But It Is A Fine Place To Make Money

"But It Is a Fine Place to Make Money": Migration and African-American Families in
Cleveland, 1915-1929
Author(s): Kimberley L. Phillips
Source: Journal of Social History, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Winter, 1996), pp. 393-413
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3789386
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"BUT IT IS A FINE PLACE TO MAKE MONEY": MIGRATION
AND AFRICAN^AMERICAN FAMILIES IN CLEVELAND,
1915-1929
By Kimberley L* Phillips The College of William and Mary
At the peak of the World War I movement of Southern blacks to Cleveland,

a migrant wrote a letter to relatives in the South informing them he found the
city "a fine place to make money." But the letter also expressed his reservations
about what the city had to offer his children: he could not care for them "like
they should be" since he now lived in a city of strangers. He lamented that he
lacked "surrounding friends" to help him and he had "seval nochants (sic) of"
returning south. While he and his wife earned good wages in the North, leaving
the South had torn him away from those who had given him support, comfort
and advice.1 No evidence remains about how this migrant resolved the struggle
between higher wages and the needs of his children, or how he recreated the
dense networks of support. But his letter provides important insight into the
concerns that migrants faced beyond their search for work, as they sought to
care for families and retain kin and friend connections which had shifted, or had
been lost during long moves north.
The experience of Flowree Robinson and her family amply displays the in-
tricate work of caring that extended across regions and the resulting changes
in family dynamics over the course of two decades. After her mother died in
1915, Robinson's father moved his children from the rural town of Edwards,
Mississippi, to nearby Greenville. Leaving twelve year-old Flowree in the care
of an older daughter, he took his older sons and their young families to Gary,
Indiana, where they found work. Despite the higher wages, Robinson's father
grieved over the separation from his youngest child and constantly worried about
her well-being. He returned to Mississippi gravely ill and soon died. Robinson
married at sixteen and moved away from her sister; her brothers migrated to
Cleveland, though the family remained connected through letters. While the
vagaries ofthe early 1920s' economy made visiting impossible, the siblings used
the mail to loan money, dispense advice, and offer support. When Flowree's
husband suffered from alcoholism and became abusive, her brother urged her
to join him in Cleveland. Despite the drain on his own limited resources, over
several years he shared his small home, gave her money, helped her find a job,
and introduced her to a fellow worker from the South, whom she later married.
The oral histories, narratives, and autobiographies of migrants to Cleveland,
a primary destination for African Americans between 1910 and 1930, richly
demonstrate the role of kin and friendship networks during and after the move
north. Once migrants became established in Cleveland, connections with fam?
ilies and friends served as adaptive strategies to offset the precarious economic
conditions that many regularly faced; these networks lessened the sense of iso-
lation from the South. But these accounts also reveal that this process of family
and household formation and adaptation was often a long process. Darlene Clark
394 journal of social history winter 1996
Hine has asserted that for many migrants, women especially
the South was an "incomplete process" because they had le
members behind.3 She suggests that when migrants left lov
"psychological and emotional relocation was much more c
haps more complicated than heretofore assumed."4 Many m
and children behind, sometimes taking years to reassembl
tionships change? If so, how? What, if any thing, can we l
the migration process?
The new studies on African-American migration to citi
family and household reformation in the North and the c
family and households in the South provided critical resou
they moved out ofthe South. Works by Peter Gottlieb, Ea
Clark Hine have documented the ways kin and friend con
initiators and maintainers of the process.6 The richness of
W Trotter recently concluded, pointed to new avenues for
Americans' experiences as families in an urban context. Bu
black family as a dynamic and changing institution is an u
dimension of black urban history."7 The recent scholarshi
the United States, for example, has focused on the shiftin
relationships between men and women, parents and childre
wake.8 These works have not spawned a similar effort in s
Americans. Instead, scholars have been primarily concern
ing the intactness of black families, rather than the chan
occurred.9
Migrants' narratives about their moves to and lives in Cleveland reveal that
families remained remarkably intact, but their relationships were not static. This
essay adds to the recent efforts to document the importance of kin and friendship
networks in the migration process, giving greater attention to the differing roles
and experiences of black men, women and children. Migrants created a variety
of household arrangements, yet close attention to first person narratives reveal
that the migration process to the North challenged many of their assumptions
about and patterns of kinship, household, and friend obligations. In addition,
the sometimes long process of reassembling family and friend networks in the
city frequently changed social, gender, and generational relations in African-
American families.
The availability of jobs in Cleveland made it attractive to blacks leaving the
South to find work. By the beginning of the Great Migration in 1915, Cleve?
land possessed a diverse industrial base with a large metals processing section.
Automobiles and auto parts, paints, varnishes, chemicals, garment making, and
machine-tool manufacturing provided a variety of semi-skilled and unskilled
jobs.1 Wartime production, declining immigration, and market imperatives to
cut production costs led to increased demands for unskilled workers for a variety
of industrial, transportation, and service jobs. While postwar competition, lay-
offs and inflation meant that the availability of jobs in industry fluctuated widely,
the expansion of the building, service, and transportation trades throughout the
1920s provided additional job opportunities for unskilled and temporary work.11
Until the early 1910s, Cleveland employers relied on a large population of
immigrant workers, particularly southern and eastern European immigrants, to
BUT IT IS A FINE PLACE TO MAKE MONEY 395
fill the expanding number of unskilled jobs. Both t

immigration in the 1920s forced employers to seek n
While white women and the children of immigrant
bor, many employers looked south and specifically r
1920, some employers publicly acknowledged that blac
"available class" of labor and moved to incorporate th
ting, but only in specific jobs with limited mobility
black male workers found work in steel mills, railroad
despite some expansion in women's wage opportunitie
married and single, remained concentrated in househ
Already on the move away from rural work in the
responded to the availability of industrial and servi
in increasing numbers after 1915. Until 1910, Cle
numbered less than 8,500; by 1920 it had increased
population to over 34,000. This enormous expansion
second place behind Detroit for the largest percenta
population. At the start of the next decade, the bla
more than doubled to over 71,000, with much of th
between 1923 and 1930. Over half of these new arri
with the remainder arriving from other states in the
The shifting demographic character ofthe black pop
1930 reveals how the availability of jobs appealed equa
their families. The 1920 census shows a preponderan
and 54 years old, with nearly sixty-seven percent ove
the two decades of population growth, men predominat
women made up a significant portion of the new arr
the population of black women roughly equaled that
slightly higher rates of marriage than did native-bo
black women were less likely than white women to
compared to 27 percent). On the other end of the
women showed the highest rate of widowhood of all
1930, the number of households with children unde
significantly from the previous decade. While the po
work provided a particular lure, many black men an
settle permanently.14
Leaving the South and settling in Cleveland becam
quiring emotional and material support, even when
the move.15 This pattern of extensive family involve
late nineteenth and early twentieth century South, a
migrated to cities and towns to work in Southern st
As blacks moved, some families became physically s
of time, necessitating new strategies to maintain eco
nections. Other migrants drew family and friends in
establishing households and community ties in the
simultaneously lost his parents to death and the fami
Alabama. He made his way to Kentucky to work in
a year his younger siblings and other extended kin
of movement brought the extended family to Cleve
By 1910, black farm families in Cleveland, Mississippi, fou
maintain their self-suflficiency. At the urging of several y
cant portion of the community made their way to the coal
eventually, several ofthe families migrated together to Cle
examples reveal that chain migration?where one family m
and then other members followed with assistance from the
based on age and gender, with oldest single men moving firs
The census data indicate that women came to Cleveland a
playing critical roles in the impetus for and the maintenance
ies show that women participated in the migration process
gender.19 Young women tended to accompany others, rathe
because, as Darlene Clark Hine has found, women were "su
than a man."20 Along with a young friend, sixteen year-old
Lynchburg, Virginia, for Cleveland, in late 1917. Both wo
work, but they found only domestic work in wealthy white ho
demands for cleanliness were greater than in the South. B
higher wages, which enabled her to visit her family with "
and went back all polished." Impressed with her success, a st
ily and friends followed, settling in Cleveland permanently.
and friends viewed her as the authority, and she became th
being the leader. This is when the South all came up here
a new world." Bertha Cowan's experience of guiding famil
not unusual, but her acquisition of authority suggests how m
inverted family roles, with young women key to the process.2
While many families decided to leave the South because o
those in the North, sometimes black men and women reluc
the urging of those left behind. John Malone joined other bla
1910 to work for the Illinois Central Railroad in Louisville, K
laborers. In 1916, recruiters from the New York Central Railr
and other black men to Cleveland. Many of the workers v
permanent, but Malone intended to return to Louisville, de
his family. A prolonged illness brought his wife north to care f
recovery, she persuaded him to stay. She, too, found a job as a
yards. They soon earned enough to bring their children; b
worked for the railroad" and lived in Cleveland.22 While J
north as a result of labor recruiters, he stayed because of t
took place with his wife, underscoring that the family made
The ability to find work played a key role in initially lur
women to Cleveland, with family and friends providing the
mation. Just how much African Americans could secure wo
remains a debated issue.23 Yet many of the first person acco
and friend networks passed on more than information abou
jobs to would-be migrants. Men working in steel mills and for
jobs for others during and after World War I, a pattern more p
places known to hire blacks.24 Because the majority of blac
private domestic work, the opportunities to secure work for o
as great. But black women?and occasionally men?set up fo
mechanisms to inform others about agreeable homes fo

black women turned to laundry work to combine pro
labor within their households, it appears that the desi
work conditions informed some choices. Contempor
some migrant women started home laundries togethe
with industrial laundry work. Sallie Hopson remembe
in her neighborhood gathered together to take in 'd
75 cents a wash. Others washed and hired help for th
Migrants' search for a place to live depended on th
of kin and friend networks. They looked for housing
segregated market as the war greatly exacerbated t
Unlike other cities that had experienced similar expl
tion, few of Cleveland's business owners provided ho
ofthe tight market, property owners subdivided older
large tenements never appeared in any great significa
became common. Through the war years, blacks and
scarce rentals clustered in older neighborhoods on the
While most unskilled workers found it particularly
and affordable housing because of low wages, blacks
because of race as well. Landlords became aware that r
blacks' choices and they responded by increasing the
As Langston Hughes recalled of his youth in wartim
White people on the east side of the city were moving o

and renting them to Negroes at double and triple the rents
others. An eight-room house with one bath would be cut
five or six families crowded into it, each two-room kitch
for what the whole house had rented before.28
Wartime surveys found that blacks paid a disproporti

in rent when compared with native-born whites and i
ing. In an apartment house on Central Avenue, for in
room suites for $31 a month; in contrast, whites paid
dissimilarity led some migrants to designate the high r
Contemporary observers and historians have do
African Americans in the city between 1915 and 19
ment to the Central Area. With the rapid growth of
1915, black neighborhoods expanded northward bet
Avenues and to the south and east along Scovill a
migration continued, blacks fanned out to every ward
ity clustered between East 55th Street and Euclid A
Green, a longtime statistician ofthe changes in Cleve
an important difference between the residential patt
white immigrants after the First World War. Immig
moved into less populated areas with better housing.
increasingly concentrated in adjoining neighborhood
Blacks' residential patterns, Green found, mirrored
"the colored populations are the last to inhabit an ar
only by industrial or commercial enterprise."31 Studies by K
Lawrence Cuban detail how casual policies hardened into ri
tions. Residents in the areas that ringed the city quickly ere
Jews, Italians, and African Americans.32
Kin and friend networks proved critical in expanding hous
grants by locating better rentals. Just as other migrants en
Murdock's parents discovered that high rents, and bouts of
them in homes "worse than those" in the South.33 Through
decades in the city, the Murdocks depended on kin to help
housing; as relatives and friends bought or moved into bette
docks joined them.34 Other migrant families also appeared t
choices based on household connections and needs. This sugg
family ties, in addition to race, shaped decisions in subtle wa
father worked for the railroad on the westside, but her moth
near other newly arrived relatives and friends from Georgia
While some migrants felt like intruders in neighborhoods
clusively immigrant, other evidence suggests that, at least
neighborhood level, blacks often had cordial and even deep
relationships with other groups. Despite the increased con
migrants in particular neighborhoods, Cleveland's near east
ulations of Jewish and Italian immigrants, two groups who
bitions as well. Indeed, while 90 percent of the black popula
Central Area by 1930, tens of thousands of working-class imm
as well.37 The common experiences of migration and immigrat
adequate housing and irregular employment, forged connect
and their immigrant neighbors. Elmer Thompson remembe
seemed like a foreign country?everybody was speaking Itali
jokingly noted that each time a boat or train arrived, more r
with immigrants or blacks.38
Women often acted as links in cross-cultural exchange as t
bles, shared produce from gardens, and exchanged homema
effort to stretch limited household budgets. Women share
endless effort to keep rundown homes clean. Some black m
personal relationships with immigrant landlords to keep ren
access to better housing and jobs. Migrant and immigrant
played together on the streets, even as schools and clubs ru
agencies became more segregated along racial lines. These i
ships caused some black migrants to communicate with the
immigrants* native tongue rather than English.39
Many African-American migrants created living arrangem
wages, irregular employment and limited housing choices, bu
light their desire to retain and recreate familial and comm
structures, and values.40 Elizabeth Rauh Bethal has noted tha
migration patterns made black households quite elastic, as
contracted according to various needs.41 Historians generally
long-distance migration and increased urban residency that
1880 and 1930 changed the size of black families and the con
households. Households based on marital and blood ties pre
presence of non-related members remained high, m

