show that the modal period of service of the New York Negro domestic worker was at that time from six to eleven months.[7] In 1914, among 104 unskilled Negro workers of St. Louis--cooks, laundresses, porters, chambermaids, waiters, scrubwomen, manual laborers, and the like--the greatest frequency for length of service among the men was from one to three months, and among the women from three to six months.[8] Six years later the largest proportion of Negro domestic workers of Gainesville, Georgia, showed a disposition to remain in one position less than three months, while the next largest proportion remained in one position from three to six months.[9]

Some concrete illustrations of the frequency of turnover may be referred to as further evidence. Nearly two hundred different women were sent out from the Springfield, Massachusetts, office for day work in 1915. Two years later over 500 different workers were sent out from that office, about 200 of whom were Negro women. Of these 167 white women and 124 Negro women were placed with employers less than ten times in 1917; 2 white and 4 Negro women were sent out from 41 to 50 times; 3 white and 1 Negro woman were placed fifty times during 1917. In 1918, the Springfield office reported as having filled 4,000 places with 1,000 women.[10]

In 1920 the United States Employment Office, Washington, D. C., placed 1,488 different women for day work, all of whom were Negroes except one. Of these, 458, after being given permanent positions for every day in the week, were referred again not over twelve times; 23 of them were sent out over fifty times, and 5 of them over one hundred times during the year. General housework was so unpopular during that year that few would take it. Although the turnover in day work was greater than that in any other specific employment handled by the domestic service section of that office, the 164 cooks remained in one position on an average of about three months.

There was, however, in the District of Columbia during the fall and winter of 1920 a decrease in the rate and volume of turnover for Negro day workers and hotel workers consequent upon the minimum wage law which became effective for hotels and restaurants in the spring of 1920. Many Negro women displaced in the hotels turned to day work. For this reason added to the normal increase during the first half of 1921, the number of day workers increased to 3,115. White workers did not have to apply for day work because they could secure positions in hotels and restaurants.

During an unemployment period which extended over the latter half of 1921 and the first half of 1922, when so many men were thrown out of work, the day workers increased to 4,615. There were more day workers than there were positions for them. Consequently the turnover in day work decidedly decreased, but it increased in general housework. Many who could not get a sufficient number of days' work to make ends meet were forced to turn to general housework.

The difficulty of keeping an accurate record of the turnover in general housework makes the value of figures on turnover in general housework seem very questionable. However, the length of service of 1,000 general houseworkers sent out from the Washington office for the latter half of 1921 and the first few months of 1922 gives a fairly accurate picture of the situation at that time.

_Length of Service of 1,000 General Houseworkers, Washington, D. C., 1921-22_

TABLE III 317 remained in one position 1 week or less. 582 remained in one position from one to three months. 101 remained in one position 4 months and over.

Some of the conditions of the turnover at that time are illustrated by typical cases. One employer advertised for a general houseworker without laundry, with the privilege of going at night, and with hours off. Eleven domestic workers answered the advertisement in person, and no two met at the house at the same time. The employer engaged every one of them, to return to work the next morning. Every one of them gave assurance of being there, but not one of them came. Another employer with only two in family, very desirous of securing a general houseworker, called up six different employment agencies, each of which sent her a worker. Among the number there was one man. The employer put every one of them to work, each in a different room, with the idea of choosing the two best ones at the end of the day and engaging them for permanent work--thus assuring herself of securing one worker. She managed her plan, as she thought, very successfully, but the next morning she did not have a single worker.

Employers' statements on reference blanks, and reports from employment agencies indicate that the reasons generally given by domestic workers for leaving positions are that they wish a change, or the hours are too long, or the work is too hard, or the employer is too particular, or they have no time off. Time off for domestic employees is no doubt greatly limited. Negro domestic workers, however, proverbially take Christmas Day and the Fourth of July off, giving such various excuses for their absence as death in the family, automobile accidents, and the like. Just after these two holidays, large employment agencies handling Negro help are for the most part swamped with applicants.

To some extent turnover in domestic service is linked up with lack of training and efficiency of domestic workers. Because of their great need of domestic help, employers frequently engage persons who are so utterly untrained that they cannot be retained. There is a tendency on the part of employers to propose to a domestic worker that each take the other on a week's trial. Domestic workers are inclined to refuse such offers on the ground that they are looking for permanent employment. This suggestion of trying out domestic workers leads logically to the question of training and efficiency in domestic service.

_Training of White Domestic and Personal Service Workers_

Some facts relative to the special opportunities for the training of white household workers in England and in the United States may throw some light on the problem of efficiency. In England, following the World War and under the ministry of reconstruction, there was created a women's advisory committee to study the domestic service problem. Each of the four sub-committees appointed made a report. Among the advisory committee's final recommendations for getting the work of the nation's homes done satisfactorily and reducing waste, were technical training for domestic help and fixed standards of qualifications for them. This committee reported that in 1914 there were only ten domestic service schools in England and Wales, and four of these were in the London area. During the year of 1922 courses of three months' duration were given at some technical institutions in England in all branches of household work and management. This training enabled women to take the better posts in daily or residential work. Training in cooking and catering could be had at any technical college for three or more months as required.

To help meet the serious unemployment situation the Central Committee on Women's Training and Employment in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor set up homecraft training centers in districts where unemployment was most noticeable. At these centers a course of training was given for about three months, such as would enable women to take posts in domestic service at the end of the course. These classes were most successful. By August, 1922, about 10,000 women had received the training and the courses were still continued. These courses were given to women and girls between the ages of 16 and 35 upon their signing an agreement to be punctual in attendance, to do their best in making the classes successful, and stating their willingness to enter domestic service after receiving their training.

In the United States, in 1900, there were more illiterate persons in domestic and personal service than in any other field of employment except agriculture. The number of agricultural colleges in the different States for the purpose of developing improved farming and farmers has increased since that time, and the Federal Government farm demonstration agents are actually teaching the citizens on the plantations where they live and work. Facilities for the training of domestic help, however, have received little attention from State or Federal Government, and private enterprise in this field has been very limited.

Just twenty years ago the Home Economics Committee of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae of the United States, through the inspiration of Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer and Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, undertook an experiment for studying at first hand the problems of household labor. Among the disabilities in domestic service regarded as fundamental causes of the disfavor in which it was held, was the low grade of intelligence and skill available among domestic service workers. This household aid company committee opened a training center and applied educational tests to its candidates and undertook to give a course of six weeks' training to each aid before she was sent out to work. The number of aids taking the training was small. Mainly because of a lack of funds, however, the experiment was given up after a trial of two years. Prior to that time the civic club of Philadelphia attempted to standardize the work and wages of domestic workers in that city.

Nearly twenty years later, a committee on household assistants was organized in New York City by the United States Employment Service. The committee succeeded in planning a household occupations course to be given at the Washington Irving High School, and made efforts to advertise the course; but since no one registered for it the committee concluded that the matter would have to be taken up and pushed by employers before it could succeed.[11]

Some of these efforts, however, have met with a measure of success. The Bureau of Household Occupations of the Housewives' League of Providence, R. I., organized in November, 1918, has conducted very successful training classes for domestic workers. No meals or lodging are to be furnished the household attendants of the Bureau. The Bureau of Occupations under the auspices of the Housewives' League of Hartford, Connecticut, has given its training courses through the generosity of some of its members. One member taught cooking, another taught waiting table, another laundry work. Classes were taught in the homes of some of the members with much success.

_Training of Negro Domestic Workers_

Available data shows that opportunities for the special training of Negro domestic workers have been even less than those for white domestic workers. During the latter quarter of the 19th century Mrs. L. J. Coppin, of Philadelphia, maintained a small home for the training of the Negro domestic workers of Philadelphia. In the comparatively few social settlements for Negroes there is meagre opportunity for training in domestic service. The Domestic Efficiency Association of Baltimore, Maryland, an organization of employers, has announced its plans for opening a training school for white and Negro domestic workers. This Association maintained in 1921 and 1922 a training school for Negro domestic help, in which special lessons could be given or general training for one month or more. A rate of $5 a week for board, lodging, and training was charged. If an applicant had no money the Domestic Efficiency Association advanced it on her signing an agreement to secure her position through the Association when ready for it, and to repay the debt out of her wages at the rate of at least $2.50 a week.

The domestic science training given in the public schools may be a small factor in the efficiency of Negro domestic workers, but most of the permanent domestic workers do not go beyond the fifth grade in school and thus do not go far enough to get an appreciable amount of domestic science training. Negro workers who go through the high or normal schools do not enter permanently into domestic service. This statement is based on the data indicated by the permanent occupations of 606 Negro graduates of the Sumner High School, St. Louis, Missouri, of 305 graduates of Miner Normal School, Washington, in the District of Columbia, of 15 graduates of the Gainesville, Georgia, public schools 1917-1919;[12] and on data for students applying at the Washington, in the District of Columbia, and the Indianapolis Employment Agencies. Tables IV and V below set forth these facts.

_Occupations of 606 Negro High School Graduates, Sumner High School, St. Louis, Mo., 1895-1911_[13]

TABLE IV Occupation Number Those engaged in, or prepared for, teaching 288 Entered college 49 Clerical work 43 Postoffice clerks 30 Entered business 4 Mechanics 17 Women at home or married 120 Miscellaneous 32 Unknown 23

Although Tables IV and V direct one's attention to the limited fields of employment for Negro high school graduates, especially so since clerical and mechanical work, business and professional service, must be engaged in almost wholly among Negroes, yet few if any of the 911 graduates have entered domestic service. The young women graduates of the Gainesville, Georgia, schools 1917-19, with the exception of three, entered higher institutions of learning.

In Washington, in the District of Columbia, during the academic year 1920-22 there were among the 9,976 applicants for domestic work, 17 male and 159 female students who had attended or were attending high school; 75 female normal school students; 13 male and 126 female college students. Also in Indianapolis, in 1922, 73 female high school students and 12 female college students applied for domestic service. These large numbers of high school, normal school, and college students seek domestic service mainly for after-school hours, Saturdays, Sundays, summer months, and temporarily for earning money to continue their education, or until they can find other employment.

_Occupations of 305 Negro Graduates of Miner Normal School, Washington, D. C., 1913-1922_

TABLE V Occupation Number Teaching in Washington, D. C.: Elementary 207 Kindergarten 50 Domestic Science 4 Domestic Art 3 Manual Arts 1 Drawing 1 Music 1 Ungraded 1 Teaching in Maryland 8 Teaching in Virginia 2 Teaching in North Carolina 1 Teaching in South Carolina 1 Teaching in New York 1 Substitute teachers in Washington, D. C. 2 Students 5 Government Service 7 Housekeepers 5 Printers 1 Private Music Teachers 1 Physicians 1 Insurance 1 Y. W. C. A. 1

Table VI shows the grades on leaving school of 8,147 Negro domestic workers--men and women--of the Washington, D. C., office; and Table VII shows grades on leaving school of 471 Negro domestic workers, not separated by sex, of an Indianapolis Employment Office conducted by Flanner House in that city. Each of these workers was personally interviewed by the agent at each respective office. The reported grade of each on leaving school was placed on an application card which was filed for reference. The application cards were filled out solely on the testimony of the applicants. The agent in the Washington office handling the women did not ordinarily register men except as man and wife applied at the same time, or a woman sent her husband to the agent, or a special employer asked the agent to select male help, or teachers in the Negro schools sent boys and men who were in search of work. Therefore, the number of men from the Washington office for whom grades are given is comparatively small.

In examining Tables VI and VII below one must take into consideration several factors. In the first place, 81.2 per cent of the Washington applicants and 73.9 per cent of the Indianapolis applicants were born in the South where the standard is not so high as in the North; and many of these applicants attended school in the rural districts of the South where the schools were not standardized, and only a few schools had any domestic science instruction. Then, too, a large proportion of them left school some years ago when all of the grades or groups of a school were taught by one teacher in one room.

Those persons who could not read or write seemed to feel their illiteracy very keenly. Many of them offered excuses by saying that the "white folks raised" them; or their parents died and they had to help the other children; or they were "sickly," and the like. Those who had never been to school but could read and write a little were listed as being in the first grade. One applicant said that she had never been through any grade but she could read and write and go anywhere in the city she wished to go. Another one, an elderly woman, expressed her regrets because she never had a chance to go to school, but she had learned to read and write so that she could sign her name instead of simply "touching the pen" when she was transacting her business.

_Grades on Leaving School of 7,975 Female and 172 Male Negro Domestic Workers from the U. S. Employment Service, Washington, D. C., 1920-1922_

TABLE VI Male Female Illiterate 8 418 1st Grade 5 244 2d Grade 7 436 3d Grade 9 842 4th Grade 17 1,073 5th Grade 31 1,417 6th Grade 28 1,237 7th Grade 25 998 8th Grade 42 1,310

_Grades on Leaving School of 387 Negro Domestic Workers, Irrespective of Sex, Indianapolis, Ind., 1922_

TABLE VII Illiterate 21 1st Gr. 7 2d Gr. 11 3d Gr. 22 4th Gr. 44 5th Gr. 63 6th Gr. 51 7th Gr. 47 8th Gr. 120

The figures show that of a total of 7,975 female applicants for domestic work in Washington, D. C., 4,430, or 55.5 per cent, had received school training in the sixth grade or below; leaving only 29.9 per cent who had seventh or eighth grade training. Of the 387 applicants for domestic service in Indianapolis, 168, or 43.3 per cent, had received school training up to the fifth grade or below; and 219, or 56.7 per cent, had been to the sixth grade or below, leaving 43.3 per cent who had been in the seventh or eighth grade. The larger proportions of those from higher grades in Indianapolis may be accounted for by the lesser opportunity in other occupations as compared with Washington, and by the smaller number of applicants involved. In short, domestic service as a regular occupation does not attract and hold Negro workers of the higher grades of educational training and intelligence.

In order to understand exactly what is meant by saying that consideration of certain factors must be taken into account in any attempt to formulate some idea of the educational status of the rank and file domestic worker reckoned by his grade when he left school, some letters, typical of the educational equipment among the 9,774 domestic workers (applicants), should be read. These letters were written to the agent in the Washington, D. C., office by 5th grade domestic workers.[14]

Many of these domestic workers also showed their lack of training by their inability to figure out their weekly wages at the rate of $40, 45, or $50 per month. Such inability often caused them to feel and say that their employers were "cheaters." To a considerable number of them, $40 a month meant $10 a week, and vice versa; $45 a month meant $11.25 a week, and $50 a month meant $12.50 a week. They generally secured their pay twice a month--the first and the fifteenth. However, such an arrangement did not seem to clarify matters, since they thought of four weeks as making a month.

Then comes the question of the efficiency of Negro domestic workers. In Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, Indianapolis, and Washington, D. C., agents find that employers of domestic labor, like other employers, do not like to write down their grievances, but many of them do make complaints to the agents over the telephone about the inefficiency of domestic help. Agents in Detroit and Indianapolis state that Negro domestic workers from the South--many of them from the farms and untrained, unaccustomed to Northern methods of domestic work--find it difficult to give satisfaction. The consensus of opinion of eleven white and Negro agents in New York City was that with respect to efficiency there are three distinct types of domestic workers in New York City. In the first place, comes the West Indian, who is unaccustomed to domestic work, and therefore unable to convince himself that he is on that plane. He makes a more or less inefficient domestic worker. Then there is the New York Negro who has difficulty in adjusting himself to domestic duties. The southern Negro, however, a decidedly different sort of laborer, makes a more efficient domestic worker than either of the other two types.

Opinions elsewhere also vary. There was a migration of Negro women domestic workers from Georgia to Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1916-1917. Many of these women were very satisfactory employees and compared favorably with northern born Negro women domestic workers of that locality, according to the _11th Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics_. In the United States Employment Office, Washington, D. C., where all sorts and conditions of domestic workers were handled, reports from employers on the efficiency of the new workers from the South indicated that they were unaccustomed to modern methods of housework and were less efficient than northern born workers.

