Lena Jackson on African American Labor - 1902
Essay by Lena Jackson 1902
This essay is reprinted from Twentieth Century Negro Literature, edited by D. W. Culp (Dr. Daniel Wallace Culp), published 1902. The biographical sketch of Lena Jackson is presumably written by Culp. Related articles on this site include:
- More African American Women's Essays from Twentieth Century Negro Literature
- African American Women's History
- African American Women: Biographies
The Negro As a Laborer
BY Miss Lena T. Jackson (Lena Terrell Jackson, M. A.).
Lena Terrell Jackson was born December 25,
1865, in Gallatin, Sumner County, Tenn. Her father died in her early
childhood; hence the responsibility of her support and education fell upon
her mother.
This mother determined to give her daughter the advantage of a good
education. Accordingly at the age of seven years the daughter was placed in
a private school and remained there until the autumn of 1876, when, having
finished the course of study in the private school, she was entered as a
pupil in the Belle View City School and remained there three consecutive
years.
She completed the course of study in the Nashville City Schools in June,
1879. In September, 1879, she entered the Middle Preparatory Class of Fisk
University and remained at Fisk six years, graduating from the Collegiate
Department in 1885.
During the six years spent at Fisk she taught school during the summer
months in the rural districts and with the money thus earned helped to
support her mother and maintain herself in school. She also assisted her
mother in her family work after school hours.
After graduation, in 1885, she was elected as a teacher in the Nashville
Public Schools, having resigned two similar positions, the one at
Birmingham, Ala., and the other at Chattanooga, Tenn., to accept the
Nashville appointment.
In 1894 she was assigned to the Junior Grade in the colored High School and
two years later to the Chair of Latin in the High School, which position she
is still filling.
Following out the principles of economy that are so thoroughly inculcated in
the minds of Fisk students, her first thought after completing her course of
study was turned towards the acquisition of real estate and the purchase of
a home for her mother, who through so many struggles and sacrifices had made
it possible for her to obtain a college education.
Her hopes in this direction have been realized to some extent; and she has
secured not only a home, but considerable other real estate.
The wide scope of this subject, and the limited time
given for research, together with the absence of statistics, make it
impossible at this time to present more than a brief sketch. I propose to
continue my research and investigation and at some later date to present the
subject in a very much enlarged form, giving the condition of the Negro as a
laborer in all the leading cities of the United States. In the present
sketch mention will be made of only a few cities.
The Southern cities, with their stately residences and business houses that
were constructed in ante-bellum days, bear emphatic testimony to the skill
of the Negro in the mechanic arts. All of the labor of the South at that
time was done almost exclusively by the Negro. Plantation owners trained
their own blacksmiths, wheelwrights, painters and carpenters. The Negro was
seen as a foreman on many Southern plantations during ante-bellum days.
Education has greatly improved his ability to labor, and to-day in every
vocation he is found as a laborer, competing successfully with other
laborers. Notwithstanding the fact that prejudice and labor organizations
are arrayed against him, the character of his work is such, and his
disposition as a laborer such, that his services will always be in great
demand.
Negro laborers are given employment on large buildings alongside of white
laborers, and generally give entire satisfaction. In the city of Nashville,
Tenn., during the present year, in the construction of the Polk Flats, two
Negro laborers were employed with a number of white laborers; a strong
pressure was brought to bear upon the foreman to displace the two Negro
laborers and fill their places with white men. The request was promptly
denied. This is conclusive proof that had the character of the Negroes' work
not been eminently satisfactory the reverse would have been the result.
The Negro is found in all the occupations that are characteristic of a
progressive people, namely, barbers, blacksmiths, brick and stone masons,
carpenters, coachmen, domestic servants, firemen, farm laborers, mail
carriers, merchants (grocers), millers, shoemakers and repairers, waiters,
nurses, seamstresses, housewives, washerwomen and milliners.
Trades and Industries.—As stone and brick masons the wages range from $2 to
$3 per day. Huntsville, Ala., has a brickyard that is owned and controlled
by Negroes. This firm secures the contract for a large number of houses in
Huntsville and the adjoining towns.
There is a town in the northern part of Virginia in which the entire
brickmaking business is in the hands of a colored man, a freedman, who
bought his own and his family's freedom, purchased his master's estate, and
eventually hired his master to work for him. He owns a thousand acres or
more of land and considerable town property. In his brickyard he hires about
fifteen hands, mostly boys from sixteen to twenty years of age, and runs
five or six months a year, making from 200,000 to 300,000 brick. Probably
over one-half the brick houses of the place are built of brick made in his
establishment, and he has repeatedly driven white competitors out of
business.
As firemen the Negro has shown himself courageous and faithful to his trust.
During a great fire in Nashville, Tenn., a few years ago, it was conceded by
all that the progress of a disastrous fire was checked and much valuable
property saved by the heroic efforts of the colored fire company.
Unfortunately, however, the captain of the company and two of his comrades
were sacrificed. In all the large cities colored fire companies are to be
found, and in every case they are making a good record.
In some sections of Texas and Mississippi Negro plantation owners are often
found.
Just after the close of the war the highest ambition of the Negro was the
ministry. But there has been a remarkable change in that direction and
Negroes are now found in all the professions. The Negro physician has made
an enviable record. One of the leading surgeons in the West is a colored
physician. He is the founder of a large hospital in a western town, and is
also surgeon-in-chief of one of the largest hospitals in the country. The
Negro has also gained some distinction at the bar. A large number of Negroes
are teachers, and an increasing number of these are young women.
Clerical Work.—Negroes are given employment as clerks in the government
service at Washington, D. C. There is a large number of railway-mail clerks,
with salaries ranging from one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars a year.
Nashville, Tenn., has three mail clerks who have held their respective
routes for more than ten years.
Common Laborers.—This class includes porters, janitors, teamsters, laborers
in foundries and factories. The usual wages paid for this class of work is
$1 a day.
The barbering and restaurant businesses, toward which the Negro naturally
turned just after emancipation, for which their training as home servants
seemed especially to fit them, are not so largely followed now owing to the
fact that the best talent of the race have entered the professions. Yet,
however, in some places the Negro restaurant keeper does a thriving
business. In Chicago, Illinois, there were two fine up to date restaurants
which did a good business. One of these employed white help exclusively.
The Negro blacksmiths and wheelwrights do a good business, sometimes taking
in from $5 to $8 a day.
As shoemakers and repairers, and furniture repairers and silversmiths, the
Negro is successful, and is kept busy. In painting there is a colored
contractor in Nashville who does business on a large scale. He is proprietor
of his own shop, employs a large number of men, and secures the contract for
a large number of fine dwellings. His patronage is confined mostly to white
people.
Nashville has a steam laundry owned and operated entirely by colored men,
and it has a large white patronage. In the rural districts most of the
Negroes devote themselves to farming, either working on the farms of others
or are themselves proprietors of farms.
Domestic Service.—In this field of labor both men and women are found. The
average wages paid the men is $15 a month and board. The women receive from
$5 to $12 a month, according to age and work. In addition to their wages
they also receive lodging, cast-off clothes, and are trained in matters of
household economy and taste. At present there is considerable
dissatisfaction and discussion over the state of domestic service. Many
Negroes often look upon menial labor as degrading and only enter it from
utter necessity, and then as a temporary make-shift. This state of affairs
is annoying to employers who find an increasing number of careless and
impudent young people who neglect their work, and in some cases show vicious
tendencies.
The low schedule for such work is due to two causes: One is, that from
custom many Southern families hire help for which they cannot afford to pay
much; another reason is that they do not consider the service rendered worth
any more. This may not be the open conscious thought of the better elements
of such laborers, but it is the unconscious tendency of the present
situation, which makes one species of honorable and necessary labor
difficult to buy or sell without loss of self-respect on one side or the
other.
Day Service.—A large number of single women and housewives work out
regularly in families, or take washing into their homes; and, like house
servants, are paid by the week, or if they work by the day from 30 to 50
cents a day. This absence of mothers from home not only occasions a neglect
of their household duties but also of their children, especially of girls.
Aside from house servants and washerwomen, many of the women are
seamstresses and readily find employment in white families. Some do a
remunerative business in their own homes. The Negro woman is especially
successful as a trained nurse, and a considerable number of the brightest
and most intelligent among the young women are entering upon that calling.
Conclusion.—The closing years of the nineteenth century indicate remarkable
advancement on the part of the Negro in all industrial lines; but the
twentieth century will doubtless furnish opportunities which will enable him
to carry these beginnings to their legitimate fruition.
This essay is reprinted from Twentieth Century Negro Literature, edited by D. W. Culp (Dr. Daniel Wallace Culp), published 1902. The biographical sketch of Lena Jackson is presumably written by Culp. Related articles on this site include:
