Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, General Research and Reference Division

Jane Olcott, ed., The Work of Colored Women (New York: National Board of Young Women's Christian Associations, 1919)

Throughout the North prior to 1915, 80 percent of black working women were in domestic or personal service. In World War I and later in World War II, women were used to fill the posts vacated by men who went off to fight. They could make $3 a day at this packinghouse, as opposed to 50¢ picking cotton in the South.