Detroit and the Great Migration 1916-1929, by Elizabeth Anne Martin
"Detroit is thegreatest prosperity center
in the United States."
-Detroit City Directory, 1924-1925
Henry Ford's introduction of the Model T in 1908 started Detroit on the road to industrial prominence. War demands accelerated the city's progress and "propelled [Detroit] into a boom dwarfing all previous booms" [1]. In less than twenty years, the population of Detroit more than tripled [2]. Workers from all over the world flocked to the "seething metropolis of industry and achievement, the shrine of the Goddess 'Opportunity,' known to the wide world as 'Detroit, the Dynamic'"[3]. In the ten years following the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914, building construction had risen 350 percent, bank clearings were up 700 percent and industrial receipts had climbed an incredible 5000 percent [4].
Detroit's "boom" was not continuous, however. In 1920-1921 the high tide of Detroit's industrial success temporarily receded, and one hundred and forty thousand auto workers lost their jobs. Other industries also laid off many thousands, and wages fell by one-fifth. As Detroit recovered from this economic decline, technological advances dramatically improved assembly-line productivity. Unfortunately for workers, this meant that factories required fewer employees to run the machinery [5].
By the late 1920s, signs of severe economic distress, including an extreme labor oversupply, began to reappear in Detroit. Every industry seemed dependent on the fortunes of others for its success. When one large plant cut back production, they all suffered. When the Ford Motor Car Company closed down in 1927 to change models, the entire city's automobile production fell by 25 percent. Ford laid off 12-14,000 whites and 1500 African-Americans, and estimates of total Detroit unemployment ran as high as one hundred thousand. Hundreds of Ford suppliers also closed their doors, and most remaining factories were running on reduced schedules [8].
Masses of unemployed workers made Detroit an unlikely place for union organization. Some industrialists believed that "Detroit [was] Detroit because of the open shop" [9]. A few strong craft unions, such as the Electrical, Brick Mason, Plasterer and Printer unions, did exist, but labor organizations in the city were generally weak. The Detroit Employer's Association (DEA) was largely responsible for this situation. Formed in 1902 by employers moping to stave off labor organization in Detroit, the association was "unquestionably the most powerful group in the city" in the 1920s [11]. A powerful lobbying force, it successfully pressured state and city governments into a pro-business stance on all labor issues. Ties to the local government enabled the association to call on the police to break strikes and quell any other labor disturbances. To prevent unions from making big advances when labor demand was high, the association created blacklists and established its own employment bureau. The association's employment offices found jobs for workers who registered their unemployment status with the association. In effect, it provided employers with an army of willing workers ready to replace any actual or would-be strikers [12].
Among the association's pool of workers were thousands of African-Americans, most of whom were new to the city and desperate for immediate employment. At first, African-Americans could find little work outside of domestic and service occupations, such as hotel waiters, porters, barbers, janitors and house servants. [13] Before the war, many factories excluded Blacks entirely [14] A survey of eighty-one companies in 1916 revealed that only thirty-six hired African-Americans. Those that hired Blacks did so primarily in janitorial positions and engaged very few at a time [16]. Only when union leaders planned a strike did the African American worker become attractive to anti-union managers [17].
The real opportunity for African-American workers came during World War I, when immigration virtually ceased and labor demand was at an all-time high. Factory managers in these circumstances had to hire African-American job-seekers in order to keep their plants running. Mass production lines, because they did not require special education or great skill, enabled unskilled and semi-skilled Black migrants to "make good" on this opportunity almost immediately [18]. Whereas in 1910 only 183 Blacks in the entire nation were employed in the auto industry, by 1920 there were eight thousand Black auto workers in Detroit alone [19]. By 1923 no fewer than five hundred Detroit firms employed African-Americans. Ford was the largest employer, having sixteen thousand African-Americans on its payroll in 1925. The city government employed 2,745 African-Americans in 1926, including 486 in the Post Office and 2,200 in the Department of Public Works, most of whom worked as street-cleaners or did minor repair work [22].
