The workhouse commitments for Philadelphia, Washington, Cincinnati, Louisville, Chicago and St. Louis "show a similar tendency to decrease." Penitentiary commitments[27] for Baltimore and Chicago show, on the whole, a decreasing trend. "The rate of annual commitments to the state penitentiary of Illinois from the city of Chicago in 1873 was 4.4; in 1902 the rate was 1.6," the highest rate being in 1873. Mr. Work continues,

Mr. Work remarks finally,[28]

Besides, differences in age-grouping are usually ignored.

On the whole, therefore, there is firm ground for hope as the Negro becomes adjusted to the urban environment.

Since, then, these economic and social causes bid fair to continue their influence for an indefinite time, the concentration of Negroes in urban centers makes imperative the need of knowledge and methods of dealing with the problems that face the Negro and the Nation in these growing urban centers[29]. These questions of how to live in the city are problems of health, of intelligence and of morals. They are economic, social, political, educational and religious. The present essay is an attempt to study carefully the economic problems arising out of the Negro's adjustment in his struggles to make a living and to live in the city as seen in the commercial Metropolis of America; to find out at what he is employed there; to inquire of his efficiency and success, and of the attitude of employer and fellow employee. As we find Negroes rising from the plane of the employed to that of the employer, these questions arise: How does he get into business and what lines does he enter? With what success does he meet? What resourcefulness does he show? What are the reasons for his failures? We want to know what are his relations with the business world with which he deals and the consuming public to whom he caters. These and many other things can be ascertained only by painstaking investigation.

This study aims to be a small contribution to the end that efforts for betterment of urban conditions may be founded upon facts. The material has been treated in two parts—that relating to wage-earners and to business undertakings. In the former the United States Census reports, a personal canvass, and the unpublished schedules for 2,500 families of the New York State Census of 1905, were used as sources; for the latter a block to block canvass was made and records of the business enterprises were secured by personal interviews.

FOOT-NOTE ON THE MANNER AND CAUSES OF CITY CONCENTRATION OF POPULATION[30]

The manner of growth has been two-fold: (1) By natural increase through the lowering of the death-rate due partially to improved housing conditions, progress in personal hygiene of the poorer classes and in city sanitation and inspection; (2) by migration: that is, short distance movements by progressive stages from the more rural districts toward the larger centers.[31] In the case of the great cities this may mean increase in density of the most populated areas.[32]

The causes of concentration in cities are the following:

I. The Divorce of Men from the Soil.[33] The diminishing relative importance of elementary wants, improvements in scientific cultivation and in agricultural machinery, and the opening of distant and virgin fields by better transportation have reduced the relative number of workers needed on the soil.

II. The Growth of Commercial Centers.[34] This went hand in hand with the Agrarian Revolution. Trade has been the basis of city founding. The prevailing influence in determining location has been "a break in transportation." Where goods are transferred and where, in addition, ownership changes hands, urban centers grow up. Wealthy classes arise which require others to supply their increasing and varied wants.

III. The Growth of Industrial Centers.[35] The passage of industry from the household, handicrafts and domestic systems to that of the factory, with the invention of power machinery and modern methods of transportation and communication, draws population away from the rural districts to the industrial centers.

IV. Secondary or Individual Causes.[36] (a) The shifting demand for transfer of labor from agricultural to industrial production was met by the economic motive of workers. (b) Political action has influenced city growth; legislation affecting trade and the migration of labor; centralization of governmental machinery in the cities; legal forms of land tenure, etc. (c) Social advantages such as better education, varied amusements, higher standard of living, intellectual associations and pursuits, draw people to urban centers, while desire for the contact of the moving crowds, for the excitement and apparent ease of city life, serve to make the rural districts distasteful.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IIToC

The Negro Population of New York City

The Negro population of New York City has had a history similar to that of other Northern cities. Beginning with a small body of slaves, it has since had its problems growing out of the presence of an increasing number of Negroes in the midst of the environing white group. In 1629, The Dutch West India Company pledged itself to furnish slaves to the Colonists of New Amsterdam.[37] A similar resolution was passed by the colony council in 1648[38] and by 1664 slavery had become of sufficient importance to receive legislative regulation in the Duke of York Code.[39] Both by further importations and by natural increase the Negro population grew until in 1704 it numbered about 1,500; in 1741 it was estimated at about 2,000, and in 1757 about 3,000. Beginning with the first Federal Census of 1790 there was an increase shown by each census except those of 1820 for Brooklyn and of 1850 and 1860 for other parts of New York City, mainly Manhattan.

The figures show a striking contrast in growth between Brooklyn and the other parts of New York City as now constituted, exclusive of Brooklyn. The former had a comparatively small Negro population until after 1860, but from 1790 the Negro population although small increased steadily, except the one decade between 1810 and 1820. This was a decrease of only 92 or 4.9 per cent of a population less than 2,000. Only one increase, from 1800 to 1810, was less than 13 per cent. Beginning with 5,915 at the Federal census of 1790, the Negro population of the other parts of New York City has shown a high per cent of increase in numbers, above 15 per cent, at eight of the twelve succeeding censuses, and 8.1 per cent and 5.5 per cent at two others. The decreases from 1840 to 1850, 13.2 per cent, and from 1850 to 1860, 7.5 per cent, were probably due to the unfavorable sentiment against the Negroes which arose during the abolition agitation of these periods and which had its effect on the Negro's movements to and from the city. The small increase from 1860 to 1870, 5.5 per cent, was very probably the result of the same causes—of the Civil War disturbances and the New York Draft riots, which deterred Negroes from coming to New York City and sent many Negro residents away.[40] The figures for Manhattan show a similar trend at each census. However, except the periods noted above, there has been a general trend toward increase in both Manhattan and Brooklyn. The Negro population has become a smaller and smaller part of the total population from decade to decade since 1810, but this is because the several streams of foreign immigrants have been large and not because the increase of the Negro population has been small.

Table VIII, which follows, shows the growth of the total and the Negro populations, and brings the full figures to view:

Table VIII. Total and Negro Population of New York City, as at Present Constituted, 1704-1910.[A]

To summarize the point, while the Negro population has become a smaller relative part of the total population each decade since 1810, it has shown a decided trend toward a large actual increase.

The distribution of the Negro population has varied with its increase and with the growth of the city. But almost from the beginning, probably the environing white group has segregated the Negroes into separate neighborhoods. The figures available for Brooklyn do not permit a positive inference, but in Manhattan, while the areas populated by Negroes have shifted somewhat from decade to decade, there have been distinctively Colored sections since 1800.[41]

An idea of this segregation is shown in the fact that in 1900, 80.9 per cent of all the Negro population of Manhattan was contained within 12 out of 35 Assembly Districts and that in 1890 seven wards of Manhattan contained fully five-sixths of the Negro population of the Borough. The largest number of Negroes, 13.8 per cent of the total number, were living, in 1900, in the Nineteenth Assembly District with numbers approximating this in the Eleventh, which contained 10.4 per cent, the Twenty-seventh, which had 9.2 per cent, and the Twenty-third, which had 8.7 per cent of the Negro population. The Negro population for Manhattan, 36,246, was distributed in 1900 by assembly districts as is shown in Table IX (p. 49).

These figures give a clear idea of the segregated character of the Negro population and show something of its present location. There has been a decided shifting from the part of Manhattan between Twenty-fifth, Forty-second streets, Sixth and Eighth avenues, and into Harlem between One Hundred and Thirtieth, One Hundred and Fortieth streets, Fifth and Eighth avenues during the past five years as business interests have been taking possession of the zone around the new Pennsylvania Railway Station, between Thirty-second and Thirty-third streets. But as the Negroes have moved into blocks in Harlem, the whites have moved out.

Table IX. Distribution of Negro Population by Assembly Districts of Manhattan, 1900.

The exact character and extent of the segregation of the Negro population may be clearly seen from diagrams of this Harlem district, and of the "San Juan Hill" district in the West Sixties, based upon the latest figures of the Census of 1910. This is given in Diagrams III and IV (pp. 50-51)[42]

With such a distribution of the clearly segregated Negro population, the representative character of the 2,500 families chosen for closer study becomes evident. These families, from figures based upon the original returns of the New York State Census of 1905, were chosen from the Eleventh, the Nineteenth, the Twenty-third, and the Thirty-first districts. The last district was taken in preference to several which contained larger numbers, because it included certain streets that were typical of the Harlem section.

In all 2,639 families were tabulated. Of these 95 were excluded because the heads of these families were of the professional or business classes, 37 because they were too incompletely reported, and 7 because the heads were white. This reduced the number to 2,500 families, which consisted of 9,788 persons, exclusive of 17 white members of these families. The data from the State Census schedules of enumerators were tabulated in regular order as reported by them for each block or part of block for the Negro families that were designated as living in that street or block.

The families studied were from the following territory: Within the Eleventh Assembly District, the area bounded by Thirtieth and Thirty-eighth streets, Seventh and Tenth avenues; within the Nineteenth Assembly District, Sixty-first, Sixty-second, and Sixty-third streets, between Amsterdam and Eleventh avenues, commonly called "San Juan Hill;" within the Twenty-third and Thirty-first Assembly Districts, One Hundred and Thirtieth and One Hundred and Thirty-third streets between Eighth and St. Nicholas avenues, and One Hundred and Thirty-fourth and One Hundred and Thirty-fifth streets between Fifth and Seventh avenues. These three segregated neighborhoods in 1905 may be roughly characterized as follows: The first was probably in the lowest grade of social condition; the second did not show a decidedly predominant type, but ranged from the middle grade toward the more advanced; the third was the most advanced.

A comparison in detail of the distribution by assembly districts of the total Negro population and of the 2,500 selected families shows also that the latter are representative of the several neighborhoods and of the total population. Table X shows the distribution by Assembly Districts of the 2,500 families for comparison with Table IX above, which gave the total Negro population of Manhattan and its distribution.

Table X. Distribution by Assembly Districts of 2,500 Negro Families, State Census, 1905.

In addition to the data of the State Census of 1905, a personal canvass was made in 1909 of 73 families in their homes, having a total of 212 persons. To these were added 153 individuals at one of the evening schools of the city, a total of 365 persons. The localities within which these 365 people lived corresponded in the main to the location of the 2,500 families taken from the State Census of 1905; that is, between Twenty-fifth, Forty-fifth streets, Fifth and Eighth Avenues; Fifty-third, Sixty-fifth streets, west of Sixth Avenue and between One Hundred and Thirtieth and One Hundred and Thirty-sixth streets, Fifth and Seventh Avenues.

To sum up: The assembly districts chosen and the number of families and individuals tabulated from each district are such as to give a fairly accurate description of the clearly segregated wage-earning Negro population of the districts. The study, then, is representative of about one-fourth of the Negro population of Manhattan in 1905, and is so distributed as to be reasonably conclusive for the wage-earning element of the whole Negro population.

The next question is the composition of this toiling Negro population. The general condition of the wage-earning element of this group will now, therefore, engage our attention.