per household higher than for other groups.42
Though African Americans had a higher populatio
in their households, this along with their rapid move
did not significantly change the structure of their f
holds remained overwhelmingly headed by men.43 Si
mer noted that between 1920 and 1930, the percenta
holds rose only slightly higher than that of other gro
percentage of second-generation immigrants with fe
of northern black female-headed households remained
percentages in the urban South. Finally, the 1930 cen
only a 2 percent increase of black female-headed ho
the 1870 census. Black women who headed househol
widowed, divorced, or deserted women and not wom
out of wedlock.44
Though working-age black men predominated as h
households typically included non-family members,
households were shaped by patterns of migration an
and non-economic needs. The need to care for child
example, had to be balanced against a family's abilit
desire to maintain family connections and to help ki
variety of flexible housing arrangements. A close loo
American migrants pursued household arrangements
and values that informed their individual and collect
The particular need to care for children motivated
age either younger or older female relatives to join t
tives and social welfare records reveal that single b
found it especially difficult to work and they often h
and public charity. Instead, they needed to work for
help with childcare, frequently drawing other family
Geneva Robinson left Hodges, South Carolina, in
grandmother. The women's trip had been arranged by
response to a cousin in Cleveland who needed to wo
hold and child care help.46 Ray Dennis was just four y
father sent for him to come to Cleveland. Dennis' fa
of his father's brother's wife to accompany his son to
Once in Cleveland, Dennis lived with this woman an
she became his step-mother.47
Without migrating themselves, many Southern bl
to take advantage of better education offered in Clev
elaborate household arrangements. Families with old
made calculated decisions to send younger children no
other relatives. In the late 1920s, fourteen year-old L
brother left rural Alabama to attend high school in
had three older sisters living in the city, all of whom
as live-in household workers. The arrival ofthe boys,
establishment of a permanent household. The boys li
moved in and out of the household on their days of
school, they returned each summer to Alabama to help on th
common pattern for other migrants, too.48 In 1923, young
from Alabama to visit her grandfather, but the visit soon
because of the better schools. Later, three unmarried uncles
cities to join their father and niece in establishing a househ
this household eventually drew other members ofthe family to
and other instances, however, the move north meant that
lost authority over their children.
Migrants without kin and friends in the city could not
households. Few employers maintained company-owned bu
black men; those who did have access to beds found the con
deplorable. Charles E. Hall, supervisor of Negro Economics
war, reported that black men on the night shift typically r
houses maintained by large companies to sleep in beds "jus
men going on the day shift."50 Black women found it especial
affordable rooms. Contemporary observers generally agreed
race, most women could not live on their own because of lo
population of detached women living in Cleveland grew in
the war, a number of low-cost boarding houses were constru
Because of race and gender, however, single black women
these boarding houses closed to them. In 1905, young and
Hunter arrived in Cleveland with little money and few pa
housing. Her first tentative inquiry led her "unknowingly
house of prostitution." After a prolonged search, Hunter fi
that consumed most of her weekly wages; she had to pay extra
privileges, or clean the place in exchange. Women rarely ha
facilities and instead turned to the dangerously unsanitary
Hunter concluded what other women soon discovered that
large city must ... know the dangers and pitfalls awaiting he
found temporary accommodations when she received a job
when her patient got better, Hunter soon found herself o
respectable place to live.53
Educated in racial uplift at Hampton Institute, Hunter lat
Phiilis Wheatley Association in 1911. The PWA provided te
sive lodging for single black women and helped them find
Hunter battled against a restrictive labor market is unclear
placed black women in household work.54 As executive sec
accommodationism with the new professions of social wel
management. Throughout the 1920s, Hunter repeatedly so
cient household workers, instill habits of accommodation,
women with inexpensive household workers. She pursued po
beliefs that marriage and living-in with a "private family" w
able options for unattached black women. Many women foun
the board on meager salaries; many women also desired gre
finding Hunter's criteria for admittance too stringent and t
intrusive in their private lives.55
Black women pursued day work in the 1920s because they fo
conditions, particularly the low wages and long hours in hou
mined any advantages of living-in.56 The majority rejec

