scholarly journals Selection and Economic Gains in the Great Migration of African Americans: New Evidence from Linked Census Data

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 220-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Collins ◽  
Marianne H. Wanamaker
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
World War I ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Great Migration ◽  
World War ◽  
Us South ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Great Migration ◽  
New Evidence

The onset of World War I spurred the “Great Migration” of African Americans from the US South, arguably the most important internal migration in US history. We create a new panel dataset of more than 5,000 men matched from the 1910 to 1930 census manuscripts to address three interconnected questions: To what extent was there selection into migration? How large were the migrants’ gains? Did migration narrow the racial gap in economic status? We find evidence of positive selection, but the migrants’ gains were large. A substantial amount of black-white convergence in this period is attributable to migration. (JEL J15, J61, N32, N92, R23)

“Before the War, Life Was Much Brighter and Happier than Today”

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 55-77
Author(s):  
Bethany S. Keenan
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Lower Income ◽  
World War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
The Impact ◽  
New Evidence

This article examines a previously unstudied collection of letters from French World War I orphans and widows, published in US newspapers from 1915 to 1922, as a result of the US humanitarian effort Fatherless Children of France (FCOF). Through the analysis of the letters’ content and style, the article illuminates the lived experience of bereaved lower-income French families, notably highlighting the significance of grief and the impact of paternal loss on economic status, bringing out new evidence on how women and children experienced the war, as well as showing how humanitarian efforts connected French and American civilians during the war period.

Preserving the Community: Cleveland Black Papers' Response to the Great Migration

1994 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 531-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felecia G. Jones Ross
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Great Migration ◽  
World War ◽  
Black Newspapers ◽  
Black Migrants ◽  
The Great Migration ◽  
Cleveland Ohio

Cleveland, Ohio, was among many destinations for Southern black migrants during World War I. The city's two competing black newspapers, the Cleveland Gazette and the Cleveland Advocate, represented divergent philosophies concerning race matters. The Gazette advocated uncompromised racial equality and viewed the migration as a weapon against oppression. The Advocate viewed the migration as a way to increase black solidarity. Despite these divergent perspectives, both papers functioned as advocates for race progress by urging the community to help the migrants succeed in their new home.

scholarly journals From Immigrants to Americans: Race and Assimilation during the Great Migration

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soumyajit Mazumder
Keyword(s):  
State Level ◽  
Great Migration ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Us South ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Economic Forces ◽  
The Us ◽  
Northern Cities ◽  
The Great Migration ◽  
Substantial Heterogeneity

How does the appearance of a new immigrant group affect the integration of earlier generations of migrants? We study this question in the context of the first Great Migration (1915-1930), when 1.5 million African Americans moved from the US South to northern urban centers, where 30 million Europeans had arrived since 1850. We exploit plausibly exogenous variation induced by the interaction between 1900 settlements of southern-born blacks in northern cities and state-level outmigration from the US South after 1910. Black arrivals increased both the effort exerted by immigrants to assimilate and their eventual Americanization. These average effects mask substantial heterogeneity: while initially less integrated groups (i.e. Southern and Eastern Europeans) exerted more assimilation effort, assimilation success was larger for those culturally closer to native whites (i.e. Western and Northern Europeans). Labor market outcomes do not display similar heterogeneity, suggesting that these patterns cannot be entirely explained by economic forces. Our findings are instead more consistent with a framework in which changing perceptions of outgroup distance among native whites lowered the barriers to the assimilation of white immigrants.

From Wild Savages to Beloved Primitives

Making Gullah ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa L. Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
World War I ◽  
Harlem Renaissance ◽  
Great Migration ◽  
World War ◽  
African Heritage ◽  
National Imagination ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Great Migration

This chapter investigates the emergence of Gullah folk in the national imagination by exploring the convergence of the shift from Victorian thought to modernist thought during the World War I era; the advent of the social sciences; the Harlem Renaissance; the Great Migration; and the successes of Julia Peterkin's Gullah novels. Together, these phenomena, and the new strand of primitivism that took root as a result, are presented as essential forces that contributed to the reimagining of the value of black people's African heritage.

The Second Line of Defense

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Dumenil
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
World War I ◽  
Farm Labor ◽  
World War ◽  
Women In The Military ◽  
Clerical Work ◽  
Work World ◽  
The Great Migration ◽  
The Military ◽  
Labor Patterns

This chapter explores the extent to which sex segregated labor patterns broke down during the war, especially in the railroads and munitions sectors. It also discusses the Great Migration of African Americans and the opportunities – albeit limited – that factory war work provided African Americans who had customarily been relegated to domestic and farm labor work. World War I saw the first enlistment of women in the military where they served stateside in clerical work. Even women doing traditional women’s work during World War I– clerical work or the already feminized profession of social work – found expanded opportunities with government agencies such as the Woman's Branch of the Industrial Section of the Ordnance Department and the Railroad Administration's Women's Service Section. Despite these opportunities, the permanent gains for women’s occupational advance were limited and patterns of sex segregation re-emerged as men returned from war.

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