*** the American Civil Rights Movement the segregation system








The Segregated Work Place

segregated work force
Figure 1.--Several deep South states had laws strictly separating Whites and Blacks in factories and mills. These laws varied from state to state. I am not sure what the law was in Virginia. This photograph shows nine boys, including Frank Ellmore, Dannie Powell, Henry O'Donnell, and Leslie Mason, who worked at the Old Dominion Glass Company in Alexandria, Virginia; taken in June, 1911, by Lewis Hine who worked as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), documenting working and living conditions of children in the United States between 1908 and 1921

Laws about the workplace varried. Textiles were a major industry in South Carolina. The South Carolina legislature passed laws establishing workplace facilities in the textile mills to the smallest detail. Mill operators were prohinitted from allowing workers of different races from working in the same room or using the same entarnaces. There had to be separate stairways, pay windows, and bathrooms. No socializing was allowed. There had to be separate water fountasins, drinking pails, dippers and or cups. These laws varied greatly from state to state. Several other Southern states had laws that were comparable to South Carolina. The photograph here was taken in Virginia, outside the factory by a socially progressive photographer. I am not sure the boys worked together inside the plant (figgure 1). Photographs taken inside plants and mills in the South almost never showed blacks and white working together. One examole of this is a photograph Hine took in North Carolina. Moving north the code was often somewhat more relaxed. While these laws were primarily passed in the South, they were not unknown in other states as well. Many companies only hired White or hired blacks for only the most menial possitions--often ones where it was difficult to recruit Whites. As a result in the deep South states, most Blacks could only find jobs as agricultural laborers.

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Created: October 9, 2003
Last updated: October 9, 2003