FOOTNOTES:

StateTotal No. of AcresAcres OwnedAlabama32,462,08015,911,520Louisiana29,715,8406,263,822Mississippi30,174,08015,811,650

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) Timessaid[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. TheQuarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine(vol. ii, 411, July, 1837) gives theNatchez Courieras 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 to1840; 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 suchinvestments 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 Advertiserof 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 theRichmond Examinerof 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 thismarket 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. 1Total Cotton Crop in Bales:[44]18331,070,00018371,081,00018402,178,00018432,379,00018492,727,000

Production of Cotton by States—(Pounds):[45]

Table No. 2182618331834Virginia25,000,00013,000,00010,000,000North Carolina18,000,00010,000,0009,000,000Louisiana38,000,00055,000,00062,000,000Alabama45,000,00065,000,00085,000,000Mississippi30,000,00070,000,00085,000,000

The statistics of cotton production and prices further elucidate this question. Table No. 1 shows a continuousincrease 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.

Cotton Production in Pounds:[46]

Table No. 31839790,479,2751849987,637,200

Average Price a Pound of Cotton in Five-Year Periods:[48]

Table No. 41830-183510.9 cents1835-184014.4 cents1840-18458.1 cents1845-18507.3 cents

Average Price a Pound of Cotton:[49]

Table No. 5183516.8 cents183616.8 cents18408.6 cents184110.2 cents18428.1 cents18436.1 cents18448.1 cents18456.0 cents18467.9 cents184710.1 cents18487.6 cents18496.5 cents

In the years 1835 and 1836, the priceis 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. 6183018401850Alabama117,549253,532342,844Louisiana109,588168,452244,809Mississippi65,659195,211309,878Texas..............58,161

Per Cent. Slave Increase by Decades:[52]

Table No. 71830-18401840-1850Alabama115.6835.22Louisiana53.7045.32Mississippi197.3158.74Texas............

Concentration of Migration upon Selected Areas:Alabama:[53]

Table No. 8Counties183018401850Barbour.....5,54810,780Chambers.....7,14111,158Dallas7,16017,20822,258Greene7,42016,43122,127Loundes.....12,56914,649Macon.....5,58015,596Madison14,09113,26514,326Marengo2,98711,90220,693Montgomery6,45015,48619,427Perry4,33110,34313,917Pickens1,6307,76410,534Russell.....7,26611,111Sumter.....15,92014,831Wilcox4,0708,29211,835

Concentration of Migration upon Selected Areas (continued):Mississippi:[54]

Table No. 9Counties183018401850Adams9,6498,74014,395Claiborne6,1747,74311,450Hinds3,19713,37516,625Jefferson6,7029,17610,493Lowndes1,0668,77112,993Madison2,16711,53313,843Marshall.....8,25015,417Monroe9406,46011,717Noxubee.....7,15711,323Warren4,18310,49312,096Wilkinson7,87710,89413,260Yazoo2,4707,23710,349

Concentration of Migration upon Selected Areas (concluded):Louisiana[56](concluded):

Table No. 10Parishes183018401850Ascension2,8134,5537,266Feliciana, E3,6527,5719,514Feliciana, W6,3458,75510,666Iberville4,5095,8878,606Madison.....3,9237,353Natchitoches3,5706,6517,881Orleans16,60323,44818,068Point Coupee4,2105,4307,811Rapides5,32110,51111,340St. James5,0275,7117,751St. Landry5,0577,12910,871St. Mary's4,3046,2869,850Tensas..........8,138

Texas:[57]

Table No. 11Counties1850Austin1,549Bowie1,641Brazoria3,507Cass1,902Cherokee1,283Fayette1,016Fort Bend1,554Grimes1,680Harrison6,213Lamar1,085Matagorda1,208Nacogdochea1,404Nueces1,193Red River1,406Rusk2,136San Augustine1,561Walker1,301Washington2,817Wharton1,242

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-eightper 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 migratingfrom 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 aservile 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 fromSlavery 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'sMerchants' Magazine, vi, 473).[4]Ibid., 26.[5]Olmsted,Cotton Kingdom, II; App. C, 382.[6]Ibid., 89.[7]Ibid., 365 (cited from theLynchburg 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'sReview, 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 theAfrican Repository, V, 381).[32]Ibid., 47 (fromNiles 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'sReview, 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'sReview, 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'sReview, xxvi, 649).[44]Compendium, Seventh Census, 1850, 191.[45]De Bow'sReview, 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'sReview, xxiii, 477.[51]Compendium, Seventh Census, 1850, 191, 84.[52]De Bow'sReview, 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'sReview, 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 thePro-Slavery Argument, 399).[62]Collins,op. cit., 64, 65.[63]Compendium, Seventh Census, 1850, 63.

[1]Hammond,The Cotton Industry, I, 53 (cited fromSlavery 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'sMerchants' Magazine, vi, 473).

[4]Ibid., 26.

[5]Olmsted,Cotton Kingdom, II; App. C, 382.

[6]Ibid., 89.

[7]Ibid., 365 (cited from theLynchburg 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'sReview, 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 theAfrican Repository, V, 381).

[32]Ibid., 47 (fromNiles 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'sReview, 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'sReview, 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'sReview, xxvi, 649).

[44]Compendium, Seventh Census, 1850, 191.

[45]De Bow'sReview, 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'sReview, xxiii, 477.

[51]Compendium, Seventh Census, 1850, 191, 84.

[52]De Bow'sReview, 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'sReview, 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 thePro-Slavery Argument, 399).

[62]Collins,op. cit., 64, 65.

[63]Compendium, Seventh Census, 1850, 63.

The termDomestic Serviceas 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 domesticworkers 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 ofthese cities with data for 1,771 domestic and personal service workers.

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 trendof 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

Back to Index Next