NUMBER OF WAGE EARNERS.

The following table, abstracted from the census publications, shows the number of negroes in all occupations and in each of the five great groups of occupations by sex and by States and Territories:

Table showing the number of negroes in all occupations, etc.-Continued.

DIAGRAM NO. 4.-Proportion of negro wage-earners to negro population.

DIAGRAM NO. 6.--Proportions of male and female wage earners.

PROPORTION OF WAGE EARNERS TO POPULATION.

The foregoing diagram No. 4 shows by the length of the bars the proportion which the negro wage earners bore in 1890 to the negro population of each State. This proportion was greatest in the States and the Territories of the West. Following these are the Northeastern States, while the lower part of the column is made up of the States in the Upper Mississippi Valley and those of the South.

OCCUPATIONS BY GROUPS OF STATES.

The distribution of wage earners among the five occupation groups differed widely in different parts of the country. To study it, it will be sufficient to group the States and analyze the statistics of each group.

The groups which will be used here are those which have been in use in the last two censuses, namely, the Northeastern and Southeastern, North Central and South Central, and Western groups. The States and Territories of which each group is composed are shown in map No. 5.

Examination of the States forming the above groups will show that the groups are in many respects very characteristic. The Southeastern and South Central groups contain nine-tenths of the negroes of the country. These States may be said to constitute the home of the negro, while in the Northern and Western States he is an immigrant.

OCCUPATIONS BY SEX AND STATE GROUPS.

Diagram No. 6 shows the distribution by sex and by groups of States of the negro wage earners. It appears that in the Northeastern, Southeastern, and South Central groups two-thirds of the wage earners were males and one-third were females, while in the North Central and Western groups about five-sixths were males and one-sixth only were females. This is in part due to the disproportionate number of males in these parts of the country.

Diagram No. 7 shows the distribution of the negro wage earners, classified by sex, among the five occupation groups and by groups of States. The length of each bar represents 100 per cent, and each bar is divided proportionately among the different occupation groups. Thus from it we read that in the Northeastern States 15 per cent of the male wage earners were engaged in agriculture, 56 per cent in personal service, 16 per cent in trade and transportation, 12 per cent in manufactures, and 2 per cent in the professions.

It is seen that a far larger proportion of male wage earners were engaged in agriculture in the Southern States than in the Northern and Western States, the proportion in the two groups of the former States being 64 and 71 per cent, while in the Northeastern States only 15 per cent were engaged in agriculture, in the North Central States 26 per cent, and in the Western States 17 per cent.

In trade and transportation the highest proportion was found in the Northeastern States, where it was 16 per cent; in the North Central States it was 14, and in the Western States 10 per cent, while in the Southeastern States it was 7 per cent and in the South Central States 7 per cent.

Of course, the magnitude of the proportion in the Northeastern States is due to the fact that this is the commercial and manufacturing section of the country, where a large proportion of all the population is engaged in these avocations. The same is the case, though in less degree, in the North Central States, while the Southern States are almost purely agricultural. The figures relating to manufacturing occupations show similar characteristics. It will be noted that in the Northern and Western States the occupations of the negroes were more diversified than in the Southern States. Agriculture and personal service in the Northeastern States occupied but 71 per cent of all wage earners, in the North Central States they occupied 75 per cent, and in the Western States 81 per cent, while in the Southeastern States these two occupation groups comprised 84 per cent and in the South Central 88 per cent of all.

The diagram shows in a similar manner the distribution of the female negro wage earners. There were engaged in agriculture in the Northern and Western States but a trifling proportion of negro women, while in the Southern States as a whole nearly one-half of the female negro wage earners were engaged in that avocation. On the other hand, personal service occupied fully nine-tenths of the female wage earners in the Northern and Western States, while in the Southern States less than one-half were engaged in it. Indeed, 94 per cent of the female wage earners of the West were engaged in personal service, 91 per cent in the Northeastern States, and 87 per cent in the North Central States. In trade and transportation the proportion was trifling and in manufactures it was small, although much larger in the North and West than in the South..