Not surprisingly, the blatant discrimination that kept African-Americans out of factory jobs before the war did not disappear simply because labor was in short supply. Although more jobs were now available to Blacks, they were usually the jobs with the longest hours and most grueling duties. Employers used stereotypes about Black migrants to justify placing them in the least desirable positions. Some employers gave Blacks the toughest assembly line jobs, claiming that African-Americans were faster than anyone else at performing "rhythmic tasks." Others, conversely, complained that the African-American worker was "too slow. He does not make the speed that the routine of efficient industry demands. He is lacking in the regularity demanded by the routine of industry day by day [27]. Employers also complained of a disinclination on the part of migrants to work outside in cold weather. Some employers used this stereotype as an excuse to put all Blacks in the hottest jobs in the factories, while construction companies often used it to justify excluding Blacks altogether [28].
Stereotypes also kept African-Americans out of skilled positions [29]. Although Blacks by the mid 1920s could find work in a few skilled and semi-skilled trades, as molders, riveters, furnace operators, cement finishers, machine operators, plasterers, brick layers, carpenters, and motor men on streetcars, most skilled migrants had to accept jobs in the North that were beneath their skill levels. To make matters worse, African-American natives of Detroit who had held skilled positions before the migration were often unable to convince white employers that they were skilled enough to hold on to those positions. As a result, Northern-raised Blacks often resented the southern newcomers. "These damn southern `niggers' have spoiled the jobs for all of us," complained one skilled Negro molder. "Some of us used to have good jobs here, but so many unskilled niggers from the South have come in that none of us have a chance now. They think we are all the same. I used to do all sorts of skilled molding but now I'm kept on the machines [32].
By contrast, unskilled workers who migrated were likely to see their employment opportunities improved as a result of the move. When demand was high, almost all migrants could find jobs as garbage workers, construction laborers, excavators, dishwashers, packers, sweepers, yard workers, car unloaders, paper balers, street repairers, alley cleaners and morgue attendants. Though the hours were longer than those worked by members of other ethnic groups in the North, they were still shorter than the hours migrants had worked in the South. And although a higher cost of living in the North as compared tor the South lessened the impact of higher wages on the family budget, migrants still took home more pay in real terms than they had prior to the move [35].
The advances made in employment of Blacks were neither universal nor permanent, however. African-American women did not experience the gains that men did: throughout the 1910s and 1920s they could find few jobs beyond those of domestics, day workers and laundry workers. As far as factory jobs were concerned, African-American women were the last hired and the first fired. Even Black men lost any advantages they had gained when the supply of Black workers exceeded the demand for labor [37].
The League established its own Employment Bureau in 1916 to help migrants find jobs. Many employers asked the Urban League to supply Blacks to fill open positions. In 1917 the League had more job offers than workers to supply: the Employment Bureau placed a total of 10,861 Blacks in jobs that year, a number that included eight thousand recent migrants [38]. In the Bureau's early years, Dancy set up chairs outside to accommodate those who were waiting for assistance. But when jobs grew scarce after the war, he had to remove the chairs because the office was becoming too crowded. New migrants with nowhere else to go were hanging around simply to socialize with other job seekers [39].
In 1918, by which time African-Americans had become a significant percentage of the labor force, the Detroit Employer's Association (DEA) offered to finance the League's Employment Bureau and make it a branch of the DEA [40]. Thousands of eager migrants visited the new League Employment Office every year. Dancy, for his part, provided hundreds of recommendations for persons desiring all types of employment [41]. Many of the letters he wrote helped poor migrants to find the work they so desperately needed [42]. He wrote letters for people he knew, as well as for people sent by friends to be recommended by him [43]. His respected position and his ties with the Employer's Association made him almost a legend in terms of finding jobs for Blacks in Detroit. As one woman advised a friend moving to the city, "talk with Mr. Dancy, who has been director of the Urban League for the past twelve years and knows the opportunities for women's work in the City-very well indeed. He is a very kind and pleasant young man and I am sure he would he glad to advise you" [44].
In his quest to find as many jobs as possible, Dancy was not above reminding employers of the importance of giving work to the unemployed. In one letter to the Department of Public Welfare he wrote: "There is a man by the name Charles Dixon, 1374 Sherman St. who is well known to me and is also known to the Department of Public Welfare. This man is anxious to catch on with the City Garbage Department. I don't know, just what you might do to aid Mr. Dixon. Perhaps your recommendation to the Department he wants to get in to will mean something. The man has eleven children. In case he can be placed it will mean that many taken off your rolls" [45].