In any attempt to rate the efficiency of Negro domestic workers by verbal testimonials and written references from their employers or by wages received or length of service period of the workers, due consideration must be given to factors beyond the workers' control. Some of these factors are differences in the standards of efficiency in the many homes and the temperament of employers together with the attitude of some employers toward Negroes generally. For example, occasionally, a former employer, in sympathy with the struggles of Negroes and not wishing to hinder an unsatisfactory worker from securing another position, writes for her a letter of recommendation. Sometimes another employer, because of misunderstanding of some sort between her and the worker, refuses to give any reference whatever.

In 1890, 57 per cent of 1,005 housekeepers representing the whole United States found more or less difficulty in securing efficient help. This probably was an underestimate of the true condition.[15] In 1901, out of 1,106 domestic workers from all sections of the United States, 34 per cent were rated excellent; 37.4 per cent good; 24.8 per cent fair; 3.8 per cent poor. Although these figures indicate that 96.2 per cent of the total were between excellent and fair, the Commission's report in summing up the matter states that according to the testimony of employers of domestic labor and of employment agents, the character of the service rendered by domestic laborers is in a large proportion of cases unsatisfactory. It further states that the quality of men's work is about the same as that of women's work.[16]

In New York City, employment agencies send reference blanks to former employers of domestic workers to be filled out and returned.[17] These references are kept on file as a record of the domestic worker's capability, sobriety and honesty. From 1906 to 1909 efficiency ratings taken from such blanks for 902 Negro domestic and personal service workers were as follows: 25.6 per cent very capable; 10.2 per cent fairly capable; 2.2 per cent inefficient, and 2.0 per cent not stated.[18] One employment agency in this city made 304 placements of Negro women domestic workers during January, 1923. According to those workers' references from their former employers 93.3 per cent were capable or fairly capable and honest. This high degree of efficiency among domestic workers from this one office is due probably to the fact that this office with its limited staff of secretaries makes no attempt to handle the evidently inexperienced workers. The other employment agencies in New York and Brooklyn visited in 1923 spoke favorably of the quality of service rendered by domestic workers in these cities, according to their reports from employers.

Opinions of employers are not conclusive evidence of the efficiency or inefficiency of workers, but they throw considerable light upon the question. Written references are more or less held in disfavor by the Washington, D. C., employers of domestic labor because they feel that domestic workers sometimes write their own references. This is true to a limited extent. Many of the workers come from small towns and rural sections where the employers of domestic labor do not use elegant stationery, the best English, and the most correct spelling in writing references for domestic workers who leave for the cities. Such references do domestic workers coming to Washington, D. C., more harm than good.

However, domestic workers are more and more seeking written references on leaving their places of employment because they are beginning to realize that such are generally required by employers. Often a former employer has moved away from the city, is in Europe, or has died, when the domestic worker needs most to refer to her. A prospective employer usually doubts that such an excuse, if given, is true. Of course, some workers do try to take advantage in this way, but most of them are not so unwise.

Types of written and oral testimonials of employers of domestic labor in Washington, D. C., are also informing.[19] In cases where three or more employers testified to the efficiency or inefficiency of a worker, the word "efficient," "inefficient," or "poor" was written across the bottom of his application card. The following table in some measure represents in detail the character of service reported to the United States Employment Service, Domestic Section.

_Summary of Testimonials of Former Employers of 9,976 Wage Earners Engaged in Domestic Personal Service, Washington, D. C., January 1920-May 1922_

============================================================== TABLE VIII| Efficient |Fairly Efficient| Inefficient |-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+-------- | No. | Per ct.| No. | Per ct.| No. | Per ct. -----------+-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+-------- _Male_ | 90 | 44.6 | 94 | 46.5 | 11 | 19.4 _Female_ | 3,008 | 30.8 | 4,543 | 46.5 | 1,892 | .05 -----------+-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+-------- _Total_ | 3,098 | 37.7 | 4,637 | 46.5 | 1,903 | 9.7 -----------+-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+--------

_No Report_

No. Per Cent. _Male_ 7 .03 _Female_ 331 .03 _Total_ 338 .03

In this table 44.6 per cent of the males as over against 30.8 per cent of the females are reported as being efficient, while 19.4 per cent of the females and only 0.05 per cent of the males are listed as inefficient. This should not lead to the conclusion that the male Negro domestic workers of Washington, D. C., were more efficient than the female Negro domestic workers of that city, since the 202 male domestic workers do not represent the rank and file. They represent men of family responsibilities, and students working their way through high school and college. Both of these groups had a more or less definite responsibility and aim in doing domestic work and therefore were more willing, at least for a time, to accommodate themselves to conditions obtaining in it. The office received no report concerning .03 per cent of the workers. Occasionally both employer and employee were so well pleased with each other that neither was heard from unless the office in its follow-up work discovered the happy situation.

The opinion of employers that 19.4 per cent of 9,773 Negro female domestic workers of Washington, D. C., were reported inefficient does not, without other data, justify this as a scientific conclusion. Some typical examples of their inefficiency are interesting.[20] The inefficiency is due in large measure to pure ignorance which for the most part is the sequel to lack of opportunity and training. For example, the older type cook, who cannot read and write, finds it difficult, if not impossible, to carry all the different modern salad and dessert combinations in her memory and cannot supplement her instructions by the use of literature on domestic science.

Employment agencies in Chicago in 1923, moreover, have hardly told the whole truth in giving the following figures on the efficiency of 200 female domestic workers and 200 male domestic workers: _Women_, satisfactory 175, or 87.5 per cent; unsatisfactory 10, or 5.0 per cent; neither satisfactory nor wholly unsatisfactory 15, or 7.5 per cent. _Men_, satisfactory 125, or 62.5 per cent; unsatisfactory 45, or 22.5 per cent; neither 30, or 15 per cent.

Efficient domestic workers apparently regret that they are in an occupational group representing such a high degree of ignorance and inefficiency. They sometimes take pride in saying that they have never worked for poor people. Such a class of workers is represented by a Washington, D. C., domestic worker who gave as her former employers Mrs. John Hays Hammond, Mrs. Arthur Glasgow, Senator Beveridge, Senator Guggenheim, and President Wilson. She took pride in the fact that she could even show anyone a piece of the president's wedding cake.

Honesty in domestic service is so closely associated with efficiency that practically no reference for a domestic worker is complete without some statement about this qualification. In 1890 Miss Salmon raised a serious question with regard to the honesty of Negro domestic workers in the South. Her question was based on answers received from schedules sent to employers of that section.[21] In 1901, 92.6 per cent of 583 domestic labor employers representing the whole United States testified that their employees were honest and responsible. Most employment bureaus were also agreed upon the general honesty of domestic workers.[22] In 1899 the Philadelphia Negro domestic worker of the Seventh Ward was described as purloining food left from the table but as having the balance in his favor in regard to honesty.[23] In 1906 opinions of former employers of 902 Negro wage-earners in domestic and personal service in New York City were that 91.3 per cent were honest; 7.1 per cent were either honest or fairly so; 0.6 per cent were dishonest, and no statement was given for 1.0 per cent.[24]

Out of 9,638 Negro domestic workers reported upon for Washington, D. C, between the years of 1920-1922, only .2 per cent were rated by their former employers with assurance as being dishonest; 90.4 per cent were listed as being honest. There were various answers for the 9.4 per cent. Some did not remain long enough to have judgment passed upon them. Others were in a doubtful class but with no proof against them, and the like. This low percentage of dishonesty eliminates the tradition of taking food except in seven cases. The seven cases of food taking are included because they were directly reported and regarded by the employers as dishonest. Some employers, according to their own statement of the case, do not regard taking food left from the table as stealing, although such is against the will of the employer. According to the southern tradition of a low wage and taking food to piece it out, domestic workers are still virtually expected to follow this custom.

200 women and 200 men domestic workers of Chicago have the following record for honesty: _Women_, honest, 199, or 99.5 per cent; dishonest, 1, or 0.5 per cent; _men_, honest, 197, or 98.5 per cent; dishonest, 3, or 1.5 per cent.

Employment agents in other leading cities already mentioned have very little complaint against the honesty of Negro domestic workers except in the matter of taking food. Their explanation of the psychology of such dishonesty is as given above.

IV. WAGES, HOURS, AND SPECIFIC OCCUPATIONS

While wages and efficiency are in some degree related in domestic service, there is the custom of paying the "going wage" for specific occupations, irrespective of efficiency. Wages vary, of course, in different sections of the country and in different localities. Occasionally attempts are made to grade such laborers. One employment bureau, in Indianapolis, for example, divides its day workers into grades A and B with respective wages of 30 cents and 25 cents an hour for each grade.

Two other questions current in the problem of wages in domestic service, both of which seem to be slowly lending themselves to adjustment, are the payment of weekly wages instead of bi-weekly or monthly wages, and equal pay for equal work irrespective of whether a man or a woman, a Negro or a white employee, does the work. Bi-monthly payment in domestic service has come to be the custom due largely to the convenience of the employer, and to the possibility of weekly wages increasing the turnover. A domestic worker often leaves unceremoniously as soon as he gets his first pay. However, workers claim that the custom of bi-weekly or monthly pay inconveniences them since they cannot arrange to pay their rent, or purchase clothing and other necessities on that basis.

The question of equal pay for Negro domestic workers does not enter the domestic service wage problem of the South because Negroes pre-empt this field in that section. Although the scarcity of domestic labor seems to be settling this matter in other sections of the country, it still persists in some measure. Twenty-five years ago Miss Eaton discovered that Negro butlers on Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, received on an average $36.90 a month, while white butlers were getting from $40 to $45 a month.[25]

In the fall of 1921, during the period of labor depression, eleven of the Washington, D. C., clubs and expensive boarding houses attempted to make a change from Negro to white chambermaid-waitresses at an increase of $10 a month for each worker. The four clubs that succeeded in making the change discharged their white chambermaid-waitresses after one week each and re-employed Negroes at the old wage of $35 a month. One of the successful employers felt that, inasmuch as the white servants were no more satisfactory than the Negro workers, she had just as well keep the Negroes and pay them less.

When the minimum wage law for women and minors of Washington, D. C., recently declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court, went into effect, practically all of the hotels and restaurants in that city immediately discharged Negro workers and took on white ones. Some of the managers told the agent at the United States Employment Bureau that they were making the change because white servants were more efficient than Negro workers. Other managers, some of whom had used Negro labor for more than fifteen years, simply said that $16.50 a week was too much to pay Negroes, and, therefore, wished white workers instead. The few hotels and restaurants that retained Negroes as a rule put them on a much shorter working week than 48 hours, thus reducing their pay.

Boarding houses and institutions such as private schools, sanatoria, and the like, that offer excuses and fail to pay workers should be mentioned in this connection. The manager of one such boarding house in Washington, D. C., was sued by a worker who won her case because other unpaid laborers testified against the manager. The superintendent of a small private school in that city--also among such paymasters--had repeatedly been reported to the Minimum Wage Board which forced her to pay the Negro women day workers. After a few months of such experience she changed her help and began to employ men, over whom the Minimum Wage Board had no jurisdiction.

The wages of Negro domestic workers today are considerably higher than they were in past decades, as is shown by a comparison of figures in past periods for the Continental United States and for selected cities with figures in 1920-1923. For the twenty-five years prior to the World War there had been only a slight wage increase in domestic and personal service. During the World War there was a considerable increase in wages for both male and female domestic workers, the increase for the latter being larger than that for the former. Since the World War wages for such workers have fallen to some extent but not anywhere near the pre-war level.

The following tables, with one exception, show the wage changes at different ten-year periods over a range of 30 years. In Table IX the figures from the Boston Employment Bureau illustrate the fact that the average weekly wages for female domestic workers of Boston were decidedly higher than elsewhere in the country. This table also makes clear the fact that wages for men were considerably higher than those for women.

_Average Daily and Weekly Wages in Selected Domestic Service Occupations, 1889-1890_[26]

TABLE IX Occupation Weekly Wages for Weekly Wages for the United States Boston, Mass. _Women_ Cooks $3.72 $4.45 Cooks and laundresses 3.39 Chambermaids 3.39 3.86 Waitresses 3.19 3.7 Second girls 3.16 3.7 Chambermaids and waitresses 3.10 Parlor maids 3 General servants 2.91 3

_Men_ Coachmen $7.84 Coachmen and gardeners 6.54 Butlers 6.11 Cooks 6.08

_Women_ Daily Wages Laundresses .82 Seamstresses 1.01

_Men_ Gardeners 1.33 Chore-men .87

Table X below gives average wages for selected domestic service occupations in the United States for a decade later than the figures of Table IX. The slight variation in the figures of Table X from those of Table IX may be due to probable error incident to the collection of the data or to some other factor. The indications of these two tables, however, with ten years intervening between the compilation of the data, are that wages probably had changed very little, if any.

_Average Weekly Wages for Selected Domestic Service Occupations in the United States, 1900_[27]

TABLE X Occupation Average Weekly Wage _Women_ General houseworkers $3.28 Cooks 3.95 Waitresses 3.43 Other specialists 3.54

_Men_ For all domestic service occupations 6.03

_Women_ For all domestic service occupations 3.51

In comparison with the two preceding tables, Table XI below gives wages for domestic service in Philadelphia for about the same period. The weekly wages range higher than for the country as a whole. The lower wages in the southern border and middle sections of the United States have reduced the average for the country below that for this eastern city in which also special conditions may have operated to bring such wages above the general level.

_Average Weekly Wages of Negro Domestic Workers of Philadelphia, 1896-1897_[27]

TABLE XI Occupation Average Weekly Wage _Women_ General worker $3.24 Janitress 4.06 Chambermaid-laundress 3.58 Cook-laundress 4.00 Laundress 4.04 Lady's maid 3.63 Chambermaid and waitress 3.17 Waitress 3.31

_Women_ Chambermaid 3.17 Child's nurse 3.35 Errand girl 2.00 Cook 4.02

_Men_ General worker 5.38 Valet 8.00 Cook 6.17 Waiter 6.14 Coachman 8.58 Butler 8.24 Bellboy 2.61

Table XII which follows is drawn from _The Negro at Work in New York City_, and shows the modal wage groups for specific occupations in domestic and personal service, New York City, 1906-1909. Although data for New York City are not typical of the entire country, these are the only available figures for this period, and they may indicate the trend of wages in domestic personal service in that section. In comparison with the preceding Table of Wages in Philadelphia, the increase in wages in New York City may be due to differences of conditions in the two cities rather than to any general increase or decrease in wages.

_Modal Wage Groups for Selected Occupations, 1906-1909_[28]

TABLE XII Occupation Range of Modal Wage _Female_ Switchboard operator $4.00-4.99 Chambermaid 4.00-4.99 Chambermaid-cook 5.00-5.99 Chambermaid-laundress 5.00-5.99 Chambermaid-waitress 4.00-4.99 Kitchenmaid 4.00-4.99 Cook 5.00-5.99 Cook and general worker 5.00-5.99 Cook-waitress 4.00-4.99 Cook-laundress 5.00-5.99 Errand girl Less than 4.00 General houseworker 4.00-4.99 Laundress 4.00-4.99 Lady's maid 4.00-4.99 Parlor maid 4.00-4.99 Nurse Less than 3.00 Pantry girl 4.00-4.99 Waitress 4.00-4.99 Dishwasher 4.00-4.99

_Male_ Bellman Less than 4.00 Butler-cook 5.00-5.99 Waiter 5.00-5.99 Butler 5.00-5.99 Coachman 5.00-5.99 Cook 5.00-5.99 Elevator operator 5.00-5.99 Furnaceman 5.00-5.99 Gardener 4.00-4.99 Hallman and doorman 4.00-4.99 Houseman 5.00-5.99 Janitor 5.00-5.99

The last decade embraces the World War when wages in domestic and personal service were at their maximum. The following tables for selected cities present graphically the increase in wages for male and female domestic workers and the slight increase in wages of females over that of males. These tables also show how wages vary in different sections of the country. Although these figures are for 1920, and the first quarter of 1921, the decline in wages generally did not begin until the fourth quarter of 1920, and it was not so pronounced in domestic and personal service as in many other occupational groups, and was scarcely appreciable in domestic service until the middle of 1921.