a variety of reasons, but many cited their desire to live
Because a significant portion of black women wage wo
their own, they found that the long hours, close proxim
the distance from the black community inhibited care
families. For Emma Thomas, live-in work prevented spen
children. Similarly, single women found that live-in wo
the black community. Bertha Cowan wanted to be close
tivities, and social events during time off. By the mid- 1
of white employers did not have room or money for live
Boarding arrangements provided black households and
riety of opportunities and relationships not offered by
migrants, in particular, rented rooms in black homes th
A 1919 investigation of thirty families by the local Ur
twenty-two depended on boarders who paid $2 to $5 per
By 1930, over one-third of black households had boarder
ten percent for native-born white and seventeen percen
holds. The arrangements in African-American household
economic need to offset higher rents and precarious emplo
household members.58 Given the prevalence of boardin
scholars have established the variety of economic roles
members played, and have now turned their attention
roles they may have occupied.59
For some families, the presence of newly arrived migran
much needed income. Many migrants missed the patterns
and familiarity of Southern households; they eagerly welc
South. In one household for almost two decades a parad
through, some related, others merely friends and acqua
provided companionship for a family homesick for th
visiting patterns, and few of the sojourners paid rent.
in the South and arriving alone in a city was often emo
migrants. Some eased these difficulties through the creati
that sometimes grew out of economic relationships fo
Older women in particular became absorbed into house
godmothers, and grandmothers, to help care for child
to work for wages outside the home. These fictive ties
shifted relationships which began as economic exchang
relationships enabled the exchange of monetary and hou
of unemployment.60 Thus, impersonal economic ties t
emotional and reciprocal ties of surrogate family.
Census data alone do not capture the complexities and
American household and family arrangements which e
migration. Indeed, what census enumerator could recrea
ings of family ties and boarding relationships in the Da
one census to the next? William Davenport left Montgo
to work in a Cleveland foundry. On his arrival he settled
and wife, both of whom had migrated some years ear
hold included not only Davenport, but pregnant and r
402 journalof social history winter 1996
Johnson and her two small children as well. This expanded
was apparently not simply an impersonal economic arrang
known the family of Davenport's uncle's wife. By 1924,
William Davenport.61
Children old enough to work sometimes minimized the ne
ers, provided a safety net during periods of parents' unempl
black mothers out of wage employment. In a recent analys
between black and immigrant working-class households b
Griswold asserts that black parents encouraged their childr
more than immigrant parents did. Griswold points to the
privation of African Americans generally and that black
offer their children except these values. Evidence from C
this conclusion needs reassessment, taking into account th
poses behind migration. Black parents encouraged their ch
school and have a job; this dual expectation simultaneously
and family economic intradependence. Elmer Thompson an
to work at a young age, but their parents insisted that t
long as possible.62 These experiences suggest that the pres
children was fundamental to the maintenance ofthe househ
of hard work and economic intradependence, while simult
parental authority.
Once in the city, migrants hoped to return home for vis
this goal to be impossible. Because of their higher incom
grants often had more opportunities to travel south, as seen
the city's black newspapers. Earl Lewis, in his study of life a
Virginia, calls the retention of these patterns "adaptive str
African Americans to make the transition between rural a
abrupt.63 The trip from Cleveland to the South, however, w
distance and therefore more expensive. Because many mig
gets, many could not make frequent visits "down South" to
sudden death or illness of a loved one made the grief and
the more difficult. Conversely, some migrants died alone in
church society providing for a burial.
The inability to visit reinforced many migrants' desire t
ways to retain ties to family members still in the South. Man
with the hope to make at least one trip home. Willa Daven
that her mother, Ocelie Johnson Davenport, could not af
home to see relatives, but she and her other sisters helped
one of them made a trip. They also pooled their resource
aging mother north. Willa Thomas only saw her grandm
many richly detailed stories that her mother recounted ab
reinforced family connections.64 Taking and sending pictu
means to document family and instill memories. The brisk
Cole and other black photographers acquired in the 1920s
in which black Clevelanders marked and maintained famil
Many adults found it difficult to return to the South, but t
children instead. The continued presence of relatives in t
many children were sent to stay during the summer mon

with child care and relatives with much needed labor. Th
Freeman and his brother, both of whom returned to the
summer to help with the planting and harvesting, was
regular return home suggests the economics behind the r
Those migrants who returned to the South viewed their
reminder of what had been left behind: loved relatives
Thus visits "Down South" could be fraught with ambigui
South to escape segregation, and thus many were unwil
for short periods. Henry Pointer's mother, for example,
after leaving Nashville, Tennessee. She never went to vis
insisted, instead, that relatives visit Cleveland, often w
visit might become permanent.
Within this context, migrants made great efforts to m
connections in Cleveland. Some sustained links by living
also migrated. S. Davis recalled that the people on her bloc
town in Alabama. Patricia Ashford's relatives lived in apa
owned by a relative. After each family found a home, anoth
arrived from Bessemer, Alabama, and they, too, moved i
of settlement. This practice began before World War I an
1960s. But shared blood ties and origins moved beyond
and included the retention of southern values and pract
obligations. Families continued to take and raise each othe
not uncommon for people from the same place to marry on
in the city. They joined the same social organizations an
of the same churches where migrants quickly organized
All of these associations became an important part of e
North and retaining ties to the South. These social organ
household, neighborhood, church and work connection,
ties previously filled by families. Though Henry Pointer's m
returned to the South, she sought other migrants from N
new relationships, migrants re-established support netwo
sense of southernness.68
The process of migration and the distance from kin in th
relationships, often resulting in altered, severed, or new
relationships and connections. As numerous studies have
within black families often occupied gendered roles, with
caretakers and men as wage-earning heads of household
context, however, black men and women frequently enco
as workers and caretakers, altering previous productive a
relations. While the care of children was often the work
thrust many men into similar roles. Some men became
children sent by family members in the South to atten
In 1923, young Margie Glass arrived from Alabama to vis
the visit soon became permanent. Later, three unmarried
other cities to join their father and niece in estabiishing
times of prolonged unemployment, some men took on th
households as women turned to wage labor. These varied ex
the differing experiences of caring for children as work m
examined.71
In more subtle ways, many black men carefully weighed
tionship to the needs of their children. In a study on Bo
found that black men had a higher rate of being absent fr
because of their more limited job opportunities, though bl
children were the least likely to leave.72 Robert Griswold
than immigrant working-class fathers, black men were more
figures in their children's lives. Kenneth Kusmer has note
a greater rate of occupational stability in Cleveland than di
cities.73 On the other hand, numbers of black men found t
milis, though higher paying than other jobs, could also b
the needs of a family may have impacted job choices, mig
terns may never be clearly revealed, but first person narr
suggestive. Black men expressed a great deal of grief wh
their children to find work. Elmer Thompson recalled th
well-paying, year-round job as an asphalt layer because it d
children for extended periods of time. Other black men m
choosing jobs in the service and transportation trades wh
vided steady employment, which they viewed in relation t
families.74
The 1920s' economy in Cleveland periodically put many black men out of
work, necessitating married black women's movement in and out of paid work.
Though many married African-American men insisted that their wives not work
for wages, the experience of black male unemployment meant that this goal often
got renegotiated. Henry Pointer's mother, for example, insisted in 1925 that her
husband buy a Maytag washer instead of a "shiny black Ford." Her fear of losing
her husband's wages proved prescient: suddenly widowed four years later and
left with two small children, she stayed at home and used the washing machine
to do the nurses' uniforms from a hospital near her home. Many black women
became the primary wage earners in their households, despite the presence of
husbands and sons, necessitating new reproductive relationships.75
The move north and the creation of new family networks enabled some black
women to redefine their roles as daughters, wives and mothers. As Darlene
Clark Hine has noted, some black women found that family migration provided
them an opportunity to free themselves from the abuse in households in the
South.76 Undoubtedly, the experiences of Flowree Robinson were not uncom-
mon. Estranged from her husband and left to care for her children on her own,
Robinson found that the migration of her brother, gave her new choices. More-
over, as with Robinson, the earlier departure of other family members provided
many women with the financial and emotional support necessary to leave the
South. Others had little more than family support, but even the encouragement
and relatives' willingness to take care of children was enough to propel many
abandoned or abused women northward.77
For some women, paying jobs encouraged reassessment of marital and maternal
roles. Pressured to protect her propriety, vaudeville performer Carrie Davenport
married another performer. Although unhappy for several years, she did not end
the marriage until she arrived in Cleveland. Davenport's

been motivated by her ability to acquire steady work
economic autonomy previously unrealized.78 Another w
have such an easy time extricating herself from a marri
the intention to depart once she arrived in the city, h
killed her.79 Some women left children with relatives an
highest wages elsewhere. Others abandoned children an
only to be found later, traveling from one northern city
In many instances, migration reinforced familial rol
age. Distance and the inability to visit did not diminish
tional and financial obligations to parents. Myrtle Wiggi
to many, but her aging and ill parents required frequen
the only child, Wiggins called off her engagement and m
Birmingham to Cleveland. In addition, she changed her
a street-car line, and ceased to travel with a musical gro
did not allow William Murdock's mother an opportunity
her husband's decision to migrate. Murdock recalled tha
pleased about leaving a good home in Montgomery and
He recalled that while she did not openly quarrel with
move, her anger "was reflected in her thinking a long ti
Murdock's mother appreciated that the move allowed h
better education and perhaps her sense of providing for
her husband shared, united them in the end.82
Migration sustained, rather than severed, economic o
tional connections between family members. Again the
ans, who have noted that unlike immigrants African A
nomic independence from parents because of their more
reassessment.83 While low wages often limited what adu
parents or siblings, evidence shows that many sought, w
money and other resources. Chain migration brought
same or nearby cities precisely because they could share
tengal's mother and two brothers followed Louise's fath
Pittsburgh in 1916, though he died not long after. Patte
to provide for her family, depending on her two teena
mills. The death of one son forced the mother to think
South; her mother's sister and family had migrated from
land, however, and Louise and her mother soon joined t
was crowded, family became all "those who lived toget
shared their resources, enabling Louise to complete high
to stay together. Pattengal's family did not sever emoti
the South?they maintained these connections through l
and her sister maintained an interdependence, sustainin
adult lives.84
The strain of finding work and reestablishing a life in Cleveland frayed the
bonds of some families. For some men, the inability to find work and maintain
a sense of dignity often led to marital strain and dissolution. Langston Hughes'
mother and step-father went through years of upheaval due to the difficulty of
maintaining a household in a period of economic precariousness. Similar strains
were apparent in the marriage of Chester Himes' parents;
disappointed to discover the continuities of racial relations
South in a northern setting. After years of unhappiness, the
unemployment led some men to disappear.85
Though historians agree that African-American migratio
half of the twentieth century was more than an economic
and was also a social and political movement, we have yet t
behavior and choices migrants made about their lives outsi
migrants' efforts to form and sustain households in the u
patterns established in the Black South, where heavy migr
and urban areas began before 1915. Historians have argue
black households has been impacted by the economic needs
household formation, kin and friend relationships that de
also emerged out of economic and non-economic goals an
households often mediated the vagaries of the economy, w
appreciate the non-economic priorities of migrants and how
their creation of households and notions of family obligatio
had to be fulfilled over a distance.
The oral narratives of black migrants in Cleveland reveal m
family networks were recast during and after migration.
expanded to include extended family and friends; others cr
of family, as distance made it impossible to continue pat
established in the South. Family and friend networks encou
African-Americans' move north, and provided for them once
city. While the expansion and contraction of these networ
of economic strategies African Americans created to mee
goals, such as the care and education of children, the aid an
adult siblings, the use of boarding to fill social and emotio
to be near kin and friends from the South, and the need t
patterns of visiting, also significantly influenced black h
The effort to more fully integrate the range of migrants
process suggests that historians need to more fully explore t
black men, women and children. This task necessitates gre
differences and similarities gender played for migrants, as w
and time of migration. To do so would give further insight
connections that black migrants maintained across the mil
they created once they arrived in the urban north.
Department of History
Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795
ENDNOTES
1. Emmett J. Scott, "Additional Letters of Negro Migrants," Journal ofNeero Hist

(1919): 460-61.
2. Personal interview with Flowree Robinson, November 29, 1989.
3. Darlene Clark Hine, "Black Migration to the Urban Midwe

sion, 1915-1945," in The Great Migration in Historical Perspective:
Class, and Gender, eds., Joe William Trotter, Jr. and Peter Gott
4. Ibid., 134.
5. Trotter and Gottlieb, eds., The Great Migration; James R. Grossman, Land of Hope:
Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration (Chicago, 1989); Carole Marks,
Farewell?We're Good and Gone: The Great Black Migration (Bloomington, IN, 1989);
Peter Gottlieb, Making Their Own Way: Southern Blacks' Migration to Pittsburgh (Urbana,
1987); Joe William Trotter, Black Milwaukee: The Making ofan Industrial Proktariat,1915-
45 (Urbana, 1985).
6. Gottlieb, Making Their Own Way; Earl Lewis, In Their Own lnterests: Race, Class,
and Power in Twentieth Century Norfolk, Virginia (Berkeley, 1991); Hine, "Black Migration
to the Urban Midwest"; Shirley Ann Moore, To Place Our Deeds: The Black Community
in Richmond, California (University of Illinois Press, forthcoming); Kimberley L. Phillips,
Alabama North: African-American Migrants, Community, and Working-Class Activism in
Ckveland, 1915-1945 (University of Illinois Press, forthcoming).
7. Joe W. Trotter, Jr., "African Americans in the City: The Industrial Era, 1900-1950,"
Journal of Urban History 21 (May 1995): 452.
8. Robert L. Griswold, Fatherhood in America: A History (New York, 1993), 69-77;

Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New
York (Philadelphia, 1986); Robert Anthony Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and
Community in ItaUan Harlem, 1880-1950 (New Haven, 1985); Elizabeth Ewen, lmmigrant
Women in the Land ofDollars: Life and Culture on the Lower East Side, 1890-1925 (New
York, 1985).
9. See the following in this extensive literature: Herbert Gutman, The Black Family
in Slavery and Freedom 1750-1920 (New York, 1976); Michael Katz, ed., The Underclass
Debate: Views From History (Princeton, 1993); Andrea G. Hunter, "Making a Way: Strate-
gies of Southern Urban African-American Families, 1900 and 1936," Journal of Family
History 18 (Summer, 1993): 231-248; Henry M. McKiven, "The Household Composition
of Working Class Families in the Birmingham District, 1900," Southern History 6 (1985):
40-52; Claudia Goldin, "Family Strategies and the Family Economy in the Late Nine-
teenth Century: The Role of Secondary Workers," in Philadelphia: Work, Space, Family,
and Group Expenences in the Late Nineteenth Century, ed. Theodore Hershberg (New York,
1981), 277-310.
10. Harold C. Livesy, "From Steeples to Smokestacks: The Birth of the Modern Cor-
poration in Cleveland," in The Birth of Modern Ckveland, eds., Thomas E Campbell and
Edward M. Miggens, (WRHS, 1988), 54-62; John Grabowski and David Van Tassel,
eds.,The Encyclopedia of Ckveland, (Cleveland, 1987); Ckveland, Some ofthe Features of
the lndustry andCommerce ofthe City (Cleveland, 1917), 18; 34-35.
11. David Gerber, Black Ohio and the Color Line, 1860-1915 (Urbana, 1976); Kenneth
Kusmer, A Ghetto Takes Shape: Black Ckveland, 1870-1930 (Urbana, 1976); Kimberley
L. Phillips, "Heaven Bound: Black Migration, Community, and Activism, Cleveland,
1915-1945," (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1992), chapter 2.
12. Kusmer, Ghetto, 190-205; for a particular focus on gender and black women's em-
ployment experiences between 1915-1929, see Phillips, "Heaven Bound," chapter 2.
13. Kusmer, Ghetto, 157-173; Phillips, "Heaven Bound," Chapter 2; U. S. Department

of Commerce, Negroes in the United States 1920-1932 (Washington, D. C, 1935), 55.
14. United States, Fourteenth Census ofthe United States, 1920:
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1922), 1084; United States,
United States, 1930: Population4 (Washington D.C.: Government
1085-1087. Kusmer, Ghetto, 160-161, see fn.6. Kenneth Kusmer
black school population from 5,078 in April, 1921, to 7,430 in O
that the black population overall may have have grown by 50 per
15. See Phillips, Alabama North,
16. Elizabeth Clark-Lewis, Living ln, Living Out, African Amer

ington, D. C, 1910-1940 (Washington, D. C, 1994), 62; Joe Wil
Class,and Cobr: Blacks in Southem West Virginia 1915-1932 (
Elizabeth Rauh Bethal, Promiseland, A Century ofLxfe in a Neg
phia, 1981). Also see the numerous oral narratives such as Th
God's Dangers: The Life ofNate Shaw (New York, 1974); and Sara
Here.The Narrative ofSara Brooks, Thordis Simonsen, ed. (New
17. Lewis, ln Their Own lnterests, 86; M. Davis, "Davis Family

lished undergraduate essay, Cleveland State University, 1988).
18. For an important framing of chain migration, see Gottlieb,

49-51.
19. Clark-Lewis, LivingAn, Living Out, 79-82; Gottlieb, Making
20. Hine, "Black Migration to the Urban Midwest," 132.
21. Interview with Bertha Cowan, St. James A. M. E., January

M. E. Oral History Project, Western Reserve Historical Society.
22. Patricia Blackmon, "The Black Railroad Worker," (Unpubli

say, Cleveland State University), 3-4.
23. John Bodnar, Roger Simon, and Michael P. Weber, Lives

Italians, and Poles in Pittsburgh, 1900-1960 (Urbana, 1982), 91.
24. Dona Gallo Brady, "The History and Development of the W

nity," (unpublished essay, in Second Calvary Baptist Church,
WRHS); Blackmon, "The Black Railroad Worker."
25. Interview with Bertha Cowan; Interview with Marie Crawfo

Sara Brooks, You May Plow Here, 196-197.
26. Interview with Sallie Hopson, St. James A. M. E., August

view with Willa Thomas, December 1, 1989.
27. Emmett J. Scott, Negro Migration During the War, (New Y

149; Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, An lnvestigation of Hou
Workers in Cleveland (Cleveland, 1918); Ronald R. Weiner, "A
Use Decision Making in the Cleveland Metropolitan Area, 1
manuscript, WRHS, 1974), 257-66; 277-79; Cleveland Chamber
of the Directors of the Cleveland Real Estate and Housing Com
Records ofthe Greater Cleveland Growth Association, WRHS.
of Commerce sent out questionnaires inquiring if companies
investing in housing for their employees. Out of 138 responses
they made efforts to secure housing for their employees.
28. Langston Hughes.Tfce Big Sea (New York, 1941), 27.
29. Cleveland Urban League, "Report of Executive Secretary,

1919," Cleveland Urban League Records, WRHS; Monthly Labo
260-262; V. Davis, "Family Oral History."
30. Edward Miggins and Mary Morgenthaler, "The Ethnic M

Cleveland by the New Immigrants and Migrants," in The Birth
31. Howard Whipple Green, A Study of the Movement of the Negr

(Cleveland, 1924), 14-15; also see Eleanor K. Caplan, Non-Whi
Analysis of Changes in the Non-white Residential Patterns in Clevel
(Cleveland, 1959), 6.
32. Larry Cuban, "A Strategy For Racial Peace: Negro Leader
1919," Phybn 28 (Fall 1967): 301.
33. Interview with William H. Murdock, St. James A. M. E.,
34. lbid,
35. Personal interview with Jean Murrel Capers, August 8, 19

Munay Burnett, St. James A. M. E., January 11, 1987.
36. Interview with Sallie Hopson, St. James A. M. E, August
37. Green, A Study of the Movement of the Negro Population of C
38. Interview with Elmer Thompson, Cleveland Heritage Project

land Public Library.
39. Personal interview with Natalie Middleton, February 21,

with Willa Davenport Thomas, December 2, 1989; Personal in
Stevens Cockrell, September 27, 1991; Interview with Henry
E., October 30, 1986; Edward M. Miggens, "Oral History and
Finding Our Place in the Global Village," in Communities ofMem
Folklore, andMukiculturalEducation, Edward M. Miggens, ed., (f
African-American recalled his neighborhood as "white and co
... We all lived together." When he was a child, this man's pare
from a German immigrant who also taught him German. "Whe
me to school. The teacher looked at me and talked to me,
She called my mother, 'He won't answer, he won't talk.' My mo
I did forget to tell you one thing?he doesn't understand Engl
knew German ... and I heard my folks talk English, but they ne
I always talked German." (Quoted in Miggens, 28-29).
40. This argument has been shaped by Kusmer's cail for the
lationship between external forces and internal forces. See K
Experience in American History," in Darlene Clark Hine, ed. The
History: Past, Present, and Future (Baton Rouge, 1986), 105-106
41. Bethel, Promiseland, 119.
42. Jacqueline Jones, Labor ofLove, Labor ofSorrow: Black Wom

From Slavery to the Present (New York, 1985), 112-123.
43. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 432; B

Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr., Theodore Hershberg, and John Mod
Female-Headed Black Family: The Impact of the Urban Exper
disciplinary History 6 (1975): 211-233. For a classic study on
cultural deficiencies in the black family, see E. Franklin Frazier, T
United States (Chicago, 1939).
44. Kusmer, Ghetto, 224-225; Fifteenth Census, 1930. Feminists h

scholarly preoccupation with the focus on who heads a family, o
fuscates the issue of gender economic parity. See, for example
"Our Mothers' Grief: Racial Ethnic Women and the Maintenance o
Family History 13 (1988): 415-431; James Borchert, Alky Life in Wa
munity, ReUgion and Folklife in the City, 1850-1970 (Urbana, 198
has cautioned historians to avoid playing the "historical numbe
which group had higher rates of female-headed households. He h
that historians turn their attention to the various forms househ
arena as well as how these households "related to one another" in
His own work has pointed out the limitations of using census da
increments. He documented how respondents often used terms o
non-related members of a household. Moreover, questions that we
tions of "normality" often received responses based not on realit
of what the interviewer might have wanted to hear.
45. Elizabeth Clark Lewis found this pattern in Washington, D. C

Out, 79-83.
46. Interview with Geneva Robinson, St. James A.M.E, November 4, 1986.
47. Personal interview with Ray Dennis, September 27, 1989.
48. Personal interview with Linton Freeman, March 7,1991.
49. Interview with Margie Glass, St. James A.M.E.
50. Charles E, Hall, "Report from the Supervisor of Negro Economics," in George
Haynes, The Negro at Work During the World War and Reconstruction (Washington, D.C.,
1921),114.
51. Consumers* League of Ohio, "Report on Housing Survey Made by the Boarding
Homes Commission, Cleveland Girls Council" (Cleveland, c. 1926); for the problems
black women faced as boarders, see Jane Edna Hunter, A Nickle and a Prayer, (Cleveland,
1940); Joanne Meyerowitz,Wbmen Adrift: Wage-Eaming Women Apart From the Family in
Chicago (Chicago, 1988), 73-74 and 80-82.
52. Hunter, A Nickel and a Prayer, 70, 77.
53. Jbid.,150-165.
54. Hunter received sharp criticism that the PWA provided little more than a "jane
crow" employment agency. She made much of the fact that the majority of the employ-
ment agencies showed little concern for the plight of black women. Publicly she countered
such criticism by claiming that the PWA provided important services in a restricted labor
market and trained future black housewives. Although reluctant to admit that the PWA
supplied white women with black household workers, Hunter nonetheless viewed the
ready supply of unemployed black women as a means to solve white women's demand
for household labor. At the same time, Hunter sought to alleviate some of the finan-
cial problems that constantly plagued the PWA by forming a relationship with wealthy
white women interested in trained live-in servants. See: Adrienne Lash Jones, Jane Edna
Hunter: A Case Study of Black Leadership, 1910-1959 (New York, 1990), 111-113. For
an extended discussion of Hunter and her labor policies, see Phillips, "Heaven Bound,"
chapter 2.
55. Jones, Jane Edna Hunter, 35-58; Personal interview with

sonal interview with Josephus Hicks, November, 1990. Hunter
vigilant ear at the switchboard in my office to catch conversation
and to intercept assignations." Such diligence also led her to "so
to places of assignations, rescue the girl, and assist in the arrest
56. Eaually important, black women also rejected live-in wor

resembled personal relationships with whites in the South. M
several employers, rather than one employer, would allow them
at the same time minimize contact with work conditions that t
distasteful. See Clark-Lewis, Living ln, Living Out; David Katzm
Women and Domestic Service in Industrializjing America (New
52, 87; Consumers' League of Ohio, "Findings of the Confere
Domestic Work,'" May 7, 1925, Consumers' League of Ohio Re
Ross Haynes, "Negroes in Domestic Service in the United Sta
History 8 (1923): 395-98; Langston Hughes, The Big Sea, 27; Em
St. James A. M. E. Church, October 5,1986. For an excellent dis
relationships of household service see Tera W. Hunter, "Domina
Politics of Wage Household Labor in New South Atlanta," La
Summer): 205-220.
57. See Phillips, "Heaven Bound," chapter 2.
58. "Report of the Executive Secretary," April 9th to May 6

Records, WRHS; Fifteenth Census, 1930.
59. For a tendency to overlook the non-economic roles, see Joh

and Roger Simon, "Migration, Kinship, and Urban Adjustme
Pittsburgh, 1900-1930," The Journal of American History 66 (D
60. D. Clark, "Family Oral History," (unpublished undergradu

University, nd); S. Davis, "Family Oral History" (unpublished un
land State Uuniversity, March, 1984); M. Davis, "Family Oral Hi
dergraduate essay, Cleveland State University, 1988); V. Duianey
(unpublished undergraduate paper, Cleveland State Universit
appear to duplicate patterns in other migrant communities.
157-99; and James Borchert, "Urban Neighborhood and Comm
Life, 1850-1970," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 11 (Sprin
ofLove, Labor of Sorrow, 189-190.
61. Personal interview with Willa Thomas, December 1,1989.
62. Personal interview with Ruth Freeman, March 7, 1991.
63. See the Cleveland Gazette and the Cleveland Advocate; also,
Buckeye State" in the Chicago Defender; Earl Lewis, "Afro-Amer
The Visiting Habits of Kith and Kin Among Black Norfolkian
Migration," Journal of Family History 12 (1987): 409; Gutman, The
and Freedom, 432; personal interview with Linton Freeman; pers
Davenport Thomas.
64. Personal interview with Willa Davenport Thomas.
65. Aiien E. Cole Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society;

Willa Thomas; Samuel W. Black, "African American Photogra
to 1960," (unpublished article).
66. Personal interview with Beatrice Stevens Cockrell, Septe
Kennedy, Peopk Who Led to My Plays (New York, 1987), 33-34. As
Adrienne Kennedy made yearly trips to her grandmother's home in G
these trips were fraught with contradictory emotions of visiting h
mother and encountering legal segregation. Her memory of these tri
length. "Although I loved my grandparents immensely, 1 hated th
that my brother and I took every June, especially the ride from Cin
in the dirty Jim Crow car. ... [My brother] was about seven then, a
pulled out of the Cleveland Terminal Tower he started to cry and
Cincinnati. Night would come while we rode into the South and h
on my shoulder.... I tried to interest my brother in the magazine,
want to go home.' I put my arm around my brother, looked out of th
windows and clutched the Modern Screen magazine with [Clark] G
67. Interview with Henry Pointer, St. James A.M.E.
68. S. Davis, Family Oral History, personal interview with Patricia

