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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Appendices - 6. Pre-War Conditions of the Negro Wage Earner in Selected Industries and Occupations - 13. Iron and Steel Workers
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iii6 An American Dilemma
and five times greater in 1920 than in 1910, largely because of the e:q)ansion of the
steel industry during the First World War. In the South, Negroes gained much less, or
about 80 per cent, although the general expansion in blast furnaces and steel rolling
mills was much more pronounced than in the North. Negroes, however, got somewhat
more than their proportionate share of the new jobs in Southern mills. The ’twenties
brought a general decline in the basic steel industry. Again, Negroes fared better in the
North, where they had almost the same number of steel workers in 1930 as in 1920.
In the South, the decrease was somewhat more pronounced for Negro than for white
workers. During the ’thirties, also, the Negro lost in relative position in the South.
If we add together the figures for both basic steel production and manufacturing of
machinery and transportation equipment (except automobiles), we find that, in 1940,
the number of emflo’jed white workers in the South was almost as high as the number
of both employed and unemfloyed white workers in 193O; for Negroes there was a
substantial difference between the two figures. The 40,000 Negro employed workers
in 1940 constituted only 15 per cent of the total in the South; whereas the proportion
of Negroes among those registered as gainful workers in steel and machinery production
in 1930 had amounted to 19 per cent.*^
More than three out of every four Negro workers in blast furnaces and steel rolling
mills were classified as unskilled in 1 930. One in seven was a semi-skilled worker, and
one in fourteen a skilled worker. On the other hand, about one-half of the native
whites and one-fourth of the foreign-born whites were skilled, clerical or managerial
workers. The Negroes had a higher representation in the skilled crafts than they had in
most other industries, but this was largely a result of the composition of the labor force
in this industry. In relation to other groups, their position was about as unfavorable as
in most other industries. The skilled Negro workers are largely concentrated in hot and
disagreeable work, such as furnace jobs. There is reluctance to use Negroes in such
skilled work as machinists do; little more than i per cent of those workers were
Negroes. The situation, if anything, seems to have deteriorated rather than improved.
There had been a slightly greater proportion of skilled craftsmen among Negro steel
workers in 1910 and a lower proportion of semi-skilled workers. The proportion that
Negro workers constituted of all workers had more than doubled in the unskilled and
semi-skilled categories from 1910 to 1930, but increased only to a small extent for
skilled and higher groups. Indeed, the major part of the increased need for common
laborers had been met by hiring more Negro workers. But the general expansion in
unskilled occupations was much smaller than that in higher categories, so that the habit
of using Negroes predominantly in the lower jobs put a limit to their chance of increas-
ing their share in the total employment.*’
The wage level in the steel industry, as previously noted, is characterized by great
differences in earnings between skilled and unskilled workers. This is particularly true
in the South, where the general level is comparatively low, especially for common
• Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1^30, Pofulation, Vol. 3, Part i, p. 23. Sixteenth
Census of the United States: Pofulation, Second Series, State Tables i8a and 18b.
Norgren and Associates, of, cit,, Part 4, p. 456.
**
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Alba M. Edwards, Social-Economic Groufing of the Gainful
Workers of the United States, /950 (1938), pp. 100 and 130. Thirteenth Census of the
United States: /9/0, Pofulation, Vol. 4, Table 6. Norgren and Associates, of, cit,, Part 4, pp.
47> and 473-
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