Tables XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, and XVII indicate that although wages in domestic and personal service among Negroes have fallen somewhat, they are still far above those of pre-war times. They also show that since the War there has been considerable decline in rates paid men for day work in New York City and Washington, D. C., but very little decrease in the rates for women day workers in either of the two cities.

Any analysis of these tables must take into consideration that female day workers in the cities included in the tables receive their carfare and at least one meal; cooks, general houseworkers, waiters and waitresses, housemen, mothers' helpers, some kitchen help, part-time workers and nurses receive their meals and, in many instances, their quarters.

In this table wages for clerical workers, factory workers, laborers, truckers, butchers, etc., are given in comparison with the wages of domestic and personal service workers. For example: a stenographer receives $18 a week, while a cook receives from $18 to $25 a week and board; a factory girl receives from 25 cents to 30 cents an hour, while a day worker in domestic service receives $22 a week, and a cook receives $25 a week and board.

_Weekly Wages of 118 Negro Men in Domestic Service by Specified Occupations, New York City, 1920-1921_[29]

TABLE XIII Occupations Number Employed Weekly Wages Cleaners 3 $ .50 per hour 5 3.00 per day Cooks 2 15.00-17.99 3 18.00-19.99 3 25.00 or more Dishwashers 2 10.00-12.99 4 13.00-14.99 and meals 1 15.00-17.99 11 18.00-21.99 1 26.00 Doormen 1 38.50 and meals 3 (monthly) 40.00-79.00 Elevator operators (apt. house) 1 under 10.00 1 10.00-12.99 11 15.00-17.99 1 18.00-21.99 Elevator and switchboard operators 6 14.00 6 17.00 1 18.00 Firemen (apt. house) 1 3.00 per day 1 20.00-24.99 1 20.00 and board 1 30.00 Janitors (apt. house) 1 (monthly) 20.00 and apartment 1 (monthly) 30.00 and keep 1 (monthly) 40.00 and keep 1 (monthly) 60.00 and keep Assistant janitors (apt. house) 1 10.00-12.99 1 15.00 and room Porters-apartment houses 1 16.00 6 18.00-20.99 Waiters 3 under 10.00 18 (exclusive of tips) 15.00-17.99 6 18.00-20.99 7 10.00-11.99

_Range of Weekly Wages of 754 Negro Women in Domestic and Personal Service, Specified by Occupations, New York City, 1920-1921_[30]

TABLE XIV Occupations Number Employed Wages General houseworkers 5 under $ 9.00 706 10.00-18.00 Chambermaids 1 under 9.00 Chambermaids-waitresses 7 12.00-18.00 Cooks 6 15.00-21.00 Kitchen helpers 8 12.00-17.00 2 under 9.00 Mothers' helpers and Nurses 9 10.00-15.00 Nurses (practical) 3 15.00-21.00 Waitresses 5 12.00-14.00

_Range of Daily and Weekly Wages of 1,565 Male and Female Negro Domestic and Personal Service Workers, Washington, D. C., 1920_

================================================================= Table XV | | | | Number | Daily | Weekly Occupations |Employed| Wages | Wages ---------------------------------+--------+---------+------------ Male | | | Butlers | 7 | | 12.00-15.00 Chauffeurs | 3 | | 14.00-15.00 Chauffer-butler | 13 | | 14.00-15.00 Elevator Operator | 6 | | 9.00-10.00 Janitors and housemen | 34 | | 10.00-12.00 Cooks | 21 | | 18.00-20.00 Furnace and yardman | 10 | | 7.00-8.00 Waiters | 11 | | 9.00-10.00 Dishwashers | 12 | | 9.00-12.00 Day Workers | 6 | 4.00 | | | | Female | | | General houseworkers | 49 | | 10.00-12.00 Cooks | 83 | | 10.00-20.00 Maids | 86 | | 9.00-10.00 Waitresses | 112 | | 9.00-10.00 Personal maids | 5 | | 10.00-12.00 Kitchen maids | 40 | | 8.00-9.00 Mothers helpers | 75 | | 5.00-7.00 Pantry maid | 62 | | 10.00-12.00 Permanent laundresses | 3 | | 12.00-14.00 Cook-laundresses | 81 | | 10.00-12.00 Chambermaid-waitresses | 240 | | 9.00-10.00 Janitress | 7 | | 9.00-10.00 Elevator operator | 82 | | 8.00-9.00 Parlor maids | 21 | | 9.00-10.00 Day workers | 362 |2.50-3.00| Nurse maid | 91 | | 8.00-9.00 Part-time workers | 51 | | 6.00-7.00 ----------------------------------------------------------------

_Weekly Wages of 200 Male and 200 Female Negro Domestic Workers of Chicago by Occupations_, 1923

TABLE XVI Occupations Number Enrolled Weekly Wages _Male_ Factory 15 22.00 Waiter 8 15.00 and board Bus Boys 6 10.00 and board Elevator 1 14.00 Cook 10 25.00 and board Cleaning 11 (per hour) .50 Wringer 2 20.00 Fireman 2 24.00 Shoe shiners 3 (per day) 2.00 and tips Butchers 6 (per hour) .47 and up Houseman 4 (per month) 70.00 room and board Dishwasher 43 17.00 and board Porter 10 20.00-25.00 Trucker 25 22.00 Laborers 54 (per hour) .45-.60

_Average Daily and Weekly Wage of Negro Domestic Workers by Occupation for Selected Cities_, 1923

================================================================== TABLE XVII | Average Wage By Occupation |------------------------------------------------ | |General | | | | Day | House | Cooks | Maids | Waitresses |Workers |Workers | | | -----------------+--------+--------+--------+--------+------------ New York | $3.80 | $13.85 | $16.50 | $13.00 | $7 and tips Philadelphia | 2.75 | 12.50 | 13.50 | 9.50 | $7 and tips Baltimore | 2.75 | 9.50 | 11.00 | 8.50 | $7 and tips Washington, D. C.| 2.00 | 9.25 | 10.75 | 8.50 | $8 and tips Detroit | 3.35 | 9.50 | 11.00 | 9.00 | $7 and tips Indianapolis | 2.25 | 10.00 | 13.50 | 9.00 | $7 and tips Boston | 3.00 | 12.00 | 12.50 | 10.50 | 10.50 Los Angeles | 3.80 | | 15.00 | 11.50 | 8.00 Montgomery | 1.75 | 7.00 | | 6.50 | Nashville | 1.75 | 7.00 | | 6.50 | ------------------------------------------------------------------

=============================================== TABLE XVII |Average Wage By Occupation (cont.) |----------------------------- |Part-time | Mothers' | Child | Workers | Helpers | Nurses -----------------+----------+----------+------- New York | $8.00 | $11.00 | $11.00 Philadelphia | 7.50 | 8.25 | 8.25 Baltimore | 6.00 | 5.50 | 6.00 Washington, D. C.| 7.50 | 8.00 | 8.00 Detroit | 9.50 | 9.50 | 10.00 Indianapolis | | 8.00 | 13.50 Boston | | | Los Angeles | | | Montgomery | | | Nashville | | | ----------------------------------------------

================================================================== Male | Day |Chauffeurs | Cooks |Janitors |Dishwashers |laborers | | | | ------------+---------+-----------+--------+---------+------------ New York | $3.00 | $25.00 | $20.00 | $9.50 | $12.00 Boston | 4.00 | 25.00 | 22.50 | 20.00 | 12.00 Philadelphia| 3.80 | 25.00 | 20.00 | 15.00 | 9.50 Baltimore | 3.50 | 18.00 | 21.00 | 15.00 | 9.50 ------------------------------------------------------------------

=================================================== Male | Bell | Waiters |Porters | Elevator (cont.) | men | | | operators ------------+-------+---------+--------+----------- New York | $9.50 | $10.00 | $15.00 | 15.00 Boston | 13.50 | 12.00 | 15.00 | 15.00 Philadelphia| 6.50 | 7.00 | 15.00 | 15.00 Baltimore | 7.87 | 9.30 | 15.00 | 9.30-15.00 ---------------------------------------------------

The table above shows that wages in the specified occupations in different sections of the country, for the most part, do not vary very much. Wages for males are given for only four cities because the wages for males in the other cities mentioned, with two exceptions, are about the same as in these four cities. In addition to money wages received for day work, women get their carfare and often one or two meals, while men receive only the money wages. Elevator operators in Baltimore hotels are paid from $40 to $50 a month instead of $15 a week as in apartment houses because more tips are given in hotels.

Although in consideration of the present rate of wages the total annual wage paid for domestic and personal service in the homes of the United States must be large, there seems to be no available data on this point. However, an estimate has been made of the total quarterly wages for 1920 and 1921 and the first quarter of 1922 paid domestic and personal service employees in the hotels and similar institutions of Continental United States. The range of quarterly wages in such institutions for 1920 was 666 to 700 millions of dollars; for 1921, 660 to 678 millions of dollars; and for 1922, 643 millions of dollars. The maximum cyclical decline in the wages of such workers for that period of time was 8.15 per cent.

Even though seven other groups of occupations had a smaller percentage cyclical decline in wages following the war than public domestic and personal service and twelve other groups of occupations had a larger cyclical decline, the average earnings an hour for each domestic and personal service worker are less than that for any other occupation or industry except agriculture. The average earnings in cents an hour for each employee in domestic and personal service were for the first quarter of 1920, 34 cents; for the first quarter of 1921, 34 cents; and for the first quarter of 1922, 33 cents.[31]

_Hours of Negro Domestic Workers_

Although during the past thirty years there has been considerable advance made in the matter of hours for domestic and personal service workers, the change in this particular has not kept pace throughout the United States with the increase in wages in domestic and personal service occupations. Thirty years ago 38 per cent of 1,434 female domestic employees from all sections of the United States were actually working ten hours a day, 6 per cent of them were working eleven hours a day, 31 per cent were working twelve hours or more a day, and 25 per cent of them were working less than ten hours a day.[32]

In recent years the hours and wages of female domestic and personal service workers in several states of the union have been standardized by the enactment of state minimum wage laws. Utah, which has an eight hour day and a 48 hour week for female workers generally, lists any regular employer of female labor under those occupations covered by law. This would include domestic service for women. The minimum wage rate in this State for experienced women is $1.25 per day. Wisconsin, which has a ten hour day and a 55 hour week for females and minors, includes under its minimum wage law every person in receipt of, or entitled to, any compensation for labor performed for any employer. Domestic workers must be included in this number. Colorado includes under its minimum wage law any occupation which embraces "any and every vocation, trade, pursuit and industry." Since domestic service is a pursuit or vocation, it must come under the minimum wage law of Colorado. The state of Washington has an eight hour day and a 56 hour week and a wage of $18 a week and $3 a day for females engaged in public housekeeping, but not for private domestic workers. North Dakota publicly excludes domestic service and agriculture from its occupations or industries covered by the minimum wage law. Although the other seven State minimum wage laws do not openly exclude domestic service, it is not included as yet among occupations and industries. Two attempts were recently made in California to secure through legislation a ten hour day for domestic workers. The first bill was defeated. The second bill passed both houses but received a pocket veto.[33] In States where there is no minimum wage legislation the working hours for day workers and part-time workers are standardized on an eight hour basis.

The extensive use of day workers came into popularity largely through necessity during the World War. At that time such a large proportion of the permanent domestic employees found openings in other lines of work that housewives supplemented their own labor by hiring day workers. The large demand for such workers gave them the leverage of establishing for themselves an eight hour day and a wage commensurate with that in many lines of industry. Day workers have retained since the World War both the eight hour day and the advanced wages.

The part-time workers, too, have definite hours. Many of them do cooking and general housework but for only specified hours. Some of them work four or five hours or less in the mornings, especially when the work is largely cleaning. Not a few of them begin in the afternoon and do general housework and prepare dinner and serve it. But the hours are fixed hours. Some part-time workers have a regular place of employment for mornings and another such place for afternoons. Their hours are definite and their wages are thus very good. Frequently the part-time worker has every Sunday off.

The hours for the other domestic service workers generally do not seem to be so well standardized as yet. Three Washington, D. C., employers wished their general houseworkers to come on duty at seven o'clock in the morning, with the promise that the workers could leave when they finished. Although 75.3 per cent of one thousand domestic workers, exclusive of day workers and part-time workers, in the private families and boarding houses of Washington, D. C., were on duty ten hours or over, this would show that the three employers mentioned above were not typical. Three other employers in the same mentioned city maintained an eight hour day for their help by having an extra worker prepare the dinners and serve them.

Apparently no attempt has been made to compare the hours of the private domestic and personal service workers with those of the workers in other industries. An estimate made of the full-time hours a week during 1920 and 1921 for the average employee in all enterprises of whatever size in the Continental United States discloses the fact that the average full-time hours a week for public domestic and personal service workers were from 56.6 to 57.1, while the average for workers in all industries including domestic and personal service was 50.3 to 51.3 hours a week. In New York City, according to employment agents, the practice of an eight to nine hour day for domestic workers generally obtains.

_Specific Occupations of Negro Domestic Workers_

The chief employment of the day workers in more than three-fourths of the States is laundry work and cleaning. It is significant that in twenty-one States for which the 1920 advanced occupational census sheets have been obtained, where the Negro population is negligible, there is no principal occupation given as that of launderer and laundress "not in laundries." In all of the States for which there are reports given in the cities of those States where the Negro population is large there is such a principal occupation. However, this occupation in spite of the increased popularity of day work during the World War is decreasing in numbers as the following table will indicate. Whether this decrease is due to the "wet wash" laundry system and to the increased facilities in hand laundries we have no data to prove.

Table XVIII given below represents the States so far as the 1920 census reports go, which have the principal occupation of launderer and laundress "not in laundries." In all of the States except Vermont, the Negro population is quite appreciable. Just why Vermont is not among the 21 States which have a negligible Negro population and no such principal occupation accessible data did not disclose. The reason why the 21 States have no such principal occupation is probably due to the fact that laundry work is so laborious that white domestic workers are averse to it, and those able to have the work done send it to a steam laundry.

_The Number of Launderers and Laundresses in 14 States in 1910-1920_

================================================== TABLE XVIII | | | Male | Female State |-------+-------+--------+------- | 1910 | 1920 | 1910 | 1920 -----------------+-------+-------+--------+------- Louisiana | 406 | 389 | 23,051 | 17,034 Georgia | 832 | 667 | 44,710 | 36,775 No. Carolina | 387 | 296 | 23,192 | 15,185 Florida | 394 | 342 | 14,844 | 16,552 Dist. of Columbia| 121 | 93 | 7,920 | 6,095 Maryland | 448 | 253 | 16,189 | 12,418 Delaware | 20 | 26 | 1,665 | 1,110 Indiana | 300 | 245 | 10,130 | 7,238 Vermont | 34 | 21 | 1,256 | 684 Kansas | 210 | 163 | 4,814 | 3,760 New Jersey | 452 | 322 | 11,171 | 7,626 New Mexico | 71 | 51 | 1,678 | 1,299 Oklahoma | 154 | 124 | 5,349 | 4,350 West Virginia | 140 | 84 | 3,923 | 2,505 --------------------------------------------------

A general houseworker has come to be thought of by the public as a maid of all work, and sometimes she is; but in many homes she is relieved of doing the laundry work. In some cities general housework does not always include cooking. For example, in New York City and Brooklyn it may not include cooking unless specified by the terms cooking and general housework. In New York and some other cities men have been tried as general workers.

According to employment agencies, butlers are not used in such large numbers as they were before the World War. During the war it was difficult to secure them because men were needed for war work. Since then wages have been such that employers have largely used chambermaid-waitresses or chauffeur-butlers instead of regular butlers. Among the 779 Negro men in domestic and personal service (New York City, 1921, Table XI), there is not one butler. This does not mean that there are no Negro butlers in New York City, but it indicates their scarcity and shows that employers living in apartment houses can do without them. Negro cooks, however, are yet an important factor in the domestic and personal service groups.

There are still Negro personal maids who make provision for the special comfort and well being of their employers as well as do their little mending, and the like. And there are Negro pantry maids whose first duty it is to make salads. Chambermaid-waitresses and parlor maids to do such as to answer the door bell are also still used. The tendency, however, is in the direction of having but the one general maid, together with a laundress to come in by the day. Mothers' helpers or young girls to assist in all the work of the house and with the children are also being employed quite extensively, and at less wages than would be paid to an older general houseworker.

These different occupations for the most part call for different types of workers. A butler or a chambermaid-waitress who is tall and comely may have access to a larger number and to better places than one who is short. Especially is this true of cooks for apartment or for a general houseworker where there are stairs to climb. These are much more frequently chosen from among the medium-sized women than from the stout women. The reason for the latter choice is apparent. In the case of the butler or chambermaid-waitress, the basis of choice is apparently appearance and custom.

V. LIVING CONDITIONS, HEALTH, SOCIAL LIFE, ORGANIZATIONS OF NEGRO DOMESTIC WORKERS, AND THEIR RELATION TO EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES

Living conditions here refer only to those on employers' premises. The general living conditions of Negro domestic workers in different parts of the country, or even in different localities of the same section, vary so widely that the subject cannot be treated here. For example, in the South laundresses for the most part take bundle wash to their small homes, and do large "washes" there. Such a situation makes it difficult for southern Negro laundresses to live comfortably and healthfully. Laundresses in the North are relieved of this problem by going to the homes of employers, but, on the other hand, are affected by the excessive rents and the overcrowding in their own homes.

Living conditions on employers' premises for domestic workers vary to some extent in different homes of the same city but to a larger extent in the different sections of the country and in different cities of the same section. In Montgomery, Alabama, for example, out of two hundred Negro female domestic workers interviewed, 54 or about 27 per cent were living in a two-room detached frame house on the rear of the employers' premises. The remaining 73 per cent did not "sleep in" or live on their employers' premises. In Philadelphia, living conditions on employers' premises are reported as being good. They consist, in the main, of a third floor room. Very few basement rooms are offered as living quarters for domestic workers in that city. In Indianapolis, about 50 per cent of those working by the week among the 471 domestic workers go home nights. Living conditions for those "sleeping in" are fair as a rule. Some have basement rooms but a majority of them have rooms either on the third floor or in the attic or over a garage. A small percentage of the homes have a bath room for the maid.

Employment agencies in Boston, New York City, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles give favorable reports on the living conditions of domestic workers who "sleep in." While the reports from Baltimore are not as conclusively favorable as for the above-named cities, one fact stands out prominently, namely: that in the main, only apartment houses in that city offer basement rooms as living quarters for domestic workers. Employment agencies in all of the cities mentioned state that there are far more calls for workers to "sleep in" than there are workers who are willing to do so.

Out of 500 domestic workers in Washington, D. C., selected at random from 3,000 permanent employees for the year 1921-22, about 64.1 per cent were requested to "sleep in." Out of an equal number of employers requesting workers to "sleep in," selected in the same manner, about 83 per cent provided basement rooms as sleeping quarters for such workers; about 10 per cent either provided first floor or third floor rooms--some of them with baths; about 7 per cent either offered attics or they failed to furnish a statement as to the location of the rooms. Occasionally an employer would like to have the worker "sleep in" but because of having only a basement room to offer, she would forego her wish in the interest of the health of the employee. Two of the workers sent out from this office were partially incapacitated by the poor living and working conditions. One of the problems, however, involved in housing domestic employees is the frequency of the turnover which necessarily brings in different kinds of workers, varying in degrees of personal cleanliness and health.

Closely connected with the living conditions, too, are the working conditions of domestic employees. In fact, one of the strains of such service often is the lack of break between the place of work and of living, which makes for resulting monotony and much loneliness. Much of a domestic worker's life is spent in the kitchen, in the laundry or on the premises of his employer. The only available accurate data on this point have come from Indianapolis, Ind. This was secured in response to a questionnaire sent to the employers who were patrons of the employment office at Flanner House. The following table gives a summary of the replies as to the appliances employers had in their homes for use of Negro domestic workers.

_Replies from 523 Employers Showing the Appliances in the Homes for Doing Laundry Work, in Indianapolis, Ind., April, 1922_

TABLE XVIII Per Cent Number having electric machines 249 47.6 Number having water power machines 2 .4 Number having hand power machines 5 .9 Number not having machines of any kind 267 51.1 ----- 100.0 Number having electric irons 479 91.6 Number having gas irons 5 .9 Number having mangles--ironing machine 31 5.9 Number having stationary tubs 202 38.6 Number having driers 3 .6

According to this record about 48.9 per cent of the 523 employers had washing machines of some kind and about 51.1 per cent had none at all; about 38.6 per cent had installed stationary tubs and 0.6 per cent had driers. To one who is conversant with the old way of doing laundry work with heavy portable wooden tubs, and with the lighter weight zinc tubs, into which water was lifted for washing and from which it was lifted after washing, and then placed upon either a dry goods box or a wash bench of uncertain height, this table shows marvelous improvement in working conditions of Negro laundresses in Indianapolis and indicates unusual possibilities there and elsewhere. However, unless there were, in each of the homes having washing machines, a stationary tub, or a rubber tube for draining the water out of the washing machine, there still would be that lifting of water, and possibly undue exertion because of the uncertain height of the portable tub. The principle of having the tub set at the right height involves relief from straining the back, an important item in relation to good health. There were about 98.4 per cent of the 523 employers who had either electric or gas irons or mangles. Such appliances facilitate ironing as well as enable a laundress to do better work. Washing machines and mangles make it possible to do the bed linen at home instead of sending it to a steam laundry. Driers are particularly serviceable in winter when drying out of doors is difficult as well as being hard on the laundress because of the cold weather.

The employment agency that sent out the questionnaire congratulated the employers on the marked improvement made in appliances for laundering, and added that like improvements will in time be made in the type and conditions of work rooms in which laundresses must labor.

_The Health of Negro Domestic Workers_

Although the health of domestic workers is an extremely important matter because of the nature of their work and the homes into which they go, and because their support depends so largely upon their physical ability to work, no records apparently are kept by the various employment agencies relative to the health of the workers. In 1899 out of 152 male and 395 female domestic workers in Philadelphia, 80 per cent of the men had not been ill during the year, and 74 per cent of the women had not been ill during the year. This per cent of good health excluded colds. The most prevalent disabilities among them were: consumption, lagrippe, quinsy, sore throat, rheumatism, neuralgia, chills and fever, and dyspepsia.[34] That there is much opportunity for danger from infection incident to the ill-health of domestic workers cannot be denied.[35]

Very careful note was taken for one week in March, 1922, of the health of women domestic workers reporting at the United States Employment Agency, Washington, D. C. It was not a typical week because of the fact that it followed an epidemic of lagrippe. However, out of 1,043 domestic workers, only 325 or about 31 per cent had not been ill during that winter and had no complaint whatever. Lagrippe, surgical operations, indigestion, heart trouble, weak back, and neuralgia were the illnesses of which they most commonly complained.

There were among the number above, five evident cases of mental disturbance, one of which was taken to St. Elizabeth's Hospital for observation and treatment. Another from the number had been discharged from the same hospital after treatment for mental trouble. This fact was not known by the Agency until an officer from the hospital visited the woman at her place of work to see how she was getting along. Three cases that were suspected of having tuberculosis were referred as waitresses at different times to a public hospital, at some risk of course to the reputation of the office, largely to see what the reaction of the nurse in charge would be. In each case the nurse reported that she could not use such a person about the food. Yet such persons were taken into some of the most desirable homes in Washington as household employees.

_Social Life of Negro Domestic Workers_

The social life of the older domestic Negro workers centers largely in their church and secret order society connections. From 1916 to 1920 seven out of every eleven Negroes in the United States were enrolled in churches. Many of them are willing to accept a place at a much lower wage than another if it gives them their Sundays off so that they may attend their churches.

It is important then to see the scope of such organizations in Negro city life. Kansas City, Missouri, with a Negro population in 1910 of 23,566, had 19 Negro churches and 16 Negro missions in 1913, with a total membership of 7,156. In this city there were 135 different lodges, or households (women's chapters), with a total membership of 8,055, 4,226 men and 3,829 women. The average initiation fee in the men's orders was $11.50 and in the women's $4.51 with additional monthly dues of 50 cents and 25 cents respectively. Endowment insurance policies of these lodges for which there is an annual fee from $2 to $4 are for the most part optional. These 8,055 members pay into their lodges annually $55,411.40. Their property in Kansas City is valued at $46,100. Each of the 135 orders has sick benefits ranging from $2.50 to $4.50 a week and all of them, with one exception, pay burial expenses in case of death.[37] In Harlem, New York, with a Negro population of about 90,000 in 1920 there are 25 Negro churches and about 16 missions. There are in this densely populated section six moving picture theatres which cater largely to Negro patronage.[38] Gainesville, Georgia, with a Negro population in 1910 of 1,629 had a Negro church membership of 1,023. Five of the Negro lodges in that city admit women, some of whom are members of several lodges.[39] In the lodges composed as they are very largely of the masses of the Negro people with a few of the more intelligent leaders as officers, there are many possibilities for improving the efficiency of the domestic workers.

Just what is the social life of the younger Negro domestic workers, many of whom are away from their own families, is a question. Of the 471 Negro domestic workers registered at the Indianapolis office, about 44.5 per cent were rooming and only about 2.3 per cent were living with parents or relatives. As possible attractions for such workers there are the moving picture and low vaudeville theatres, usually located in Negro neighborhoods, the pool and billiard rooms, cabarets and questionable dance halls.

Dr. Rubinow says that of 2,300 domestic white workers, a large majority of whom were under 30 years of age, interviewed by the Michigan Bureau of Labor, only 51 belonged to fraternal societies of any kind. Of 230 questioned by the Domestic Relation Reform League, 20 belonged to clubs and 15 to classes of some kind, and 118 entertained no men callers. A domestic worker, he says, not only loses caste among other groups of workers, but she loses at the hands of her employers even her family name. She lives a life of loneliness, "in a family but not of it."[40]

_Organization of Domestic Workers_

In order to show concretely what domestic workers themselves have attempted to do to improve their conditions, some discussion of their organizations as an expression of that attempt is in place here. It is not certain how many of these organizations are still active nor how many have Negro members. Some of them have such members, no doubt. However, three of them are composed entirely of Negroes.

In Los Angeles, California, the "Progressive Household Club" with a membership of 75 domestic workers is still active. This club was organized primarily for the purpose of furnishing a cheerful and welcome home for a domestic worker taking a rest or not employed for a time. It has a self-supporting home which will accommodate twenty-five girls. Their recreational and educational features are not startling, as the secretary writes, but they enable the girls to pass some cheerful hours out of their "humdrum" lives. This club was among the 15 other domestic workers' clubs organized in 1919 and 1920. In 1919 a Domestic Workers' Alliance with a membership of over 200, affiliated with the Hotel Waitresses under the American Federation of Labor, was granted a charter. During that year, the secretary of Hotel and Restaurant Employees of the International Alliance and International League of America reported that this organization had established a domestic workers' union in each of the following cities: Mobile, Alabama; Fort Worth, Texas; and Lawton, Oklahoma. A union of domestic workers was also organized in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1919. The following March a charter was granted to a domestic workers' union in Richmond, Virginia.[41] In 1920 there were 10 unions of domestic workers affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. These unions were located in the following cities: Los Angeles and San Diego, California; Brunswick, Georgia; Chicago and Glencoe, Illinois; New Orleans, Louisiana; Beaver Valley, Pennsylvania; Denison, Harrisburg, and Houston, Texas. The New Orleans Union, a Negro organization, was composed of about 200 members. All of these organizations have now ceased to be affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. There is, however, one union of domestic workers in Arecibo, Porto Rico, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.

_Relation of Negro Domestic Service to Employment Agencies_

In view of the volume and extent of turn-over in domestic service, employment agencies, especially in the North, East, and West, have a close relationship to both employers and workers. A person in need of domestic help secures it either by advertising in the help wanted section of the newspapers, by applying to one or more employment agencies, by means of inquiries among friends and acquaintances who may have been a former employer of some available laborer, by accepting some one who may by chance apply in person or by hiring a former worker.

In some of the southern cities where there is no local employment agency, domestic workers are secured in all other of the above-mentioned ways. For example, this condition prevails in Montgomery, Alabama. Although the United States Employment Service, the Department of Labor, and the Municipal Employment offices of Birmingham and Mobile, Alabama, are co-operating, there is no State license applying to local employment agencies except those soliciting laborers to go outside of the State, according to a recent statement from the Alabama Tax Commission. A like condition exists in the State of Louisiana. Georgia, however, issues licenses to employment agencies for domestic positions. In this State as in some others, there is no law regulating the fee which an agency may charge either employer or employee for service rendered. Neither Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, nor Maryland, and several other States have such a fee regulated by law. However, in Pennsylvania, every employment agent must file with the commissioner for his approval a schedule of fees, proposed to be charged for any service rendered to employer or employee, and these may be changed only with the approval of the commissioner. Every employment agent in this State is required to give a receipt to any applicant for any money which the applicant pays him; and if an applicant fails through no fault of his to secure a position to which he is referred, the entire amount paid by such a person to the agent is to be refunded. Such a law obtains in some other States.

In Baltimore there are 50 employment agencies, mainly of a domestic nature. The usual fee charged an employer, though not regulated by law, is $2. An agency ordinarily agrees to supply an employer with help for at least 30 days without additional cost.

New York State issued in 1918, 674 licenses to employment agencies engaged in various kinds of employment business. In 1919, 719 employment agency licenses were issued; in 1920, 728 and in 1921, 788. The law stipulates that the fees charged domestic work applicants by employment agencies shall not in any case exceed ten per cent of the first month's wages. If a domestic worker does not accept a position to which he is referred or fails to obtain employment, the full amount which he paid the agency is to be refunded after three days allowed for obtaining facts. If an employee fails to remain one week in a position, the agency is required to furnish the employer with a new employee, or return 3.6 of the fee paid in by the employer, provided the employer notifies the agency within thirty days of the failure of the worker to accept the position or of the employee's discharge for cause. If the employee is discharged within one week without his fault, another position is furnished him or 3.5 of the fee returned.

Employment agencies in New York State must also give receipts for money paid them. Day workers receiving a rate of $3.60 to $4.00 per day each pay an initial fee of 50 cents to the agency furnishing them with work. Employers of domestic labor pay the agency for one month's service a flat rate of from $6 to $10 for general houseworkers and from $3 to $5 for part-time workers. For a temporary laborer, employers pay a fee of $1 and for a day worker they pay a fee of 50 cents. For commercial and industrial placements an employee pays to the agency 5 per cent of her first month's wage, but no charge is made for the employer furnishing the work.

The laws of Massachusetts regulating employment agencies of a domestic nature are almost similar to those of New York State, the difference in the main being in the size of the fees. In Massachusetts an intelligence office keeper is entitled to receive from an applicant, employer or employee, a fee of 25 per cent of the first week's wages; and in case of day work a fee of 10 per cent of a day's pay. The Michigan domestic employment agency fees for employee and employer are about the same as that for New York State.

In the District of Columbia, a domestic employment agency is entitled to receive in advance from an employer $2 for each employee for at least 30 days service, and from an applicant for work $1. One-half of this fee is to be returned on demand if such applicant does not have a fair opportunity of employment within 15 days from date of payment. When an applicant actually receives employment at a wage of $25 a month or more he pays the agency an additional $1. However, it is a common practice among Washington employment agencies to have applicants pay $2 in advance of securing a place for work. In the light of the total amount of money paid in wages of domestic and personal service, especially with such a heavy turnover, the fees paid to employment agencies by both employers and employees evidently amount to quite a considerable sum.

Thirty years ago Miss Salmon in her study of domestic service pointed out, not only the exorbitant fees charged by employment agencies, but the vice and crime nurtured by them.[42] In 1915 investigations of Miss Kellor in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and other cities brought out some more striking facts. In Philadelphia 84 per cent of the employment agencies were in private residences and 3 per cent of them were in business buildings. In New York 85 per cent of these agencies were conducted in very close contact with the families of the agents. In Chicago 81 per cent of them were in buildings occupied by families. In Boston 73 per cent of the agencies were in business buildings and only 27 per cent were in residences. The poor business methods of many private intelligence offices, surrounded by gambling dens, fortune tellers, palmists and midwives, and their frauds are insignificant as compared with their conscious, deliberate immorality. Miss Kellor says that many Negro intelligence offices are hopelessly immoral but that some city authorities often argue that since they do not affect the whites there is no reason for disturbing them.[43]

The Third Biennial Report of the Department of Labor and Industry of Maine for the year 1915-1916 contains a warning against employment agencies collecting fees in excess of the law. This report recommends that the important economic task of employment be taken out of the hands of the agents and placed under management of the State. A similar note was voiced by one of the committees of President Harding's conference on unemployment.

The large experience with both municipal and State offices and with the United States Employment Service has given unmistakable evidence that the recruiting and placement of labor is a public necessity and a general benefit to the whole community. It can therefore well become a matter conducted under public supervision and at public expense. Domestic service, especially in large cities and particularly because of the absence of organization and group connection of the workers, is especially in need of such public direction.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

From 1870 to 1900 there was an increase in the total number of persons engaged in domestic and personal service in the United States. Since that time there has been a steady decrease in the number so engaged. Although Negroes have followed the general trend of increase and decline, in proportion to their population, they furnish a larger percentage of domestic workers than any other group in the United States, the female workers outnumbering the male.

The fact is also evident that Negroes are gradually entering trade and transportation and manufacturing and mechanical pursuits. With the existing conditions following the World War, and the present restriction on immigration, the opportunities in these fields of labor are enlarging and domestic and personal service workers are, therefore, correspondingly decreasing.

The ranks of the domestic service workers are being recruited to some appreciable extent from the younger Negro women, between the ages of 16 and 24 years. The very young women and the old women are not the most sought after by employers because of their inexperience on the one hand, and on the other, their inability to do domestic work. The problems of married women in domestic service are increasing because of their family responsibilities and cares which make demands upon their earnings and energy.

The domestic labor turnover has increased the past thirty years. During and since the World War, it has been so greatly accentuated that the modal period of service is from 3 to 6 months. The length of the period of service will perhaps become still shorter because of the increasing opportunities in trade and transportation and in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits.

Provision for the training of domestic workers generally has been meager, and in the case of Negro domestic workers it has been less than that for them as a group. Since the World War greater attempts have been made to extend training to domestic workers both in England and the United States, the government in each of these countries taking a small part in this extension of education. Training especially for Negro domestic workers has been undertaken. Employment agencies under government supervision, with the co-operation of domestic service employers, offer possibilities for such training and for the standardization of private household work. However, Negroes with any appreciable degree of intelligence are not entering domestic service as a permanent employment. This field in the United States is being left largely to the untrained and inefficient.

During the twenty years preceding the World War, very little advance was made in the wages of domestic workers, but during the war their wages increased about 150 per cent. Since the war, according to Dr. King, while the decline in public domestic service wages has not been as great as that in many other fields of employment, the average earnings an hour in money wages of public domestic service workers are still below those in a majority of the industries. Although there has been an increase in wages of domestic service workers, their working hours are longer than those of any other group of laborers.

In some cities living conditions on employers' premises for domestic workers are good, in others there is need of great improvement along this line. However, with the increasing disinclination on the part of the domestic workers to "sleep in" and the slowly growing public interest in standardizing house work, this problem will in time be solved. There has been much improvement in the working conditions of domestic employees, but there is still need of much more.

The indications are that little attention is paid to the health and the social life of domestic workers. This neglect, especially of the health of domestic workers, is no doubt fraught with dangerous consequences, not only for themselves but for the homes and welfare of the nation.

That the social life of the older Negro domestic workers is supplied at least to some extent in their churches is proved by the fact that about seven out of every eleven Negroes in the United States are enrolled as members of churches. Their interest in secret orders is also shown by the number of members and the money spent in such organizations. As social attractions for the younger domestic employees, there are such places as dance halls, moving pictures, pool and billiard rooms, and the like. The social stigma attached to domestic service bars young domestic workers from many of the entertainments of real value and benefit.

Domestic workers in ten or more cities of the United States have attempted to better their conditions by means of organized effort. The organization in California is rendering real service to its members through its home. With the present large percentage of domestic workers who are rooming in the various cities, and the conditions obtaining in many rooming houses connected with employment agencies, there is urgent need of establishing clubs or homes for domestic workers.

Many private employment agencies in their relation to the homes of the United States act as brokers. The fees charged both the employer and the employee are generally exorbitant. The service rendered by them is on the whole poor. The harm inflicted upon society by many of them is irreparable. Public control of employment agencies has great possibilities for social betterment.

ELIZABETH ROSS HAYNES

FOOTNOTES:

[A] This thesis was submitted in 1923 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Political Science of Columbia University.

[1] Bruce, _Economic History of Virginia in the 17th Century_, Vol. I, p. 573.

[2] _Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia._

[3] The following works were found helpful in preparing this dissertation: W. A. Crossland, _Industrial Conditions Among Negroes in St. Louis_ (_Studies in Social Economics_, Washington Univ., Vol. I, No. 1, St. Louis, 1914); Isabel Eaton, _Special Report on Domestic Service_ in THE PHILADELPHIA NEGRO by W. E. B. DuBois (Philadelphia, 1899); George E. Haynes, _The Negro at Work in New York City_ (New York, 1912); Frances A. Kellor, _Out of Work_; _Knickerbocker Press_ (New York, 1904); W. I. King, _Employment, Hours and Earnings in the United States, 1920-1922_; Asa E. Martin, _Our Negro Population_ (Kansas City, 1913); _Monthly Labor Review_ (U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1919-1920); Ruth Reed, _The Negro Women of Gainsville, Georgia_ (1921--A Master's Essay--Phelps Stokes Fund Scholarship); _Report of U. S. Industrial Commission, Domestic Service_, Vol. XIV; I. M. Rubinow, _Depth and Breadth of the Servant Problem_ (McClures Magazine, Vol. 34, 1909-1910); Lucy M. Salmon, _Domestic Service_ (New York, 1901).

[4] _Report of the U. S. Industrial Commission_, Vol. XIV. DOMESTIC SERVICE, p. 745.

[5] Salmon, Lucy M., _Domestic Service_, p. 109.

[6] Eaton, Isabel, _Special Report on Domestic Service_ in THE PHILADELPHIA NEGRO, by W. E. B. DuBois, Philadelphia, 1889, p. 480.

[7] Haynes, George E., _The Negro at Work in New York City_, New York, 1918, p. 85.

[8] Crossland, W. A., _Industrial Conditions among Negroes in St. Louis_, St. Louis, 1914, p. 30.

[9] Reed, Ruth, _The Negro Women of Gainesville, Georgia, 1921_, p. 25.

[10] _Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics, Springfield Report_, 1915-1918.

[11] U. S. Department of Labor, _Monthly Labor Review_, Aug., 1919, p. 206.

[12] Reed, Ruth, _op. cit._, p. 44.

[13] Crossland, William A., _op. cit._, p. 93.

[14] THREE SAMPLE LETTERS OF THE 5TH GRADE DOMESTIC WORKERS OF WASHINGTON, D. C.

Miss X (The agent)

Dear Friend i am sorry to any that i am confind to bed this week but hope to see you again some day i taken sick last friday but i full fill that other place all right but could not go out saturday.

_Daisy_

Daer Mrs. X (The agent) daer Madam can you get my husban are job in are lunch room cafe boarding or apt. house he is are well exspierence sheref cook we both would like are job together if could get me are dash (dish) wash place please maggie.

_Letter from Bell Jones_

Dear Mrs. X (the agent) i am writing you a fue lines to let you here from me i am the lady you got me a home with Mrs. Jones at Smithburg, Md I have a little boy with me you know by the name of Bell Jones i dont want to stay up here much longer and i want you to get me a good home down in Washington for me and my little boy with some good white people with no children and a room in the house for me and my little boy my little boy is a mighty good little boy he is not noisy i want to leave sept. 4 i am tired of this place because there is no cullard people up here they are all white i have not been off the lot since i have been out here please get me a good home dont let it be out of town.

Yours Bell Jones

[15] Salmon, Lucy M., _Domestic Service_, p. 124.

[16] U. S. Industrial Commission Report, _op. cit._, p. 751.

[17] THREE SAMPLE REFERENCES FOR DOMESTIC WORKERS, NEW YORK CITY

Winchester Ave., Bronx, N. Y. July 14, 1921.

To Whom it may Concern:

Doris X has been in my employ and performed her duties satisfactory. She is honest and capable.

Signed ----

The following person had two reference blanks containing the same questions filled out by her former employers. She had been a child's nurse in the first position and nurse-maid in the second.

_First Blank._ _Second Blank._ January 27, 1923. Jan. 30, 1923.

Is she honest? Exceptionally so Yes Is she temperate? Yes Yes Is she neat? Yes Yes What of her disposition? Best I have ever seen Wonderful Does she thoroughly understand her work? Yes Yes Why did she leave? Presumably to be near Because she was her husband tired of permanence and had a chance to go to the states with our friend

Remarks--Her services with our family for five years have always been most satisfactory.

[18] Haynes, George E., _op. cit._, p. 87.

[19] FIVE SAMPLE REFERENCES FOR DOMESTIC WORKERS AND ONE LETTER FROM AN EMPLOYER, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Woodford Land, Va.

Lillie worked for me for a long time and she is a nice worker and a fine cook and she worked for Mrs. ---- three years going on four, and she got married there with them and she worked for Mrs. ---- and she nursed Mrs. ----'s three children.

From Mrs. ----

The following reference is for Fannie B.--who, evidently half crazy, changed her name after registering at the Washington office because she said she had so many "Enemons" (enemies).

To Whom in May Concern:

This is to certify that Fannie B has been a trustworthy maid. As to her honesty none come no better. She is very capable and in general very satisfactory.

Mrs. ----

To Whom it May Concern:

This is to say that Sarah ---- has been in my employ 8 months and that she is a good cook, tries hard to please, and has been nice always to the children.

She has been honest and reliable and likes to try new or fancy dishes.

Signed----Mrs. E. M.

(The foregoing Mrs. E. M.'s name and telephone number were given to another lady who had interviewed Sarah relative to offering her a position, Mrs. E. M. told the second lady that Sarah once stole things but she had had a good lesson so she thought she would not steal any more. She also said that Sarah was none too clean, and that she gave the girl the above reference because she thought she had improved greatly.)

Sarah Jackson held a domestic worker's certificate bearing the golden seal of a Washington, D. C., Federation of Women's Club.

The X Federation of Women's Clubs awards this certificate to Sarah Jackson for 13 years faithful service in the employ of ----

Signed, Mrs. ---- President, Mrs. ---- Chairman Home Economics Dept.

Robert and wife, each about 40 years of age, bring this written reference from a southern town:

This is to certify that I have known "Shine" and his wife for about a year, during which time he has been running a shoe shine establishment in this town. "Shine" is a steady, alert, energetic boy and I feel sure he will please his employer in the work in which he is given a trial.

Signed, H. C. L.

(Letter to the Employment Agent from an Employer.)

My dear Mrs. X.

I fear you think I am very hard to please but having had a butler for 38 years, since dead, a maid and a cook 32 years, since married, it cannot seem that I am, when I once get the right one.

The last girl you sent me Anna by name disliked very much being directed or being spoken to. I am giving her up for she has a most violent temper, the most impertinent person I have ever seen. In a way I am sorry for her. None of us think she is all there. Will you try again for me?

[20] TYPICAL EXAMPLES OF INEFFICIENCY AMONG WASHINGTON, D. C., DOMESTIC APPLICANTS

(1) A day worker--laundress--not knowing how to cut off the current and unscrew the wringer on an electric washing machine, when a garment wrapped around the cogs, ruined the cogs by trying to cut the garment from between them.

(2) A day worker--one of the best laundresses--hurrying to finish her work placed her hands on a revolving electric machine tub, both arms were carried beneath the tub and had not the current been speedily cut, her arms would have been crushed. As it was the tubs had to be cut in order to extricate her arms. After that she was afraid to use an electric washing machine.

(3) To ask at the office in a group of from 200 to 250 women for a first class laundress--one who knew how to fold the clothes just so after they were ironed as well as wash them out according to rule--and not find one who felt that she could do the work properly was a common occurrence.

(4) A young woman sent out to do general housework and cooking cut the bone out of a 3-1/2 pound sirloin steak which she fried up into such bits that it was not recognized by her employer. When she was questioned about it, she said "that is every bit of that steak. You did not expect me to cook bone and all, did you?"

(5) A young girl sent out to do general housework and cooking when questioned by her employer about the kinds of dessert she could make, said she sure could make jello but was not so good at making other desserts.

(6) The rank and file of general houseworkers looked upon making salad dressing and salads as an art belonging to fine cooks. Many said they had never tried to make bread of any kind.

(7) An elderly cook who had been at the business for 50 years wished cooking and cooking only. Her price was $75 per month. That's what she "ingenally" got. When she was asked if she could read or write she said she could not. She had never been to school a day in her life, but she realized that cooking is tedious work. "Everything I does, I does by my head; its all brain work, you see I has a good 'eal to remember," said she. However, she felt confident that she could cook anything that was put before her to cook.

(8) A young woman sent out to do cleaning left the print of her hand greasy with furniture oil in a freshly papered wall.

[21] Salmon, Lucy M., _op. cit._, p. 123.

[22] _Industrial Commission Report_, _op. cit._, p. 1901.

[23] Eaton, Isabel, _op. cit._, p. 486.

[24] Haynes, G. E., _op. cit._, p. 87.

[25] Eaton, Isabel, _op. cit._, p. 449.

[26] Salmon, Lucy, _Domestic Service_, p. 90.

[27] **Transcriber Note: No footnote text in original.**

[27] Eaton, Isabel, _op. cit._, pp. 447-449.

[28] Haynes, George E., _op. cit._, p. 81.

[29] Haynes, George E., _unpublished data_.

[30] Haynes, George E., _unpublished data_.

[31] King, W. I., _Employment, Hours and Earnings in the United States, 1920-1922_, Chap. V, pp. 5, 19; Chap. IV, p. 3.

[32] Salmon, Lucy M., _op. cit._

[33] _Monthly Labor Review_, U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, August, 1920, p. 212.

[34] Eaton, Isabel, _op. cit._, p. 495.

[35] Reed, Ruth, _op. cit._, p. 35.

[36] Haynes, George E., _unpublished data_, 1921.

[37] Martin, Asa E., _Our Negro Population_, Kansas City, 1913, pp. 180, 143.

[38] Haynes, Geo. E., _unpublished data_, 1921.

[39] Reed, Ruth, _op. cit._, p. 51.

[40] Rubinow, I. M., _Depth and Breadth of the Servant Problem_, _McClure's Magazine_, Vol. 34, p. 576, 1909-1910

[41] _Monthly Labor Review_, U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Aug., 1919, p. 212, May, 1920, p. 116.

[42] Salmon, Lucy M., _op. cit._, p. 115.

[43] Kellor, Frances A., _Out of Work_, pp. 197, 222, 225, 229.

