Professor F. D. Tyson, of the University of Pittsburgh, to the
conclusion that the outstanding fact of the Negro migration from the
South was that it was preponderately a movement of single men; and
certainly 70 or 80 per cent of the migrants in the Northern States
were without family ties, as is evidenced by the advanced reports of
the Bureau of the Census showing a change of sexual ratio of the
population of some Southern States.[53] Thousands of this type were
imported by the railroads to the North, but they proved to be very
unreliable workers. They did not stick to their work but moved from
place to place, thus furnishing in industry what some have termed the
"floaters" or "birds of passage."

The second type was composed of industrious, thrifty, unskilled
workers.[54] These for the most part were men with families or other
dependents. It was the custom for the men to go ahead first, earn
money, and at the same time observe conditions to ascertain whether
they were favorable enough to warrant their sending for their families
to join them in the North. If things were favorable, their families
soon followed. Many of these, because of hard working and living
conditions in the South, were forced to accept, ready, free
transportation and promises of work and of high wages just as did the
members of the first type. A good many of them, however, had small
savings which they used to pay their travelling expenses. In some
cases, in leaving their homes, the migrants departed from the usual
custom of the men going ahead and leaving the families behind, by
taking their wives and children to the North with them in the
beginning; in others, only the wives accompanied their husbands, while
the children were left behind with relatives or friends to be sent for
at some future time.

In the next place, the third type of migrants consisted of a rather
small group of skilled artisans, business and professional men who
shared the dissatisfaction and restlessness of the common
laborers.[55] For this group, moving from the South became a necessity
because the migration had deprived it of the patronage of the rank and
file from which its means of subsistence had been derived. Many of
these, however, were in good circumstances, having been in possession
of good positions, cash money and considerable property. That this was
the case the following citations will show: In regard to the economic
condition of the Negroes leaving Alabama, the