Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T07:43:00.355Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Degrees of Inequality: The Advance of Black Male Workers in the Northern Meat Packing and Steel Industries before World War II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Thomas N. Maloney
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Recent major works on long-term racial inequality in the labor market revolve around competing hypotheses concerning the importance of human capital factors (Smith and Welch 1989) and government policy (Donohue and Heckman 1991) in promoting black advance. There is, however, another line of thinking which emphasizes the importance of experimentation and “demand-side learning”: employers’ gaining access to accurate information about the abilities of black workers and adjusting their beliefs in accordance with this information.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , Spring 1995 , pp. 31 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1995 

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

Aigner, Dennis J., and Cain, Glen G. (1977) “Statistical theories of discrimination in labor markets.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 30: 175–87.Google Scholar
Arrow, Kenneth (1973) “The theory of discrimination,” in Ashenfelter, O. and Rees, A. (eds.) Discrimination in Labor Markets. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 3–33.Google Scholar
Baron, James, Deveraux Jennings, P., and Dobbin, Frank (1988) “Mission control? The development of personnel systems in US industry.” American Sociological Review 53: 497–514.Google Scholar
Barrett, James R. (1987) Work and Community in the Jungle: Chicago's Packinghouse Workers, 1894–1922. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Brissenden, Paul, and Frankel, Emil (1920) “Mobility of labor in American industry.” Monthly Labor Review 10 (June): 36–56.Google Scholar
Carver, Arthur (1928) Personnel and Labor Relations Problems in the Packing Industry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Clayton, Horace R., and Mitchell, George S. (1971) “Black workers and organized labor in the iron and steel industry, 1880–1939,” in Bracy, John H., Meier, August, and Rudnick, Elliot (eds.) Black Workers and Organized Labor. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co.: 132–54.Google Scholar
Cohen, Lizabeth (1990) Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Commons, John R. (1904) “Labor conditions in meat packing and the recent strike.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 9: 1–32.Google Scholar
Dewey, Donald (1952) “Negro employment in southern industry.” Journal of Political Economy 40: 279–93.Google Scholar
Dickerson, Dennis C. (1986) Out of the Crucible: Black Steelworkers in Western Pennsylvania 1875–1980. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Doeringer, Peter, and Piore, Michael (1971) Internal Labor Markets and Manpower Analysis. Lexington, MA: Heath Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Donohue, John H. III, and Heckman, James (1991) “Continuous vs. episodic change: The impact of civil rights policy on the economic status of blacks.” Journal of Economic Literature 29:1603–43.Google Scholar
Elbaum, Bernard, and Wilkinson, Frank (1979) “Industrial relations and uneven development: A comparative study of the American and British steel industry.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 3: 275–303.Google Scholar
Feldman, Herman (1942) “The technique of introducing Negroes into the plant.” Personnel 19: 461–66.Google Scholar
Fogel, Walter (1970) Racial Policies of American Industry. Report No. 12, The Negro in the Meat Industry. Philadelphia, PA: Industrial Research Unit, Department of Industry, Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Frankel, Emil (1919) “Labor turnover in Chicago.” Monthly Labor Review 9 (September): 44–59.Google Scholar
Gottlieb, Peter (1987) Making Their Own Way: Southern Blacks’ Migration to Pittsburgh, 1916–1930. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Graziosi, Andrea (1981) “Common laborers, unskilled workers: 1880–1915.” Labor History 22: 512–44.Google Scholar
Greene, Lorenzo J., and Woodson, Carter G. (1969 [1930]) The Negro Wage Earner. New York: Russell and Russell.Google Scholar
Herbst, Alma (1932) The Negro in the Slaughtering and Meat Packing Industry in Chicago. New York: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
HoganWilliam T, S. J. William T, S. J. (1971) Economic History of the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Kiefer, David, and Philips, Peter (1993) “What happened to Rosie the Riveter?” Unpublished manuscript, Department of Economics, University of Utah.Google Scholar
Kmenta, Jan (1971) Elements of Econometrics (2d Edition). New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Lazonick, William H. (1983) “Technological change and the control of work: The development of capital labor relations in US mass production industries,” in Gospel, Howard F. and Littler, Craig R. (eds.) Managerial Strategies and Industrial Relations: An Historical and Comparative Study. London: Heinemann Educational Books: 111–36.Google Scholar
Maddala, G. S. (1983) Limited-Dependent and Qualitative Variables in Econometrics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Margo, Robert A. (1990) Race and Schooling in the South, 1880–1950: An Economic History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Margo, Robert A. (1991) “The microeconomics of Depression unemployment.” Journal of Economic History 51: 333–41.Google Scholar
McCall, John J. (1972) “The simple mathematics of information, job search, and prejudice,” in Pascal, A. H. (ed.) Racial Discrimination in Economic Life. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Myrdal, Gunnar (1964 [1944]) An American Dilemma, Volume 1: The Negro in a White Nation. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Neckerman, Kathryn M. (1993) “The emergence of ‘underclass’ family patterns, 1900–1940,” in Katz, Michael B. (ed.), The “Underclass” Debate: Views From History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 194–219.Google Scholar
Nuwer, Michael (1988) “From batch to flow: Production technology and work-force skills in the steel industry, 1880–1920.” Technology and Culture 29: 808–38.Google Scholar
Palmore, Erdman B. (1954) “The introduction of Negroes into four white industrial departments.” M.A. thesis, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Perry, Charles R., and Kegley, Delwyn H. (1989) Labor Relations and Public Policy Series. No. 35, Disintegration and Change: Labor Relations in the Meat Packing Industry. Philadelphia, PA: Industrial Research Unit, the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Phelps, Edmund S. (1972) “The statistical theory of racism and sexism.” American Economic Review 62: 659–61.Google Scholar
Preston, Samuel H. (1989) Census of Population 1910 [Machine Readable Data File]. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research.Google Scholar
Smith, James, and Welch, Finis (1989) “Black economic progress after Myrdal.” Journal of Economic Literature 27: 519–64.Google Scholar
Spence, A. Michael (1974) Market Signaling: Informational Transfer in Hiring and Related Screening Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Stone, Katherine (1974) “The origins of job structure in the steel industry.” Review of Radical Political Economics 6: 113–73.Google Scholar
Strong, Michael, Preston, Samuel H., Miller, Ann R., Hereward, Mark, Lentzner, Harold R., Seaman, Jeffrey, and Williams, Henry C. (1989) User's Guide: Public Use Sample, 1910 United States Census of Population. Philadelphia, PA: Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Thurow, Lester (1975) Generating Inequality: Mechanisms of Distribution in the U.S. Economy. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1939) Biennial Census of Manufacturing 1937 (Part 1). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1984) Census of Population, 1940: Public Use Microdata Sample [Machine Readable Data File]. Washington, DC: The Bureau.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1983) Census of Population, 1940: Public Use Microdata Sample Technical Documentation. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1933) Fifteenth Census of the United States (1930). Manufactures 1929, Vol. 2: Reports by Industries. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1932) Fifteenth Census of the United States (1930), Population Vol. 4. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1923) Fourteenth Census of the United States (1920), Population Vol. 4. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1942) Sixteenth Census of the United States (1940). Manufactures 1939, Vol. 2, Part 1: Reports by Industries (Groups 1–10). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1943) Sixteenth Census of the United States (1940), Population Vol. 3, Parts 1–5. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1914) Thirteenth Census of the United States (1910), Population Vol. 4. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (1942) “Factory-labor turnover, 1930 to 1941.” Handbook of Labor Statistics Vol. 1 (Bulletin no. 694). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office: 529–33.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (1940) “Factory-labor turnover, 1931–1939.” Monthly Labor Review 51: 696–708.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (1931) “Labor turnover in American factories, December 1930.” Monthly Labor Review 32: 358–64.Google Scholar
Whatley, Warren C. (1990) “Getting a foot in the door: ‘Learning,’ state dependence, and the racial integration of firms.” Journal of Economic History 50: 43–66.Google Scholar
Whatley, Warren C. (1993) “African-American strikebreaking from the Civil War to the New Deal.“ Social Science History 17: 525–58.Google Scholar
Wright, Gavin (1986) Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy since the Civil War. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar