ensuses of 1890 and 1900 the Negro
population in New York had grown to considerable proportions, and for
this increased population we are fortunate in having full occupational
returns. Although these figures included all persons ten years of age
and over, those under fourteen years probably formed a negligible part
of the totals because the Child Labor Laws of the State of New York
prohibited the employment of children under fourteen years of age.

It appears, as was expected, that the large majority of Negro
wage-earners were engaged in domestic and personal service. But it is
significant that in 1890 there were among the male population 236
bookkeepers, accountants, _etc._, 476 draymen, hackmen, and teamsters,
and 427 were engaged in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits. Among
the females, there were 418 dressmakers, 103 seamstresses, and 67
nurses and midwives.

The figures for 1900 show a large percentage of increase in domestic
and personal service. In occupations classed under trade and
transportation, Negro wage-earners increased 450.3 per cent compared
with an increase of 177.2 per cent among native whites. Nor is this
increase due entirely to semi-personal service occupations for the
class of clerks, bookkeepers, _etc._, had increased from 236 in 1890
to 456 in 1900; draymen, hackmen, and teamsters numbered 1,439 in 1900
as compared with 476 in 1890, an increase of 202.3 per cent. In
manufacturing and mechanical pursuits the percentage of increase
during the ten years, 1890 to 1900, was 140.3 per cent, larger than
that of the native whites, 137.3 per cent. Only one occupation in this
class had a smaller increase of Negro workers than 75 per cent.
Machinists increased from 7 to 47; brick and stone masons from 20 to
94, or 370 per cent; stationary engineers and firemen from 61 to 227,
or 271.1 per cent. Other comparisons indicate clearly a similarly
favorable advance in many occupations other than domestic and personal
service. Large allowances, of course, must be made for the errors in
gathering the figures of the two censuses; yet this does not account
for all of the decided increases shown. It must be accounted for on
the ground that slowly the walls of inefficiency on one side and of
prejudice on the other which have confined Negroes to the more menial
and lower-paid employments are being broken down. This progress has
come in the face of the fact that the more ambitious and efficient
individual is "tied t