Lines of Communication, Recruitment Mechanisms, and the Great Migration of 1916-1918

Over 400,000 blacks left the isolated and economically backward southern United States for the North between 1916 and 1918. This paper analyzes how migrants found out about opportunities in the North and why they left when they did. I examine four lines of communication: (1) labor agents; (2) family and friends; (3) service organizations; and (4) ethnic presses. I conclude that lines of communication occur in successive stages. They influence both the character of migrant populations and the interconnection between the individual decision to migrate and structural migratory pressures. These findings have important implications for the comparative study of internal and international labor migrations over time.