The Urban League's efforts to find employment for Blacks were, to be sure, limited by the willingness of white employers to take on African-Americans [46]. Nevertheless, an Urban League press release in 1919 proudly proclaimed that "all the factories, large and small, and many of the department stores now rely on the Urban League for their colored help" [47]. The League continued to offer its employment service to thousands of migrants year after year, but its ability to accommodate such large numbers declined rapidly during the recession of 1920-1921. Not only did the League have trouble finding jobs for newcomers, but thousands of those already employed lost their jobs. Although the average level of employment of African-American factory workers had been seventeen thousand during the years 1916-1920, not more than one thousand Black workers held steady jobs in 1921 [48]. In Februarv of that year the League appealed to the city government to provide jobs for the unemployed, but it succeeded at first in finding only five hundred jobs for snow-shovellers for a two-day period [49]. During the summer of 1921, however, the League helped convince the Department of Public Works to hire Blacks to work on the municipal railway--30 percent of those eventually hired were African-Americans [50].
Although the League increased the number of job placements it was able to make after 1924, the gain was not permanent [51]. Ford layoffs in 1927 and the resultant reduction of employment by other factories meant unemployment for thousands of African-Americans, who were often the first to be let go [52]. Job placements by the League fell from 5,343 in 1926 to 2,843 in 1927 [53]. The situation worsened as the years passed. In 1928 the Employment Office was consistently processing five to six hundred male applicants per day, but securing jobs for only fifty or sixty [54]. In 1929 when the Great Depression hit, the employment problem became even more dismal. In October 1929 the League was able to find jobs for only fifteen out of 825 applicants, and in the following month it sent only twenty-four of 876 men to jobs [55]. Matters only became worse once the depression tightened its grip on the city [56].
Although the Employment Office could not maintain its initial levels of success indefinitely, its impact, even in difficult times, was undeniable. The Detroit Contender asserted in the midst of the recession in 1921 that John Ragland, the employment secretary of the Urban League was responsible for the employment of two-thirds of Detroit's African-American citizens [57]. League officials, moreover, were not satisfied simply with increasing the absolute numbers of African-Americans employed in Detroit; they also wanted to improve employer impressions of African-American laborers. Every person sent to a job had to a promise to remain at the job and to maintain good work habits [58]. One African-American newspaper printed a special charge directed at Black workers: "With you. Mr. Factory Employee, and with you alone lies the future of your race reiterate the progress which it has made in the last 50 years, or shall it founder and fall into a state of regression?" [59].
To prevent "regression," the League, through the Employer's Association, kept in direct contact with employers regarding their workers. Employers aired their concerns to League officials, who then look them up directly with employees-and vice versa. As an added means of mediating conflict between employer and employees, the League convinced Packard, Dodge and several other big employers to hire African-American social workers to look after the welfare of their Black employees (especially those who were new to the city.) The social workers helped employees to air their grievances constructively and made sure that new workers developed good work habits, such as regular job attendance and punctuality [62].
League employment officers also dedicated themselves to increasing the variety of jobs open to all African-Americans. The Urban League's employment secretary periodically visited construction companies, department stores, car manufacturers, and government offices, among other employers to encourage there to open up new positions to African-Americans [64].
Finding new jobs for African-American women was more difficult for the Detroit Urban League than finding jobs for men [65]. Although the number of women the League placed in hard limes often exceeded the number of men-in 1921, 90 percent of the workers placed were women-Black women were still being hired primarily at domestic service and menial positions [66]. Some college-educated young women had to take jobs as elevator operators and nursemaids because employers would hire there in no other capacity [67].
One unusual effort by the League to secure jobs for Black women involved the Krolik garment factory. A. Krolik & Company offered in 1916 to pay for the machinery and the labor if "a colored organization or interested friends" would secure and supply the rent for a building to house a factory that would employ only African-American women [68]. The manager of the proposed factory claimed that he "had this scheme in mind for a long time. It was inspired," he said, "by his conviction that the Negro, especially the Negro woman, never had a chance in the skilled or semi-skilled industries." He believed that not "every colored woman [was] fitted for domestic service any more than every white woman" [69]. The manager promised to train the workers, to pay an average wage of ten dollars per week, and to make the factory a social center as well as a workplace by holding evening dances and occasional lectures. The Urban League analyst who studied the proposal noted that this philanthropy was not as selfless as the manager wanted it to appeal. He was, after all, asking the League to pay for a building that he would otherwise have had to finance himself. The analyst, however, seemed convinced that the jobs the factory would provide were worth the expense. Most League officials seemed to agree, and the board voted in 1916 to allocate funding for the Krolik project [70]. When the Krolik factory opened in 1917, seventy-five African-American women took their places at the machines [71].
After the Krolik factory opened successfully, other companies began to request the League's assistance in employing African-American women. Buhl Malleable Iron Company, several cigar manufacturers, and one of the largest theaters in the city began hiring Black women. As of 1926, however, 73.2 percent of all Black women employed in Detroit still worked as some sort of domestic servant [73].
From the Second Baptist Church Records, Reel 3,
Bentley Historical Library
The Urban League was not alone in its quest to find jobs for migrants. Many Detroit churches also played an active role in the hunt. Since the churches were the first institutions to which many newcomers appealed for assistance, it was logical for the churches to develop employment programs to help migrants. The pastors of Second Baptist and St. Matthew's, R. L. Bradby and Everard Daniel, were both extremely active in job hunting for newcomers. Bradby went so far as to write Mayor John Smith in behalf of men in desperate need of work [74]. Both pastors had strong ties to Henry Ford, the largest employer of Blacks ill the city. Since Ford wanted to be certain that his laborers were sober and efficient workers, he preferred to seek employees through church organizations rather than broad-based secular organizations like the Urban League.'' He asked pastors to find good workers for him, and they obliged. The influence Bradby and Daniel had with Ford was so strong [76] that a recommendation from either man was "considered tantamount to securing a Ford job [77]. Many migrants sought the pastors' assistance for that reason. So marry individuals requested Father Daniel's help in finding employment that in 1925 he asked the vestry to approve financing for a new employment office, with a paid secretary and investigator [78].
Reverend Bradby, with the help of other Black leaders and newspapers, was also a vocal promoter of Black businesses. The African-American business community had undergone many changes during the migration. In the beginning, middle class Black proprietors had resented newcomers and tried to keep apart from them, but they soon realized that they needed the patronage of new Detroiters to survive. The middle-class merchants faced competition not only from white immigrant-run businesses in their neighborhoods but also from new African-American businesses run by migrants. Many African-American businessmen had migrated north to reunite with their clientele. Others wanted to capitalize on the greater opportunity in the North to start their own businesses. By the mid-1920s, most Detroit businesses owned by African-Americans were owned by recent migrants. Unfortunately, many migrant entrepreneurs became involved in businesses that were entirely new to them, and their lack of experience and the poor service they often provided tended to reflect on the businesses of other Blacks, causing even Black customers to avoid African-American businesses [82]. Though Bradby and others encouraged East Side residents to patronize Black establishments, Blacks did not seem to feel much loyalty towards Black businesses [83].
Unfortunately, although some migrants pleaded, "I don't want charity but I would like to have an opportunity or even half an opportunity to make even a living," [84] the League could not find work for all of them. Although the League was reluctant to provide direct relief, it occasionally loaned a few dollars to those in immediate need [85]. More frequently, the League turned over needy cases to the Department of Public Welfare. Twenty-three percent of the department's welfare funds went to African-Americans in 1925, a year when Blacks composed only about 6 percent of the population [87].
African-American churches also engaged in relief efforts when jobs could not be found for all congregation members. Second Baptist Church served meals to unemployed men---approximately 85 per day every Thursday and Friday in 1921 [88]. It also donated money to families for groceries, fuel, rent, and medicine. Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and Bethel AME also had social service departments that provided relief.
The fact that churches were called upon to supply relief indicates the mixed successes of institutional efforts to help migrants find employment. In a period of just fifteen years, the number of Blacks employed in Detroit industries had risen from only twenty five to more than thirty thousand individuals [91], even though Blacks could not find very many jobs in skilled or management positions. Thousands upon thousands of African-American migrants, however, remained without any jobs at all. Sadly, their lack of steady income simply magnified all of the other problems that they had to face in their new environment.