DOCUMENTS

DOCUMENTS AND COMMENTS ON BENEFIT OF CLERGY AS APPLIED TO SLAVES

The following transcripts from the records of the Superior Court of Richmond County, North Carolina, illustrate the application of benefit of clergy to slaves charged with and found guilty of crimes punishable with death.[A]

_Fall Term 1828_

State } Burglary { Pleads "not Guilty" vs } { The following George (A Slave)} { Jury Empaneled therein { (Viz) (1) Cyrus Bennet (2) Alen Shaw (3) Try McFarland (4) Wade LeGrand (5) George Wright (6) James Covington (7) William Crowson (8) Thos. B. Blewett (9) Israel Watkins (10) Risdon Nichols (11) Lenard Webb (12) Hampton Covington--

Who find the Prisoner "not Guilty" of Burglary in manner and Form as charged in the Bill of Ind't'm't But guilty of Grand Larceny....

The Prisoner appeared at the Bar and being asked by the Court If he had any thing to say why Sentence of Death should not be pronounced against him, Answered by Council praying the benefit of his Clergy. Which was allowed him by the Court & adjudged that he receive THIRTY NINE lashes on his Bare Back & stand committed till his Master enter into recognisance of $200 for his good behavior for the Space of Twelve months & pay cost of Prosecution.... Sentence to be Carried into effect on Tomorrow at 4 Oclock P. M.

_Fall Term 1828_

State } { Pleads "Not Guilty" vs } No. 19 { The following Jury Dennis (a Slave) } Burglary { empanelled & sworn { (1) James Meacham (2) George Wright (3) John Gibson (4) Silas Jones (5) Lemuel Chance (6) Wilie Chance (7) Thomas Bostick (8) Ananias Graham (9) James LeGrand (10) Elias Pate (11) Hugh McLean (12) George Hunesucker ...

Who find the Dfd't not guilty of the Burglary as charged in the Bill of Indtmt; but guilty of Grand Larceny....

The prisoner appeared at the Bar and being asked by the Court If he had any thing to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced against him; replied by his Council, praying the Benefit of his Clergy; which was allowed; and the prisoner Dennis, to be taken to the Whipping Post and receive Thirty nine lashes on his Bare Back. Sentence to be carried into effect at 4 O'clock P. M. on Saturday.

_Spring Term 1832_

State } No. 19 { The following Jury vs } Burglary { empanelled & sworn--viz. Harry (a Slave) } { (1) Alexander Shaw (2) Cyrus Bennet (3) Try McFarland (4) George Wright (5) Silas Jones (6) John Gibson (7) Barton C. Everett (8) William Everett (9) Jno McAlister (10) William Strickland (11) Francis T. Leak (12) Peter H. Cole

Who find the Dfdt guilty in manner and form as charged in the Bill of Indictment.

The Prisoner appearing at the Bar, being asked by the Court if he had any thing to say why sentence of Death should not be heaped against him, replied through his Council praying the Benefit of his Clergy.... Which was allowed ... and he was sentenced to be carried to the whipping Post and there to receive Twenty Lashes on his bare Back.... Sentence to be carried into effect at 4 Oclock this afternoon.

Investigation of the law pertaining to benefit of clergy in the slave-holding States reveals the following facts. It existed for a longer or shorter time in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Missouri. Slaves were admitted to benefit of clergy in Virginia in 1732, and although the privilege was abolished as it applied to free persons in 1796, it remained legal for slaves until 1848. Likewise Kentucky withdrew the privilege from whites in 1798 but did not deny it to slaves until 1852. Alabama admitted slaves to benefit of clergy in 1805, but in 1807 all laws, customs and usages relating to Benefit of Clergy were abolished. Slaves were admitted to the privilege in North Carolina in 1816, and it was not denied them until benefit of clergy was abolished in 1854. In the other slave-holding States slaves were not admitted to benefit of clergy by statute but a law of Maryland of 1751 which imposed the death penalty on slaves without benefit of clergy implies that the privilege prevailed there through custom. Benefit of clergy was abolished in Maryland in 1809, in Georgia in 1817, in Mississippi in 1822, in Arkansas in 1838, in Delaware in 1852, in Missouri in 1845, and in South Carolina some time during the reconstruction period.

An interesting feature of benefit of clergy was its relation to the amelioration of the criminal law. In this respect there is a parallel between English and American practice. The English statute of 1706 (5 Anne 6) provided that "if any person shall be convicted of any such felony, for which he ought to have had the benefit of his clergy, if this act had not been made, and shall pray to have the benefit of this act, he shall not be required to read, but without reading, shall be allowed, taken and reputed to be, and punished as, a clerk convict, which shall be as effectual to all intents and purposes, and be as advantageous to him, as if he had read as a clerk; anything in this act, or any other law or statute, to the contrary notwithstanding." Thus benefit of clergy was extended to all classes in England.

A few years later Delaware adopted the principle of the English statute: "that if any person convicted of any such felony as is hereby made capital, for which he ought by the laws of Great Britain to have the benefit of clergy, and shall pray to have the benefit of this act; he shall not be required to read, but without any reading shall be allowed, taken and reputed, and punished as a clerk convict," etc. Likewise Virginia in 1732 adopted the application of benefit of clergy as laid down in the statute of Anne: "and if any person be convicted of a felony, for which he ought to have the benefit of clergy, and shall pray to have the benefit of this act, he shall not be required to read, but without any reading, shall be allowed, taken, and reputed to be, and punished as a clerk convict; which shall be as effectual, to all intents and purposes, and as advantageous to him as if he had read as a clerk; and any other law or statute, to the contrary notwithstanding." Thus, in the language of Pike, "a relic of extreme barbarism" became "the first step towards a modification of the previous laws which deprived a man of his life by a brutal mode of execution for a very petty transaction." (_A History of Crime in England_, II, 281.)

Another parallel between English and American experience was in the abolition of benefit of clergy. In Virginia and Kentucky it was denied to free persons when servitude in a penitentiary was substituted for most of the older penalties for felonies. These states anticipated the policy of England, for benefit of clergy was not there abolished and service in workhouses substituted for existing penalties until 1827. The Virginia policy adopted in 1796 was due to some extent to the example of Pennsylvania which revised its penal system in 1786. The abolition of benefit of clergy in most of the other Southern States was contemporaneous with revisions of the criminal codes.

But given a penal system in which imprisonment was the principal feature, it was not advantageous to the slave-owner or to the State to give prison sentences to slaves. And here the ghost of benefit of clergy would not down. In place of imprisonment the slave was usually corporally punished. In the language of the Alabama statute of 1807, "when any negro or mulatto whatsoever shall be convicted of any offense not punishable with death by this act, ... he or she shall be burnt in the hand by the sheriff in open court or suffer such other corporal punishment as the court shall think fit to inflict." Likewise Mississippi in 1822 enacted that "if any negro or mulatto slave was convicted of felony not punishable with death, such negro or mulatto should be burnt in the hand and suffer such other corporal punishment as the court should think fit to inflict, except when he or she shall be convicted of a second offense of the same nature, in which case such negro or mulatto slave shall suffer death." Most interesting are the laws of two States in which benefit of clergy was not provided for. According to the Black Code of Louisiana when slaves were charged with crimes punishable with death or hard labor for life, the jury might at its discretion commute the death penalty and inflict a lesser punishment. In Florida a slave guilty of crime punishable with death might at the discretion of the court suffer instead a whipping not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, have his ears nailed to a post and stand one hour, and be burned in the hand.

In the light of the documents quoted and the statutes cited the statement so frequently made that benefit of clergy disappeared in America at the time of the Revolution, and the dictum of an Indiana judge that "it is unknown to our laws" (I Blackford 63), can not be taken at their face value.

WM. K. BOYD

TRINITY COLLEGE, DURHAM, N. C.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] These documents were collected by Prof. Wm. K. Boyd, of Trinity College, Durham, North Carolina.

COMMUNICATIONS

The following from Mr. A. P. Vrede of Paramaribo, Surinam, Dutch Guiana, South America, will be informing and interesting to persons interested in missions as a factor in the uplift of the race:

CORNELIUS WINST BLYD

_The First Negro Presbyter in Surinam_

PARAMARIBO, Feb. 5, 1923. _Dear Sir:_

Likewise as in 1861 the Freedman Association sprang up for aid for the enlightenment of the freed blacks on American soil, so in the epoch from 1738 to 1818 did the missionaries of the Evangelical Brother's Union take upon their shoulders the burden of the enslaved blacks on Surinam. Then, too, their way was not always paved with roses. No they had to face the same mockery, the same martyrdom. They were jailed, despised because for the slaves to remain in their ignorance was favorable to the filling of their "masters" purses.

Let us go back to the year 1850 to see what had been happening on one of the plantations situated on the beach of the Matapica. On these plantations, there we found the administrator, Mr. Rouse, in charge of the plantation administration, busy in making arrangements for transportation of the properties of the plantation, nicknamed by the slaves, "Domiri," to upper Surinam, to the plantation St. Barbara. Among the properties over which Mr. Rouse's superintendenceship extended, we found among living stock a slave family, Father Dami, his wife bearing the name of Ma Jetty, but better known by the name of Ma Jetty of Domiri, so called because her birth-place is Domiri. Father Dami and Jetty had two daughters, the one called Christina and the other, known in slave registration by name of Wilhelmina. So it was on a windy morning of the dry season, that we found this little family. They, too, were occupied with the removal of the plantation properties. It was a busy day. The rays of the sun pierced the backs of the slaves. Their bodies glimmered in their going to and fro as rubbed black-ebony wood furniture.

When the work was over, we left Domiri with its slave caravan for St. Barbara. St. Barbara as aforesaid situated on the upper Surinam the main-stream of the colony Surinam. Entering Mr. Rouse's new dominion from the rear we found the slaves uncommonly active, so different from that they had displayed for a time ago at Domiri.--They were jolly about the coming emancipation days. As we were wandering along the slaves' cabin-rows, it was then July 19, 1860, we heard a baby cry. Turning our heads toward where the voice had been coming from, we detected that it came from the cabin inhabited by the family headed by Father Dami. We walked into, found that Wilhelmina, Dami's daughter, had added to her family a male member. There he lay down sprawling on the floor in pieces of rag clothes used for his bed and pillow. But this child will grow up to become a distinguished man among his people, a shepherd to watch over his flock. Winst, or Profit, the administrator, Mr. Rouse, called him. One would try to solve that puzzle of nomenclature in those days. But we know and understand it now better. It was the time when the administrator was expecting to get for every slave three hundred guilders on the emancipation day. So we may suppose that this was done, as a profit upon his debit on the government account. Let us now see what became of that slave child Winst.

Cornelis Winst Blyd was born of slave parents, as stated above, on the plantation St. Barbara July 19, 1860. He was the son of Wilhelmina, a daughter of Father Dami. Besides Winst, his mother had two other sons. It came to pass that when Winst's mother Wilhelmina died, survived by her three sons, they were put under care of their Aunt Christina. Blyd, his brothers and Aunt afterward moved into town. His aunt placed Blyd in one of the Moravian mission boarding schools for boys, formerly known as "Amtri" School. It was desired that after he should finish his literary training he should be instructed in the handicraft of carpentry. So he was brought in to Mr. Ammon, the carpenter well renowned in the colony for furniture.

But this was not the way traced for him by our Lord. So they took him from Mr. Ammon to the "Central School" a former preparatory boarding school for teachers. Blyd, with his pious, gentle and sincere character, had won in no time the friendship of everyone who inhabited the institution. His educational instruction in the Bible was received from Rev. E. A. Renkemir. For song he was trained by Mr. Batenburg. In the classroom of the normal school for teachers, he was one of the beloved pupils of Dr. H. D. Benjamin, then the Inspector of the Board of Education in Surinam. Blyd had in competition among his fellow classmates held by his teachers, distinguished himself as a remarkable student in solving Bible questions. So we see he showed more inclination to the clergy and to become a minister than a school teacher. But in that time no natives were exalted to the order of preacher. So Blyd became a teacher.

Blyd followed his occupation as a teacher in several districts of the colony. His first field of operation was on the plantation, Berger Dal, one of the largest Negro settlements in Surinam. We may mention here an uproar that took place during his stay there. These will make us a little acquainted with his sincere and pious character. It came to pass, one day after school hours, two school boys got to quarreling about a pocket-knife. The quarrel became so noisy that the family of both the boys were coming up with hatchet, walking-stick and some more murderous weapons. So much feeling had then developed that the uproar would not have been prevented had not Mr. Blyd undertaken this difficult task and by his unusual moral power brought both parties to reflection. After a reprimand in well chosen words the quarrel was suppressed.

When Mr. Blyd later moved to plantation Wederzorg, situated on the Commewyne river, he then got permission from the Director of the Mission in Surinam, to lead now and then the church service. But these all were for Blyd merely as forerunner to reach his mile-stone. At the plantation Alkmaar, he came into touch with the Rev. Mr. Kersten, and it was not long before this man detected in Mr. Blyd a preacher of power. Blyd's impression made upon Rev. Mr. Kersten was so favorable that soon in 1899, the Mission Director in Surinam decided to appoint him as sub-preacher. And once the words spoken by the old Rev. Mr. Haller (white) became truth. He had said to Mr. Blyd "You should try to train yourself for the uplift of your fellow race-men, and to teach them the words of our living God." In the year 1902 Mr. Blyd was ordained to the order of deacon, and from that time, his name as a preacher was established.

Rev. Mr. Blyd had to wrestle with many storms that touched his social life. There came upon him the bad deportment of his two sons. He who knows the battle which he had to fight, brought upon him by his sons' evil deeds, will find in him, the preacher of God, a true and sincere knight of our Lord. Rev. Mr. Blyd sought in his hours of these temptations his refuge on his Savior knees and he always was consoled. Many had wondered at his patience and long suffering amid these storms of life. But this man, the preacher by the grace of God, the sincere Christian in the full sense of the word, had as his encouragement, that had been giving him consolation and confidence: "The Lord shall provide, be still my soul."

Rev. Mr. Blyd's sermons were of an uncommon sort. Never would one part from his service not being touched in the depths of his inner life. His sermons were delivered in Dutch and Negro-English. They were a splendor of oratory. In spite of all of these, however, Rev. Mr. Blyd still retained his humility, without overrating himself. His words won many hearts, even many a stranger. Among them we may count Bishop Hamilton, High Commissioner of the Moravian Board of Missions in England. In 1913, the year of the celebration of the Fifty Emancipation Anniversary, the Mission Director in Surinam decided to send Rev. Mr. Blyd to Europe, to the Netherlands, our mother country, to represent the black race. Rev. Mr. Blyd traveled also throughout Germany and Denmark. There in Europe, he came into touch with several notables.

He won many friends by his sermon preached at the celebration of the mission feast at Utrecht in the Netherlands as attested by H. M. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. Many ministers with the degree of Doctor of Divinity had addressed the audience on that occasion. After them Rev. Mr. Blyd rose from his seat to walk to the pulpit for he was being given a turn. When he was on the way to the pulpit, a white minister hastened to offer to him a minister's gown, but the man Blyd kept his simplicity and refused to accept it.[1] After the service everyone longed to cheer and greet the black minister. By hundreds and thousands they crowded themselves to see him pass. Photographers were busy taking his photo. To and fro they went to ask for a picture of the black minister. Rev. Mr. Blyd had made a deep impression upon H. M. Queen Wilhelmina, and under the emotion that Rev. Mr. Blyd had caused H. M. the Queen, he was invited by Her Majesty to deliver a sermon at the court, attended by all H. M. court representatives. Rev. Mr. Blyd was later invited to dinner at H. M. residence at Hagen, and he sat at the same table near by H. M. the Queen. This extraordinary event took place after his traveling from North Europe.

His love for his native land will be illustrated by the following event. It was at H. M. Queen Wilhelmina's residence that this took place. When the Queen put before him this question: "Reverend Mr. Blyd," H. M. turning to him, "which of the two places do you prefer? The Netherlands or Denmark?" And without hesitation he answered the Queen's question in his simple words: "Your Majesty, East, West, home is best!"

Rev. Mr. Blyd surrounded by all these courtesies has never forgot his race. He took the opportunity to bring before the Queen the needs of his people. He had made also his entrance at the courts of Germany and Denmark. In Denmark he was received with great enthusiasm and great homage. He had so impressed the clergy of Denmark that they made efforts to retain him for the order in that country. But the man with his humble character chose above all to serve among his own people. In Germany he had held several street meetings. A white eye-witness, now in the colony, told about the impression Rev. Mr. Blyd made upon his hearers. He said that the longer he lived the more he learned from Rev. Mr. Blyd.

During Rev. Mr. Blyd's sojourn in Europe the mission authorities were offered a better opportunity to study his character. And so this led to the conclusion to exalt him to the order of presbyter. This event took place before a large audience when he was returning to the Colony.

Alas! the poor slave boy, Cornelis Winst Blyd, with his unlimited energy traced his way from the slave cabin to kings and queens' palaces. From body bondage to liberty of spirit and body--raised to the highest order of Protestant dignity, the order which no man of his color in the Colony has since attained.

Of the literature which Rev. Mr. Blyd has left, we may mention here his well-styled booklet: "Superstition in Surinam." Therein he has showed a great capacity as a writer. In this booklet he warned his people of the devil's sacrifice--the fetishism and the belief in witchcraft, an African religion transplanted here in the colony by their ancestors from Africa. His effort in doing so was only as he has said, to release his people from the chains of such an empty religion.

It was on April 12, 1921, that the Colony was shocked from its foundation. People stood in groups, heads sadly bent. Black clouds now and then saluted in snow-white rainy cloud, to regain after a few moments their original ash-grey color. Rev. Mr. Blyd, nursed in the Military Hospital, had passed away. The sickness that had ended his life so suddenly had returned. It was known that physically his body was overpowered by a disease. But none had expected his end so suddenly. On Sunday he had delivered his last sermon. In the week when his sickness had become more serious they decided to take him to the Military Hospital at Paramaribo for a careful nursing. But his end was at hand.

The day of his burial, a funeral-service was conducted by the Rev. Dr. Muller. It would require too much space in this Journal to note here all that he spoke on that occasion. But I shall note here some passages. Dr. Muller said: "He was one of the most popular and loveliest personalities among our society. He was the first among his co-workers. Everyone respected his name with deep respect, the young as well as the aged. He stood for better days above all parties; above all difference of color, sect and confession. He was the man that won the general confidence of the Colony.

"Yea! he was a man loved by all, respected by his own people the black, as well as by white. His name will live forever in the hearts of his people, friends and all. His name is holy for young and old. His wandering upon this earth was a guide to and for many in this Colony. He was simplicity itself and his life ended the same."

A. P. VREDE, Paramaribo, Surinam

The following communication from Captain T. G. Steward, U. S. A., retired, contains several statements of interest to students of Negro History:

WILBERFORCE, OHIO, January 13, 1923. MR. CARTER G. WOODSON, Washington, D. C.

_Dear Sir_: Allow me to kindly refer you to page 67 of my book "Fifty Years in The Gospel Ministry" where you will find recounted the opening of the school in Marion, S. C, the names of the teachers, and a copy of their credentials, etc.

Also on page 47 of your "Negro in Our History" you mention one "Irish Nell." I am quite confident that the late Bishop James Theodore Holly, bishop of Haiti, was a descendant of the union of that lady with a black man. I do not know how the name Holly came in, but I may be able to cite you to the facts if you think it worth while to publish the matter.

I am glad to find you doing so much first hand work; and were I able I should be delighted to be engaged with you.

I suppose you are aware of the fact that the keeper of Fraunce's tavern or Faunce's tavern in New York where Washington took leave of his officers was a negro. Also his daughter was Washington's house-keeper when the latter lived on Murray Hill in New York.

I would think the Faunce hotel at that time was probably among the best, if not itself the best hotel in the country.

Yours truly, T. G. STEWARD

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Here in Surinam the Moravian preacher needs no gown by the church service. This offering was then for Rev. Blyd a sign of his worthiness, an honor and an acknowledgment of his true Christian soul.

BOOK REVIEWS

_Das unbekannte Afrika_ (Unknown Africa). By Leo Frobenius. (O. Beck, München, 1923.)

The war has fettered Frobenius to his country and his desk, and he has found time to study his material, and the series of diaries, written every day while in Africa. Ten volumes of folklore, three volumes of _Atlas Africanus_, several philosophical books, and this one under discussion, have been the fruits of his unwelcome restraint. Frobenius is now preparing another book, "The dying Africa." Many of his collections have gone to the various museums, but he has a large number of interesting objects, and many thousands of pictures which are contained in his recent publications, and, at last, made known.

Each chapter of _Das unbekannte Afrika_ is headed by small maps showing the distribution of the cultural elements treated in it. This is the form of registration which Frobenius has practiced for the last 25 years. Thus the enormous wealth of ethnological data is statistically fixed. The area, for instance, for a house type or a custom, when found in his travels, is compared with data found, in literature, on the same subject, and all the findings are, again, registered on a map. The results of seven expeditions, on which skilled artists accompanied him, have been kept under control in this manner. As soon as the center of a district which seemed of interest was reached, numerous trained assistants were sent in different directions. Each took notes and pictures on a given subject, so that a marvelous amount of work could be accomplished. Other data were gained by leaving questionnaires among the resident missionaries, merchants, or government officials, to whom letters were sent later, where matters did not seem sufficiently clear, when studied at home.

The deductions made are illustrated by the fascinating pictures contained in _The unknown Africa_, in which more than half of the space is devoted to illustrations. By them the interrelation between Neolithic European, Asiatic, Phoenician, Carthaginian, and the African cultures is shown, mainly in regard to art and architecture.

African art is nearer related to the prehistoric European than to the Asiatic and the American. On the whole, that of the south is historic, as compared with that of northwestern Africa. Linguistically the south African idioms are the oldest, while the illiterate eastern constitutes the second period, and the northwestern the youngest.

Racially the lighter Hamite in the northwest has displaced older types, which are now prevalent in the east. The Hamitic culture extends between the Canaries and the Indian Ocean, with extensions into Abyssinia and the southern apex. In the south dwell the Ethiopians. Originally there were two main points of cultural influx, one in Erythraea, and one on the western shores, having travelled through the Mediterranean and Gibraltar, around northwestern Africa. Some influence was also introduced from the north, and traversed the Sahara desert. There it did not survive, but penetrated the Soudan.

The two cultures are explained distinctly. The Hamitic contains remnants of the solar cult, while the Ethiopian shows that of the moon. The first has the matriarchal while the second has the patriarchal system. Hamitic inclinations are connected with the animal world, the Ethiopian with Mother Earth and the plant. Proofs for the entry of Hamitic elements by way of Erythraea are found in the fact that the matriarchate has existed on the eastern coast of India, and in southern Arabia, and that it still exists in northern Africa. Also, the ritual killing of the kings which exists near the White Nile, and in the eastern Soudan, was reported, by Diodorus, to have existed on the eastern coast of India and in Meroe.

The Nile kept Egypt in touch with the rest of the civilized world, while the western parts of northern Africa had no great stream to retain the ancient height of culture, but this tended to the guarding of traditions, and the preservation of ancient customs.

The same ritual procedure which is depicted on the rock-drawings, thousands of years old, prevails in these days in western Soudan. The same posture is taken by the supplicant huntsman, in regard to the cardinal points, while he traces similar images on the sand. The present-day pious Yoruba consults the replica of boards which were found in Ife, and which were thousands of years old. On them are carved the four main pairs of deities, or the sixteen cardinal points.

Frobenius found ancient terra-cotta heads and wood carvings which represented the same objects as those found in Benin. The latter must be considered as mediaeval. The pupils of the Benin heads are perforated, while the Ilife heads have blind eyes. This would affix, to the latter, a much greater age, as it is a feature of ancient Mediterranean sculpture. The Atlantic art of western Africa is highly developed, and has nothing in common with primitive Negro art. Some of the boards are exquisite, and rows of beautiful figures and mythological representations are carved on a door, in Yoruba, as shown in the book.

A very interesting theory is put forth, in this connection. So far, it was accepted that time, in archaeology, could be measured only by stone objects, as these were lasting. The author, however, is of the opinion that rock drawings and carvings may answer the aesthetic or ritual requirements of a region or a people for many centuries, while wooden implements and works of art must be replaced, being eminently perishable. Wood is available everywhere. The idea underlying a figure is renewed, with each generation of carvers, and the traditions are handed down as faithfully by wooden carvings as by folk-lore.

Drawings, in the strict sense of the word, are found, in Africa, only in ancient Egypt. They are more closely related to the Bushman paintings of South Africa than to the petrography of the western parts of the continent. Hamitic rock drawings, with depressed lines of contour, and tinted in the intervening surfaces, are seen in Egypt. Prehistoric and early historic figures were found in Egypt, Lesser Africa, and the Guinea Coast. In the east the lines are generally severe, while in the northwest they are rounded. The Hamitic culture zone has no plastic art, among Berber, Bisharin, Somali, Masai, and Hottentot. The Bushman who drew the beautiful rock ornaments has produced no plastic. What is found among this tribe must be considered as Carthaginian.

The primitive Hamite fears representations of the human and animal, from magic. Later the plastic representations have, however, penetrated the Hamitic boundaries, and reached the Nile. The peoples of Lesser and North Africa do not recognize what is on the rocks. The Negro is not gifted in this sense. The Hamite who does not readily see a drawing or picture, and never seems to have produced plastic art, draws well, realistically or ornamentally. The Negro is a good carver but draws very badly. Even those Negroes who recognize every photograph and carve excellently cannot draw.

Many deductions are made in studying the migration of cultures, and many parallels are shown up. One of the relationships found is that between the tattooing of the Neolithic Period of France and that of the living individual near the Niger. The lines run from the ear to the nose. Another well-known feature is the figure of the obese woman which extends from France to Malta. It is quite prevalent in Hamitic art, in the graphic productions of northern Africa, and in Egyptian plastic. Steatopygy, in the living, is natural to the South African tribes. The deduction made is that those models which seemed desirable to the artist, during the stone age of the northwest, still exist in the south. Therefore Hamitic culture must have wandered from the north, east and south.

Other stone-age elements, the stone graves, are found in the Hamitic regions. In Morocco the stone tumuli are explained as remnants of the houses of forebears. When food ran low, goes the tale, the head of the family collected all its members about him, and tore the home down, over them.

Two main types of dwellings are found in Africa, one a cave, the other a pile structure. The Hamitic culture prefers the first, the Ethiopian the latter. The oldest Hamitic "chthonic" bed is a pit. The oven and storehouse is built in the ground. The inhabitants of the Canary Islands, who are the descendants of the ancient Guanches, and most of the Kabyle tribes of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis still have artificial caves, which are, however, not generally known. In Matamata, in the south of Tunis, tunnel-shaped, honeycomb dwellings constitute the newer type of cave dwelling.

Ethiopian "telluric" architecture uses the pile in the construction of beds, huts for guards, dwelling houses, and meeting places. The edifices are round or rectangular, and thatched. Later the thatch is covered with clay. Fortresses are constructed of clay and rafters. In parts of the Soudan the walls are beautifully ornamented with reliefs of humans and animals, or geometrical figures. In the interior of the houses the clay walls are tinted and polished, and the pictures show many beautiful decorative designs.

BEATRICE BICKEL

* * * * *

_A History of the United States Since the Civil War._ By Ellis Paxon Oberholtzer. In five volumes. Volume II, 1868-1872. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1922. Pp. XI, 649. $4.00.)

This is the second of five volumes of a history of the United States since the Civil War to be completed by this author. Covering the period from 1868 to 1872, this treatise deals in detail with the Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan, international questions resulting from the Civil War, the building of railroads, and Oriental problems.

It is not usual, however, to find one publishing such a large and expensive volume as this for the purpose of giving merely the author's opinion about the problems of that day and the shortcomings of the men who were trying to solve them. Not unlike most writers on the Reconstruction, this author endeavored to commend those who achieved as he would have them and to condemn those who addressed themselves to these tasks in a different way. In most places, however, he found many to censure and few to praise. If the book has any purpose at all, it is intended not as a history of the period but a survey of the corruption and vice of the age. Very little of the malfeasance in positions of public trust escaped the attention of this writer.

Beginning with President Grant himself, the author has tried to show that there was little of virtue and efficiency among public functionaries of that time. He refers to Grant as being ignorant, stupid, and simple, holds up to scorn James G. Blaine, and questions Garfield's connection with Credit Mobilier in the style characteristic of the book. Other crimes to the credit of the leading statesmen of that day are given detailed treatment. The book abounds in so many recriminations and epithets belaboring the most distinguished men of the time that the uninformed reader would expect something like the fall of Rome to follow.

If the white people with all their advantages had degenerated to such a low level, the reader might wonder why the author should make any comment at all on the corruption of the Negroes in the South. Inasmuch as they had not been generally educated and had been denied participation in civic affairs, he might have excused them for abandoning work to enjoy their freedom, stealing from their former masters, and obtruding themselves socially upon haughty persons of the old regime. In the same style, however, the Negroes are given their share of vilification. "He refers to them as 'Sambo' and 'Cuffee' entering the halls of government, and a 'Coal Black' member made temporary chairman," "'The Black Crook Convention,' 'Ring-tailed Coons,' 'Outlaws and Rag-a-muffins,' and a 'Gang of Jailbirds.'"

All of these expressions are not original with the author. They are taken from southern newspapers and books of the same sort of authorship. Instead of using such evidence only when known to be unconscious, the author has accepted this information as the truth. According to the requirements of modern historiography, newspapers are generally valuable only in determining the sentiment of the people except when the evidence obtained is unconscious. Furthermore, the author has too often accepted second-hand information, found in books of writers who have produced treatises on the Reconstruction for the express purpose of vilifying the Negroes who participated in that drama, and to justify the high-handed action of the whites who through such invisible powers as the Ku Klux Klan overthrew the liberal governments, and re-established the power of the aristocracy of the South. It is unreasonable to suppose that orators and editors interested in disfranchising and re-enslaving the Negroes would tell the truth about the freedmen.

It is most unfortunate that writers have accepted the point of view of these biased authors instead of making a research for the facts in the case. In too many instances, this author quotes Fleming for facts of Reconstruction in Alabama, Hamilton for North Carolina, Ficklen for Louisiana, Garne for Mississippi, Ramsdell for Texas, Reynolds for South Carolina, Davis for Florida, Eckenrode for Virginia, Thompson for Georgia, and the like. These "authorities" do not strengthen the claims of a work because of the very bias with which these books were written, for these writers accepted rumors, violent newspaper comments, and inflammatory speeches as reasons for their conclusions. Any history built upon such authority cannot be considered trustworthy.

From the point of view of the Negro himself, this book is not a history of the United States for the period which it purports to cover. It has very little to say about the Negroes except to refer to them as an ignorant, illiterate mass of thieves and rascals. In a work covering merely four years, a seeker of the truth would expect some information therefrom as to how the freedmen began their social and economic stride upward, what forces were set to work among them, and how susceptible they proved to be of the training offered in the schools and churches established for their special needs. Inasmuch as he found so much space for the Carpet-Baggers who went South to control the State governments through the Negro vote, it would have hardly been out of place for the author to mention that throng of apostles who came South as teachers to give their lives as a sacrifice in the uplift of these belated people. What these Negroes did, during these very years, to help themselves should have received some consideration. Every Negro of consequence in the South was not a politician or an office-seeker. What the race is accomplishing today is due in a large measure to the foundation laid at that time by Negroes of foresight, who acquired education and property and joined the missionary teachers from the North in the noble effort for the education and economic amelioration of the freedmen.

* * * * *

_The Partition of Africa._ By Sir Charles Lucas, K.C.B., K.C.M.G. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1922. Pp. 228.)

This book consists of the lectures given by the author at the Royal Colonial Institute to a circle of teachers of the London County Council in 1921. The author disclaims any pretension to exhaust the subject. He acknowledges that these lectures are somewhat discursive with the intention of suggesting diverse points of view and a variety of subjects for further study. With this purpose in mind he freely quotes a number of books and papers, evidently desiring to stimulate the reader to further study. It is admitted, moreover, that while these lectures have been awaiting publication there has taken place in Africa so many developments that this volume will not suffice to inform the reader.

The work begins with a survey of Africa in ancient times as it connected with the Mediterranean World. Unfortunately, in this chapter the author follows the well-beaten path of misrepresenting that land by referring to it as the "Dark Continent," which, from his point of view, was dependent and backward because it had no facilities of communication with Europe. In this chapter, therefore, he proves not that Africa had not made much advancement but that the European was merely ignorant of that part of the world.

In the chapter discussing "Africa from Ancient Times to the Nineteenth Century" there is little more than a casual sketch of the invasion of the Vandals, the Mohammedan conquest, followed by a rather brief and unscientific discussion of the natives of Africa. This chapter, however, presents in epitome the leading facts of the explorations of Europeans beginning with Prince Henry of Portugal, the forerunner of other adventurers from England, Italy, Spain and France.

Taking up the slave trade, the author becomes a little more interesting. He discusses the question from two points of view, distinguishing between the Mohammedan slave trade and the European traffic in men on the West Coast of Africa. He undertakes to give the causes of the West African slave trade in terms of the commercial revolution. Then follows a more detailed account of the participation therein by various European nations. In this connection is treated also the effort of philanthropic Europeans who exposed the horrors of the slave trade and finally abolished it. Further efforts for the improvement of the Negroes are traced to the establishment of Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The author then shows how this interest in the Negro, developing along with European expansion into Africa, led to further exploration and settlement and to the missionary enterprise of David Livingston. The interest in the uplift of the natives, however, as the book admits, was lost sight of after the Franco-German war, the prelude to the scramble for Africa. Then came the beginning of Belgian Congo, the Anglo-Portuguese treaty of 1884, the general acts of the Berlin Conference, the Congo atrocities, and the partition of the continent into Northeast-Africa, East-Africa, South-Africa, West-Africa and other spheres of influence. There followed also another sort of scramble in building African railways, tapping the wealth of the hinterland of Africa. The bearing of the Anglo-French Convention of 1904, the Franco-German Agreement of 1911 and other European treaties are all set forth.

Discussing North-Africa, the author first makes a comparison of the situation in the different parts of the continent, allowing for such influences as the proximity of that portion of the continent to Europe, the effect of the orientalization of Egypt, Tunis, Algeria, Tripoli, and Morocco. This discussion, however, is not carried out in all of its ramifications and the reader must make further investigation for adequate information.

In Chapter VIII the author reviews the settlements of the Dutch in South-Africa, the British occupation of the Cape, the conflict of the British and the Dutch, the rise of the Boer Republic, and the Kaffir wars. In keeping with so many writers who endorse almost anything which Europeans do, this author finds some justification for the intrusion of the Europeans in Africa. The cruel oppression visited upon the natives as a result of this conquest does not cause the author any grief. In the same way, he discusses the conquest and settlements of France and Great Britain in West-Africa, their dependencies, and methods of development. Treating the late campaigns in Africa, the author makes an effort to bring this information up to date as far as possible, trying to account for the territorial settlement in that continent as shown by the reconstructed map of Africa. The book closes with a discussion of such African problems as the elimination of Germany from Africa, the plurality of powers in Africa as an advantage to the Africans in bringing about mutual checks, and the effect of the World War upon the relation between whites and blacks.

* * * * *

_A Boy's Life of Booker T. Washington._ By W. C. Jackson, Vice President of the North Carolina College for Women, and Professor of History, Greensboro. (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1922. Pp. 147.)

The author does not pretend to add anything new to what is generally known about Booker T. Washington, or to what may be found in such works as _Up from Slavery_, _My Larger Education_, and _Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization_. The aim is to tell this story in such simple language as to make it comprehensible for children. The author hopes that by reading this book some of them may be inspired to higher ambition and encouraged to nobler effort. While the reader may not agree with all of the observations made by the author, he must commend this effort to popularize the record of the distinguished citizen who by his achievement demonstrated that the race has within it the possibilities of other groups. This effort, then, has an important bearing on the dissemination of information concerning the Negro and on the preservation of the records of the race.

The details of the life of the subject of the sketch are omitted except that the interesting beginnings of Booker T. Washington as a boy, and his rise through poverty and ignorance to a position of leadership, are given with some degree of thoroughness. The author endeavors to impress upon the youth the bravery, courage, backbone, energy, fair-mindedness, honesty, wisdom, intelligence, judgment, modesty, patriotism, will power, self control, and love of humanity of Booker T. Washington. To do this, each important trait in the man is portrayed by reference to some achievement which served as a striking example of his character. In this way, the author draws upon his planning for an education, school days at Hampton, beginning life in the outside world, first efforts at teaching, the beginning of Tuskegee, early hardships, struggles to raise money, speech-making, leadership, political experiences, and travels abroad.

The book is well printed and neatly bound. It is also adequately illustrated so as to concentrate the attention of the youth on certain important achievements and events in the life of Washington. Among these illustrations appear the monument recently unveiled at Tuskegee, which constitutes the frontispiece of the book. Then follow various illustrations of the many activities of the institution. While there is not given a general view of the whole school, the various groups given will impress the reader with the magnitude of the work undertaken at Tuskegee. The cuts of Washington and his family show the home life of the man.

NOTES

Mr. A. A. Taylor, who during the last fiscal year devoted a part of his time to research under the direction of the Association, has been permanently employed as an Associate Investigator of the Association to make researches into Negro Reconstruction History. Mr. Taylor is an alumnus of the University of Michigan. He has recently done graduate work under Professors Abbott, Usher, Turner, Merk, and Channing at Harvard, where he obtained the degree of Master of Arts.

Miss Irene A. Wright, who has been employed by the Association to copy certain documents in the Archives of the Indies, Seville, Spain, reports that in the near future she will offer for publication in these columns interesting and valuable data giving the history of the Mose Settlement of Negroes in Florida.

Mr. Albert Parry, the contributor of the article in this number entitled "Hannibal, the Favorite of Peter the Great," is a former resident of Russia. He has been studying in this country two years.

* * * * *

The various aspects of German colonization in East Africa and the rôle played by that portion of this continent in the World War are treated in _Kumbuke; Erlebnisse eines Arztes in Deutsch Ostafrika_ (Berlin, Dom-Verlag, 1922, pp. 502), by August Hauer.

_Études sur l'Islam en Côte d'Ivoire_ (Paris, Leroux, 1922, pp. 502) by Paul Marty, _Au Congo: Souvenirs de la Mission Marchand_ (Paris, Fayard, 1921) by General Baratier, and _Une Étape de la Conquête de l'Afrique Équatoriale Française_ (Paris, Fournier, 1922, pp. 260) by the Ministry of War of France, cover altogether in a general way French colonization in Western and Central Africa.

The Associated Publishers will soon publish a work entitled _Negro Poets and Their Poems_ by Robert T. Kerlin, Professor of English of the State Normal School, West Chester, Pennsylvania, former Professor of English at the Virginia Military Institute. This work will be an illustrated textbook for schools and will at the same time serve as a volume of general information on contemporary Negro poetry.

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR

The fiscal year which ended June 30, 1923, was the most prosperous in the history of the Association. The efforts of the staff were directed toward carrying out the purposes for which the Association was organized, namely, to collect historical data and to promote studies bearing on the Negro. To attain these objectives the Director had to perform the two important tasks of soliciting funds to finance the Association and then to use the same in the employment of assistants to investigate the various aspects of Negro life and history.

Funds have been received and disbursed as follows:

COMPLETE FINANCIAL STATEMENT OF ALL DEPARTMENTS OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF NEGRO LIFE AND HISTORY[A]

_July 1, 1922-June 30, 1923_

_Receipts_

Research Fund $5,000.00 Interest on Reserve 78.77 Subscriptions 1,798.91 Memberships 321.10 Contributions 6,727.99 Advertisements 264.55 Refunds 57.11 Miscellaneous 107.80 Books 3.25 ---------- Total Receipts $14,359.48

Balance on hand for Research June 30, 1922 5,000.00

Balance on hand, General Expense Fund, June 30, 1922 89.46 ---------- Grand Total $19,448.94

_Disbursements_ Printing and Stationery $2,996.34 Paid for Research 4,401.62 Petty Cash (Incidentals) 900.00 Stenographic Service 1,330.01 Rent and Light 518.50 Salaries 2,733.37 Traveling Expenses 300.39 Miscellaneous 520.47 ---------- Total Disbursements $13,700.70 Balance on hand, June 30, 1923 appropriated for Printing and Research 5,677.15 Balance on Hand, General Expense Fund, June 30, 1923 71.09 ---------- Grand Total $19,448.94

Respectfully submitted, (Signed) S. W. RUTHERFORD, Secretary-Treasurer.

VARIOUS INTERESTS

The Director, who is editor of the JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY as well as the executive of the Association, has devoted some of his time to administrative duties, which, with the expansion of the work, are rapidly multiplying. It has been possible, however, to give much stimulus to all phases of the work in spite of arduous duties. That the additional assistants now associated with the Director will relieve him of some of these tasks is indeed gratifying.

THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY has found its way into additional libraries and schools where it is becoming more and more to be regarded as a valuable aid in research. It is now used as such in the accredited colleges and universities of both races in the South and serves for similar purposes in centers of research in the North. A larger number of institutions abroad, moreover, are now subscribing to this publication, requiring, too, a complete file of the magazine in bound form. Briefly stated, then, while this publication has not a popular subscription list, it circulates throughout the civilized world as a library magazine of value for advanced students, investigators, and social workers.

The Director has spent some of his time in field work. Wherever there is a call to encourage a school or a club to do more for the study of Negro life and history, the Director generally responds. In this way the people of Kentucky, especially in Lexington and Louisville, were made acquainted with the purposes of the Association and induced to do something for the preservation of the local records of Negroes who have achieved well. Enterprising citizens of Lexington have organized for this purpose.

At Nashville, the Director availed himself of a similar opportunity to carry the work of the Association to the thinking people of the city, speaking to them for two days in their schools and churches. The interest aroused was most encouraging and resulted in the organization of a local club to co-operate with this national organization. In addition to preserving the records of Negroes in that particular community, this group will engage in the actual study of the neglected aspects of Negro history, using the Branch Library as a center where numerous works on Negro life and history have been provided.

In Baltimore, where the Spring Conference of the Association was held, the citizens showed the same sort of interest in the work and pledged themselves to do more to save local records which are now being rapidly lost. Persons having an intelligent interest in the past of the Negro are now taking steps to organize there a Maryland Historical Society, to record and popularize the achievements of the Negroes of that commonwealth under the leadership of the teachers of history of the public schools and instructors at Morgan College.

RESEARCH

For the first time in the history of the Association its researches have taken a definite course. Up to the year just ended, the Association had the benefit of merely what investigations the Director's manifold duties permitted him to conduct, or of what others of their own will worked out in the interest of unearthing the truth. Thanks to the appropriations of the Carnegie Corporation and the Laura Spellman Rockefeller Memorial, however, the Association can now outline a definite program of investigation and systematically carry it out. For the present the staff is engaged in the study of the Free Negro prior to 1861 and Negro Reconstruction History.

With the assistance of a copyist, Mrs. C. B. Overton, the Director has been preparing a report on the Free Negro in the United States. This report will be decidedly statistical, giving the names of the persons of color who were heads of families in 1830, where they were living, how many were in each family, how many slaves each owned, and what relation these free Negroes sustained to the white people. This research covers also the statistics of absentee ownership of slaves by whites. The first volume of the report will be published within the next six months. Using it as a basis, the Director will make further investigation of the Free Negroes to determine their economic status, their social position, the attitude of the southern whites toward this class, and the opinion of the North with respect to them as citizens.

Working in this same field, but developing special aspects of this history, are Mr. George F. Dow and Miss Irene A. Wright. Mr. George F. Dow has been employed to read the 18th century colonial newspapers of New England for facts bearing on the Negro. Up to the present, however, he has been unable to finish this task and does not promise to accomplish much until next fall. Miss Irene A. Wright is now extracting from the Archives of the Indies in Seville, Spain, some valuable documents showing the part the Negroes played in the early struggle between the British and Spanish in America and especially the records of the Mose Settlement of Negroes in Florida and the achievements of the Negroes in Louisiana. Miss Wright will also copy all accessible documents of Latin-America giving accounts of Negroes in higher spheres of usefulness. The Association is endeavoring to employ an investigator to render the same sort of service in the British Museum and the Public Record Office in London.

During the year the Association has had one worker in Negro Reconstruction History. This was Mr. A. A. Taylor, an alumnus of the University of Michigan, who has recently received the degree of Master of Arts for graduate work done at Harvard University under Professors W. C. Abbott, F. J. Turner, and Edward Channing. Although he has devoted only a part of his time to this research, he has produced one valuable dissertation, _The Social Conditions and Treatment of Negroes in South Carolina, 1865-1880_. He has also made a scientific study of the social and economic conditions of the Negroes in Virginia for the same period, but has not yet completed this treatise. It is expected that it will be ready for publication within the next twelve months. Mr. Taylor will continue this work as Associate Investigator, permanently employed by the Association to devote all of his time to this effort.

The Association continues its interest in the work of training young men for scientific investigation. As far as possible it will follow its program of educating in the best graduate schools with libraries bearing on Negro Life and History, three young men supported by fellowships of $500 each from the Association and such additional stipends as the schools themselves may grant for their support. These students are assigned to different fields, one to make Anthropometric and Psychological measurements of Negroes, one to study African Anthropology and Archaeology, and one to take up history as it has been influenced by the Negro.

Closely connected with these plans, moreover, are certain other projects to preserve Negro folklore. In this effort the Association has the co-operation of Dr. Elsie Clews Parsons, the moving spirit of the American Folklore Society. She is now desirous of making a more systematic effort to embody this part of the Negro civilization and she believes that the work can be more successfully done by co-operation with the Association. As soon as the Director can obtain a special fund for this particular work, an investigator will be employed to undertake it. For the present the Association is endeavoring to stimulate interest in this field by offering a prize of $200 for the best collection of tales, riddles, proverbs, sayings, and songs, which have been heard at home by Negro students of accredited schools.

The interest in the result of these researches has become all but nation-wide. Most advanced institutions of learning now make some use of historical works on the Negro. _The Negro in Our History_ has met with the general welcome as a much desired volume giving the essential facts of Negro achievement. It has been extensively used as collateral reading and has been adopted as a text in more than a score of schools and colleges. The demand for this book is so rapidly increasing that the second edition has been almost exhausted. The third edition, which is now in preparation, will be revised and enlarged so as to give more attention to the Negro in freedom, a period of more concern to most students than that of the Negro before the Civil War.

In almost every center of considerable Negro population and in most of the large schools of the race there are clubs or classes engaged in the study of Negro life and history. Some of these were organized under the supervision of the Association and others sprang up of themselves in response to the increasing desire among Negroes to know about themselves and to publish such information to a world uninformed as to what the race has thought and felt and attempted and done. These groups thus interested in the scientific study of the Negro, moreover, are not restricted to the schools and communities controlled by this race. The Association has found little difficulty in interesting advanced students in large northern universities, and this work has extended to some of the best white schools of the South.

THE STAFF

The staff has suffered one irreparable loss in that Miss A. H. Smith, who during the last seven years has served the Association as Office Manager and Assistant to the Secretary-treasurer, has recently retired from the service. The Association is immeasurably indebted to Miss Smith for the faithful service which she has rendered the cause, and it will be difficult to fill her position. Although offered opportunities for earning a larger stipend elsewhere, she remained with the Association because of her interest in the work which it has been prosecuting. The Association wishes her well and earnestly hopes that she may be welcomed in some other field of usefulness.

Respectfully submitted, CARTER G. WOODSON, Director

1538 NINTH ST., N. W., WASHINGTON, D. C. Sept. 18, 1923

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The books of the Association have been audited by a certified public accountant who reports that the receipts have been duly deposited, that all disbursements have been made through numbered voucher checks properly approved, and that the balances given in the records of the Association agree with the balances reported by the banks.

* * * * *

INDEX

JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY