d prices began to rise with the war, wages
advanced very slowly. In 1915, wages of farm laborers in the
South averaged around 75 cents a day. In the towns the principal
opportunities for employment were in the oil mills, lumber mills,
cotton compresses, railroad shops and domestic service. In the mills
and shops the average of wages ranged from $1 to $1.50 a day. The
wages of such skilled laborers as carpenters and bricklayers ranged
from $2 to $3.50 a day. In domestic service women received from $1.50
to $3 per week and board. Men in domestic service received on an
average of $5 a week.[20]

In spite of these conditions in the South it might appear strange that
not until fifty years after the privilege was granted negroes to
go where they pleased did they begin to make a sudden rush for the
northern States. Stranger still does it seem that, despite the fairly
general agreement among southern negroes that the North affords
greater personal liberty, is less prejudiced to individuals because of
the color of their skins, grants to negroes something nearer to open
handed justice, participation in the government, wider privileges
and freer associations, there should be in 1910 scarcely more than
one-tenth of the negro population where these reputed advantages are.
The North has been looked upon as the "Promised Land," the "Ark of
Safety," the "House of Refuge" for all these years. A common reason
recently advanced by the majority of southern negroes for the
abandonment of their homes was the desire to escape from the
oppressive social system of their section. Why have they not escaped
before? The answer lies in the very hard fact that, though the North
afforded larger privileges, it would not support negroes. It was the
operation of an inexorable economic law, confused with a multitude of
social factors, that pushed them back to the soil of the South despite
their manifest desire to leave it.

None of the causes was more effective than that of the opportunity
to earn a better living. Wages offered in the North were double and
treble those received in the South. Women who received $2.50 a week
in domestic service could earn from $2.10 to $2.50 a day and men
receiving $1.10 and $1.25 a day could earn from $2.50 to $3.75 a day
in the various industries in the North.[21] An intensive study of the
migration to Pittsburgh, made by Mr. Abraham Epstein, gives an idea of
the difference in wages paid in the North and the South. His