23, 1991; personal interview with Flowree Robinson, November
Family Oral History; V. Dulaney, Family Oral History, CSU; interview
St. James A.M.E.
69. Clark-Lewis, Living In, Living Out, 79-83; Hine, "Black Mig
Midwest."
70. Interview with Margie Glass, St. James A.M.E.
71. Thomas Laqueur and Sara Ruddick make an argument for e

tualization of caring for children as work that includes men's exp
W Laqueur, "The Facts of Fatherhood," 205-221 and Sara Ruddi
Fathers," 222-232 in Conflicts in Feminism, eds. Marianne Hirsch
(New York, 1990).
72. Elizabeth Pleck, Black Migration and Poverty: Boston, 1865-190

183-184.
73. Griswold, Fatherhood in America, 5 2-56. Griswold only considers Pleck's study, which
concludes in 1900. For a more useful look at data on African-American households in
Cleveland and other cities, see Kusmer, Ghetto, 224-225.
74. The role of fathers appears to have taken on a more pronounced role in the 1920s,
evidenced by the emphasis on black men's roles in churches and voluntary associations. In
the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) thousands of working-class black
men participated in numerous gatherings where they were called on to assume their roles
as fathers, husbands, and breadwinners.
75. Interview with Henry Pointer, St. James A. M. E.; personal interview with Willa
Thomas, December 1, 1989.
76. Hine, "Black Migration of the Urban Midwest," 127-146.
7 7. Personal interview with Flowree Robinson; interview with Melvia Green, conducted
by Patricia Miles Ashford, n.d.; personal interview with Josephus Hicks; interview with
Murtis Taylor, St. James A. M. E., October 17,1986. Taylor's mother divorced her husband
in Georgia and migrated to Cleveland where she remarried. She returned south in 1917,
and through the help of a judge that her mother worked for, obtained custody of Murtis.
Other relatives also moved to Cleveland and were eniisted to help watch over Murtis
because her mother now feared that her father would kidnap her.
78. Interview with Carrie Davenport, St. James A. M. E.
79. Cleveland Gazette, May 29,1920.
80. R. Flowers, "Family Oral History"; personal interview with

port for these conclusions, see Joanne J. Meyerowitz, Women A
Earners inChicago, 1880-1930 (Chicago, 1988).
81. Personal interview with Myrtle Wiggins, May 10, 1994.
82. Interview with William Murdock, St. James A. M. E.
83. Griswold, Fatherhood in America, 55; Bodnar, Simon, and W

91.
84. Interview with Louise Pattengal, St. James A. M. E., September 29, 1986.
85. Hughes, The Big Sea, 35; Chester Himes, The Quality ofHurt, The Early Years: The
Auytobiography of Chester Himes (New York, 1971, 1972), 26.

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"But It Is a Fine Place to Make Money": Migration and African-American Families in

By Kimberley L* Phillips The College of William and Mary

At the peak of the World War I movement of Southern blacks to Cleveland,

fill the expanding number of unskilled jobs. Both t

mechanisms to inform others about agreeable homes fo

White people on the east side of the city were moving o

Wartime surveys found that blacks paid a disproporti

presence of non-related members remained high, m

mined any advantages of living-in.56 The majority rejec

many children were sent to stay during the summer mon

the marriage until she arrived in Cleveland. Davenport's

1. Emmett J. Scott, "Additional Letters of Negro Migrants," Journal ofNeero Hist

2. Personal interview with Flowree Robinson, November 29, 1989.

3. Darlene Clark Hine, "Black Migration to the Urban Midwe

8. Robert L. Griswold, Fatherhood in America: A History (New York, 1993), 69-77;

13. Kusmer, Ghetto, 157-173; Phillips, "Heaven Bound," Chapter 2; U. S. Department

15. See Phillips, Alabama North,

16. Elizabeth Clark-Lewis, Living ln, Living Out, African Amer

17. Lewis, ln Their Own lnterests, 86; M. Davis, "Davis Family

18. For an important framing of chain migration, see Gottlieb,

19. Clark-Lewis, LivingAn, Living Out, 79-82; Gottlieb, Making

20. Hine, "Black Migration to the Urban Midwest," 132.

21. Interview with Bertha Cowan, St. James A. M. E., January

22. Patricia Blackmon, "The Black Railroad Worker," (Unpubli

23. John Bodnar, Roger Simon, and Michael P. Weber, Lives

24. Dona Gallo Brady, "The History and Development of the W

25. Interview with Bertha Cowan; Interview with Marie Crawfo

26. Interview with Sallie Hopson, St. James A. M. E., August

27. Emmett J. Scott, Negro Migration During the War, (New Y

28. Langston Hughes.Tfce Big Sea (New York, 1941), 27.

29. Cleveland Urban League, "Report of Executive Secretary,

30. Edward Miggins and Mary Morgenthaler, "The Ethnic M

31. Howard Whipple Green, A Study of the Movement of the Negr

33. Interview with William H. Murdock, St. James A. M. E.,

35. Personal interview with Jean Murrel Capers, August 8, 19

36. Interview with Sallie Hopson, St. James A. M. E, August

37. Green, A Study of the Movement of the Negro Population of C

38. Interview with Elmer Thompson, Cleveland Heritage Project

39. Personal interview with Natalie Middleton, February 21,

41. Bethel, Promiseland, 119.

42. Jacqueline Jones, Labor ofLove, Labor ofSorrow: Black Wom

43. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 432; B

44. Kusmer, Ghetto, 224-225; Fifteenth Census, 1930. Feminists h

45. Elizabeth Clark Lewis found this pattern in Washington, D. C

47. Personal interview with Ray Dennis, September 27, 1989.

48. Personal interview with Linton Freeman, March 7,1991.

49. Interview with Margie Glass, St. James A.M.E.

52. Hunter, A Nickel and a Prayer, 70, 77.

55. Jones, Jane Edna Hunter, 35-58; Personal interview with

56. Eaually important, black women also rejected live-in wor

57. See Phillips, "Heaven Bound," chapter 2.

58. "Report of the Executive Secretary," April 9th to May 6

59. For a tendency to overlook the non-economic roles, see Joh

60. D. Clark, "Family Oral History," (unpublished undergradu

61. Personal interview with Willa Thomas, December 1,1989.

62. Personal interview with Ruth Freeman, March 7, 1991.

64. Personal interview with Willa Davenport Thomas.

65. Aiien E. Cole Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society;

66. Personal interview with Beatrice Stevens Cockrell, Septe

67. Interview with Henry Pointer, St. James A.M.E.

68. S. Davis, Family Oral History, personal interview with Patricia

70. Interview with Margie Glass, St. James A.M.E.

71. Thomas Laqueur and Sara Ruddick make an argument for e