The Great Migration, 1915-45 (Edexcel A-Level History): Revision Notes
The Great Migration, 1915-45
Overview of the Great Migration
The Great Migration (also known as the First Great Migration) was a transformative period of mass movement of black Americans from the rural South to northern cities between 1915 and 1945. This migration fundamentally changed the geography of civil rights issues in the United States.
This migration represented one of the largest internal population movements in American history, fundamentally reshaping the demographic, social, and political landscape of the United States. It transformed civil rights from a primarily southern rural issue to a national urban concern.
Scale and significance
- 1.6 million black Americans left the south-east of the USA during this period
- In 1910, seven million of the country's eight million black Americans lived in the Cotton Belt (the rural South)
- By 1930, black Americans lived in large numbers across the USA, both north and south
- More than ten percent of the country's black American population voluntarily moved north between 1910 and 1925
- The black American population in northern states increased by 40 percent between 1910 and 1930
This migration represented a dramatic shift from the slow, gradual migration of the late 19th century to a flood of movement that reshaped American demographics and civil rights issues.
The scale of this migration cannot be overstated: in just 15 years (1910-1925), more than one in ten black Americans left the only home their families had known for generations. This was a voluntary mass exodus driven by both hope for better opportunities and desperation to escape oppression.
Pull factors: why black Americans moved north
The impact of the First World War (1916-1918)
The outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 created unprecedented opportunities for black Americans in the North, making this the single most important pull factor in the early phase of the Great Migration.
Labour shortage and job opportunities
- An estimated 400,000 black Americans left the Old South between 1916 and 1918 specifically to take advantage of war-related job opportunities
- The war led to a drop in European immigration to the USA, creating a severe labour shortage
- Demand for US-produced armaments by Allied powers meant war production was in full swing by 1916
- The labour shortage was filled by two main groups: white women and black Americans
Recruiting agents and promotion
Northern industrial companies sent recruiting agents south to actively encourage black Americans to migrate north. These agents made enticing promises about:
- Better lifestyle
- Higher wages
- An end to poverty
The Role of Industrial Recruiters
Recruiting agents often worked for major companies like the Pennsylvania Railroad, meatpacking plants, and steel mills. They would travel throughout the South, sometimes secretly, offering free or reduced train tickets and guarantees of employment. Some agents were black Americans themselves, making their appeals more credible to potential migrants.
The role of the Chicago Defender
The Chicago Defender, the most widely read black newspaper in the Old South, played a crucial role in encouraging migration:
- The newspaper was produced in the North but distributed in the South
- It urged southern black Americans working in the North to publish letters describing how much better life was there
- Editorial content praised the North as a land of opportunity and freedom
- Editorial content condemned the South as a land of poverty and repression
Real Voices: Julia Hunt's Sister
One powerful example came from R.V., sister of Julia Hunt of Texas, who moved to Boston, Massachusetts. R.V. wrote letters home describing her new life:
- Meeting black people from Africa
- Attending concerts with white friends
- Earning a degree in music from a white school
These letters, published in newspapers like the Chicago Defender, provided tangible evidence of the opportunities available in the North and inspired thousands of other black Americans to make the journey north.
Returnees spreading the word
Southern black Americans also learned about northern opportunities from friends and relatives who returned to the South for visits:
- They came dressed in their finest clothes
- Some drove brand new cars (though these were often rented or about to be repossessed)
- Some told exaggerated stories, for example describing a job pushing a broom at US Steel as a "great job"
Dramatic wage differences
The wage comparisons between North and South were stark and compelling:
Northern wages:
- $2.50 per day in a meat-packing factory in Chicago
- $5.00 per day on the assembly line in Detroit car and truck manufacturing
Southern wages:
- Just a few dollars per week for domestic servants in Alabama
- About $12 per month for farm labour in 1917 in many sections
- 75 cents to $1 per day in other sections
- $1.25 to $1.75 per day during rice harvesting season
- Cotton was considered a "cheap labour crop"
Understanding the Wage Gap
A black American earning $1 per day in the South working six days a week would make about $6 per week or $24-26 per month. The same person could earn $2.50 per day in a Chicago meatpacking plant—$15 per week or $60-65 per month—more than doubling their income. At $5 per day in Detroit, they could earn $30 per week or $120-130 per month—a five-fold increase.
As one government report noted, the world had been thinking farm labour in the South should work for 75 cents or $1 a day when all other labour was getting $1.50 and $2 per day.
Military service
In addition to civilian employment, thousands of black Americans joined the segregated US armed forces, with several black regiments fighting with distinction on the Western Front in 1918.
The economic boom of the 1920s
The migration that began during the First World War continued and was sustained by the economic changes of the 1920s.
Mass production and the car industry
From 1922, the US economy experienced a major economic boom characterised by:
- Development of the car industry as the dominant force
- Growth of mass production through assembly-line techniques
- Lower prices for manufactured goods
- Increased demand for products
The Mass Production Revolution
The introduction of assembly-line manufacturing, pioneered by Henry Ford, revolutionized industrial production. This method required large numbers of workers to perform repetitive tasks, creating thousands of jobs that didn't require specialized skills or extensive education—making them ideal opportunities for migrants from agricultural backgrounds.
Detroit: car manufacturing capital
Detroit became the car manufacturing capital of the world:
- Companies like General Motors and Ford recruited tens of thousands of black Americans
- Greater job opportunities were afforded to black Americans in the North and West
Detroit population statistics:
| Year | Total population | Black American population |
|---|---|---|
| 1910 | 465,766 | 5,741 |
| 1920 | 993,675 | 40,838 |
| 1930 | 1,568,662 | 120,066 |
Between 1910 and 1930:
- Overall Detroit population grew by 300 percent
- Black American population of Detroit grew by 2,400 percent
Detroit's Explosive Growth
The 2,400 percent increase in Detroit's black American population—from fewer than 6,000 to over 120,000 in just twenty years—represents one of the most dramatic demographic transformations in American history. This single city absorbed tens of thousands of migrants, fundamentally changing its character and creating new black American neighborhoods and communities.
Agricultural decline in the South
At the same time, agriculture experienced difficult conditions:
- The boom in agricultural prices and demand during WWI ended in the 1920s
- Europe recovered from war and sourced supplies elsewhere
- The Old South was heavily dependent on agriculture
- The economic changes of the 1920s acted as both pull factors (northern opportunities) and push factors (southern decline)
The Great Depression and New Deal (1929-1941)
Despite economic hardship, the New Deal period provided some pull factors for black American migration.
Federal job programmes
From 1933, the federal government established federal agencies providing employment:
- Works Progress Administration (WPA)
- National Youth Administration (NYA)
- Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
These programmes allocated ten percent of their budgets for black Americans, who comprised:
- Ten percent of the population
- But twenty percent of the poor
Limitations of New Deal Programs
However, intervention by southern white Democrats meant that:
- Social security was denied to most black Americans
- Many trade unions excluded black Americans from membership
- Preventing discrimination against black Americans was extremely difficult in states with legal segregation
While these programs provided some opportunities, they fell far short of addressing the systemic poverty and discrimination faced by black Americans, particularly in the South.
Push factors: why black Americans left the South
The slump in the cotton industry
Severe problems in the Old South's agricultural economy, particularly in cotton-growing areas, forced black Americans to seek opportunities elsewhere.
The boll weevil catastrophe (1914)
In 1914, the southern cotton industry suffered a major disaster:
- A tiny insect called the boll weevil appeared in cotton fields of east Texas
- It spread across cotton-growing areas of the South
- It destroyed the cotton crop
- Thousands of black Americans faced acute poverty
- Many were forced to look for work elsewhere
The Boll Weevil's Devastating Impact
The boll weevil, a beetle that feeds on cotton buds and flowers, destroyed cotton crops across the South throughout the 1910s and 1920s. For black Americans dependent on cotton farming—whether as sharecroppers, tenant farmers, or wage laborers—the boll weevil's arrival meant economic devastation. Entire communities that had relied on cotton for generations found themselves with no livelihood.
Cotton price collapse
After the First World War, cotton-producing areas faced a catastrophic price slump due to massive drop in demand:
Cotton prices:
- 42 cents per pound in 1920
- 10 cents per pound in 1921 (76% decrease in one year)
- 5 cents per pound by 1932 (88% decrease from 1920)
The Sharecropper Crisis
This price collapse had a devastating impact on black Americans who were sharecroppers:
- Facing poverty and destitution
- Many moved north to survive
A sharecropper who produced 1,000 pounds of cotton would have earned $420 in 1920, but only $100 in 1921, and a mere $50 by 1932. After paying rent, supplies, and debts to landowners, most sharecroppers were left with almost nothing—or even fell deeper into debt.
The rise of discrimination and violence
An important push factor was the growth of discrimination and violence against black Americans in the Old South.
Legal discrimination and disenfranchisement
Between 1890 and the outbreak of the First World War, white-dominated southern state governments introduced laws denying black Americans many civil rights.
Voting restrictions:
Although the Fifteenth Amendment of the US Constitution (1870) guaranteed all American adult males the right to vote, this was effectively removed from black Americans in the Old South through:
- Literacy tests for registration
- Poll tax that had to be paid to vote
- Grandfather Clause in some states: if a person's grandfather could not vote, then nor could that person
Systematic Disenfranchisement
These laws affected poor white people too, but as most black Americans in the Old South lived in poverty, they disproportionately discriminated against them. As the vast majority of black Americans had been slaves before 1865, their grandfathers could not have voted.
This systematic removal of voting rights meant black Americans had no political power to challenge discriminatory laws, change local conditions, or protect themselves from violence—creating a vicious cycle of oppression.
Violence and lynching
Increased legal discrimination was associated with rising violence:
- Lynching of black Americans increased (lynching: the murder, usually by hanging, by a mob, without any legal trial)
- In 1915, the white supremacist group Ku Klux Klan was revived
- The KKK grew rapidly to become a major force in American life between 1915 and 1926
- Indiscriminate violent attacks on black Americans occurred in their thousands across the Old South
The Biblical Exodus Metaphor
The move north was seen by many black Americans in biblical terms:
- Just as Moses had led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt
- The North became the new "Promised Land"
This religious framing gave spiritual meaning to the migration, portraying it not just as an economic decision but as a moral and spiritual journey from oppression to freedom.
Key cities of migration
The Great Migration saw major increases in black American populations in specific northern cities:
Major destination cities:
- Detroit (car manufacturing)
- Cleveland
- Chicago (meat-packing, manufacturing)
- New York City (including Harlem)
- Pittsburgh (iron and steel production)
Case Study: Pittsburgh
Between 1910 and 1930:
- Black population of Pittsburgh grew 115 percent (from 25,623 to 54,983)
- Number of black iron and steelworkers increased 626 percent (from 786 to 2,853)
- Most migrants came from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama
- They moved north for the same reason as European immigrants: to seek jobs in iron and steel mills
Pittsburgh's experience demonstrates how the Great Migration followed industrial opportunities. The city's steel mills needed workers, and black Americans from nearby southern states filled these positions, creating new communities and transforming the city's demographics.
Historical significance
The Great Migration represents a crucial chapter in American history:
- It was part of the epic story of rural people moving to industrial cities for higher wages
- It transformed the geography of civil rights issues in the USA
- It changed where black Americans lived from predominantly rural South to urban North
- It created new black American communities in northern cities
- It laid the groundwork for later civil rights developments
The migration was driven by a combination of push factors (boll weevil, cotton price collapse, discrimination, violence) and pull factors (war jobs, higher wages, economic opportunities, recruiting agents, positive newspaper coverage).
As official government statistics from the Department of Labor noted, the migration brought "land-seekers and home-builders, men who have come prepared to build up the country" rather than a "helpless and ignorant horde," showing the progress made since the Kansas Exodus of thirty years earlier.
Key Points to Remember:
- The First Great Migration (1915-45) saw 1.6 million black Americans move from the rural South to northern cities, fundamentally changing the geography of civil rights issues
- Pull factors included WWI job opportunities (400,000 migrants 1916-18), dramatic wage differences ($2.50-$5.00/day in North vs. few dollars/week in South), the 1920s economic boom, and New Deal programmes
- Push factors included the boll weevil catastrophe (1914), cotton price collapse (42 cents to 5 cents per pound, 1920-32), and rising discrimination and violence including KKK revival (1915) and lynching
- Major destination cities included Detroit (2,400% increase in black population 1910-30), Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and Pittsburgh
- The migration was promoted by recruiting agents and the Chicago Defender newspaper, which praised the North as a "Promised Land" of opportunity and freedom