Personnel policy, costs of experimentation, and racial inequality in the Pre-World War II North

Between 1910 and 1940, the black population of the northern United States nearly tripled, rising from just over I million to more than 2.7 million, signaling the start of the "Great Migration" of African-Americans out of the South. As black workers entered the North, they sought positions in new sectors of the economy. The share of northern black workers in manufacturing rose from about 17 percent to 28 percent during these years, while the shares in agriculture and personal services fell sharply. Consequently, many northern employers faced new questions regarding race in the labor market. Some had to consider whether to hire black workers for the first time. The attitudes of individual employers were certainly important, but were there more systematic determinants of an employers' willingness to experiment with the growing northern black labor pool?