Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-cjp7w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-16T21:17:47.912Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Distances Traveled during the Great Migration

An Analysis of Racial Differences among Male Migrants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Stewart E. Tolnay ,
Katherine J. Curtis White ,
Kyle D. Crowder  and
Robert M. Adelman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Between 1910 and 1970, millions of southern-born Americans migrated to the northern and western regions of the country in search of better opportunities. Some traveled only short distances, leaving Appalachia for nearby destinations in the southern Midwest. Others made the much longer trek to the West Coast. In this article, we use data from the 1920, 1940, and 1970 Public Use Microdata Samples to investigate the distances traveled by male participants in the Great Migration, with a special focus on differences by race, as well as on changes over time. We find that the average distance traveled increased substantially during the Great Migration for blacks and whites alike. However, throughout this time period, white migrants moved significantly farther than black migrants. The greater propensity for white migrants to move west, rather than north, accounts for a good deal of this overall racial variation. Although the difference in distance traveled between blacks and whites narrowed significantly over time, it remained substantial as the Great Migration came to a close. We conclude by highlighting the impact of these differential migration patterns on the composition and social conditions in northern cities.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , winter 2005 , pp. 523 - 548
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, J. D. (1988) The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Anselin, L. (1995) Spacestat Version 1.80: User’s Guide. Morgantown: Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University.Google Scholar
Berry, C. (2000) Southern Migrants, Northern Exiles. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Berry, E. C. (1945) “Profiles: Portland.” Journal of Educational Sociology 19: 158–65.Google Scholar
Blalock, H. M. (1967) Toward a Theory of Minority-Group Relations. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Bratt, C. (1945) “Profiles: Los Angeles.” Journal of Educational Sociology 19: 179–86.Google Scholar
Crowder, K. D., Tolnay, S. E., and Adelman, R. M. (2001) “Inter-metropolitan migration and locational improvement for African American males, 1970–1990. ” Social Science Research 30: 449–72.Google Scholar
Eldridge, H. T., and Thomas, D. S. (1964) Population Redistribution and Economic Growth, United States, 1870–1950. Vol. 3, Demographic Analyses and Interrelations. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society.Google Scholar
Fligstein, N. (1981) Going North: Migration of Blacks and Whites from the South, 1900–1950. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Florant, L. C. (1942) “Negro internal migration.” American Sociological Review 7: 782–91.Google Scholar
Gregory, J. N. (1989) American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gregory, J. N. (1995) “The southern diaspora and the urban dispossessed: Demonstrating the census public use microdata samples.” Journal of American History 82: 111–34.Google Scholar
Grossman, J. R. (1989) Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henri, F. (1975) Black Migration: Movement North, 1900–1920. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press.Google Scholar
James, J. (1945) “Profiles: San Francisco.” Journal of Educational Sociology 19: 166–78.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. M., and Campbell, R. R. (1981) Black Migration in America: A Social Demographic History. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, J. (1993) “Southern diaspora: Origins of the northern ‘underclass,’” in Katz, M. B. (ed.) The “Underclass” Debate: Views from History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 28–54.Google Scholar
Lemann, N. (1991) The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Lieberson, S. (1978) “A reconsideration of the income differences found between migrants and northern-born blacks.” American Journal of Sociology 83: 940–66.Google Scholar
Lieberson, S. (1980) A Piece of the Pie: Blacks and Immigrants since 1880. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lieberson, S., and Wilkinson, C. A. (1976) “A comparison between northern and southern blacks residing in the North.” Demography 13: 199–224.Google Scholar
Long, L. H. (1974) “Poverty status and receipt of welfare among migrants and nonmigrants in large cities.” American Sociological Review 39: 46–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Long, L. H. (1988) Migration and Residential Mobility in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Long, L. H., and Heltman, L. R. (1975) “Migration and income differences between black and white men in the North.” American Journal of Sociology 80: 1391–1409.Google Scholar
Margo, R. (1990) Race and Schooling in the South, 1880–1950. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Marks, C. (1989) Farewell—We’re Good and Gone: The Great Black Migration. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Massey, D. S., Arango, J., Hugo, G., Kouaouci, A., Pellegrino, A., and Taylor, J. E. (1993) “Theories of international migration: A review and appraisal.” Population and Development Review 19: 431–66.Google Scholar
Massey, D. S., Arango, J., Hugo, G., Kouaouci, A., Pellegrino, A., and Taylor, J. E. (1994) “An evaluation of international migration theory: The North American case.” Population and Development Review 20: 699–751.Google Scholar
Massey, D. S., and Denton, N. A. (1993) American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
O’Brien, R. W. (1945) “Profiles: Seattle.” Journal of Educational Sociology 19: 146–57.Google Scholar
Philpott, T. L. (1978) The Slum and the Ghetto: Neighborhood Deterioration and Middle-Class Reform, Chicago, 1880–1930. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Price, D. O. (1948) “Distance and direction as vectors of internal migration, 1935 to 1940.” Social Forces 27: 48–53.Google Scholar
Price-Spratlen, T. (1998) “Between depression and prosperity? Changes in the community context of historical African American migration.” Social Forces 77: 515–40.Google Scholar
Price-Spratlen, T. (1999a) “Livin’ for the city: African American community development and Depression-era migration.” Demography 36: 553–68.Google Scholar
Price-Spratlen, T. (1999b) “Flowin’ all at once: Gender, race, and class in Depression-era U.S. urbanization.” Race, Gender, and Class 6: 147–70.Google Scholar
Reddick, L. D. (1945) “The new race-relations frontier.” Journal of Educational Sociology 19: 129–45.Google Scholar
Ruggles, S., and Sobek, M. (2001) Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Millennial Edition. Minneapolis: Minnesota Population Center.Google Scholar
Scott, E. J. (1919) “Additional Letters of Negro migrants of 1916-1918.” Journal of Negro History 4: 412–65.Google Scholar
Tarver, J. D., and McLeod, R. D. (1970) “Trends in distances moved by interstate migrants.” Rural Sociology 35: 523–33.Google Scholar
Tarver, J. D., and McLeod, R. D. (1976) “Trends in the distance of movement of interstate migrants.” Rural Sociology 41: 119–226.Google Scholar
Taylor, Q. (1998) In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528–1990. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Tolnay, S. E. (2001) “The Great Migration gets underway: A comparison of black southern migrants and non-migrants in the North, 1920.” Social Science Quarterly 82: 235–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tolnay, S. E. (2003) “The African American ‘Great Migration’ and beyond.” Annual Review of Sociology 29: 209–32.Google Scholar
Tolnay, S. E., and Beck, E. M. (1992) “Racial violence and black migration in the South, 1910 to 1930.” American Sociological Review 57: 103–16.Google Scholar
Tolnay, S. E., Crowder, K. D., and Adelman, R. M. (2000) “‘Narrow and filthy alleys of the city?’: The residential settlement patterns of black southern migrants to the North.” Social Forces 78: 989–1015.Google Scholar
Tolnay, S. E., Crowder, K. D., and Adelman, R. M. (2002) “Race, regional origin, and residence in northern cities at the beginning of the Great Migration.” American Sociological Review 67: 456–75.Google Scholar
Trotter, J. W. (1985) Black Milwaukee: The Making of an Urban Industrial Proletariat, 1915–45. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Trotter, J. W., ed. (1991) The Great Migration in Historical Perspective: New Dimensions of Race, Class, and Gender. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Trotter, J. W. (1993) “Blacks in the urban North: The ‘underclass question’ in historical perspective,” in Katz, M. B. (ed.) The “Underclass” Debate: Views from History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 55–81.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1975) Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Woodson, C. G. (1969 [1918]) A Century of Negro Migration. New York: Russell and Russell.Google Scholar