Note: The following article references documents from 1927-1931, when Wheeling was a “Jim Crow” city still segregated by race. Some of the terms used are offensive to modern sensibilities. The original terms have been retained for historical context and accuracy.
One of the most important collections housed in the Ohio County Public Library’s Archives is undoubtedly the Wheeling YWCA collection. The organization’s current mission statement includes “eliminating racism, empowering women and promoting peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all,” but during the reign of “Jim Crow” segregation, the YWCA was required to have a separate branch to provide activities and programs for African American girls and women. The “Blue Triangle” was located in a house on 12th Street, and its records are among the most important of those housed in the YWCA Collection.
In addition to photographs and documents related to its regular programs, the Blue Triangle collection contains numerous primary source documents with vital demographic information about Wheeling’s African American community during the “Jim Crow” period.
“A Survey of Housing and Home Ownership”
One such document contains the text of a 1936 speech called “Wheeling’s Twentieth Man,” delivered over WWVA radio by the town’s only black lawyer, Harry H. Jones. The collection also contains a 1928 survey similar to the one on which Jones must have relied for his numbers eight years later.
The survey of Negro Housing and Home Ownership in Wheeling lists the city’s population at 75,000 (an interesting discrepancy with the 1930 census figure of 61,659). This survey then lists “2005 Negroes,” including 1009 males and 996 females (less than 3% of the total population).
“Wheeling is noted for its large iron, steel, and tinplate mills and the manufacture of all kind of fabricated products from these basic materials. Also for its large foundries, glass, pottery, aluminum, sheet metal, structural iron and steel, tile, tobacco, calico prints, proprietary medicines, furniture, hand stogies, large bakeries, meat packing, stamping, match, tanneries, and numbers of diversified industries.” -From the 1928 survey
According to the survey, in 1927-28, Wheeling citizens owned 14,032 dwellings housing 17,399 families. Among African Americans, 32.8% owned the homes they lived in, and 129 families owned property valued at $625,550.00 ($4,849 per, or $71,890.00 in 2020 dollars); 264 families lived in rented homes with average monthly rent of $16.92 ($250.00); and 20% rented from other blacks.
As for employment, Wheeling had 250 industries employing over 9500 and, “due to the large number of diversified industries, the labor supply is plentiful and high class.”
Regarding African American workers, “Some of the industries that employ Negroes are, Wheeling Steel Mill (200), River Side Mill (35), Wheeling Foundry, Creek Mill & Iron Works, [sic] a large number of Negroes are coal miners.”
Specifically, there were 47 black janitors, “88 miners, 15 hotel waiters, 27 general house work, 5 boarding house, 6 chefs, 6 contractors, 5 foundry, 7 railroad, 2 cleaning and pressing, 5 merchants, 1 postman, 42 day laborers, 13 porters, 5 chauffeurs, 4 barbers, 13 mechanics, 4 brick masons, 12 steel mills, 5 firemen, 1 policeman, 4 elevator operators, 3 ice delivery…”
Among professional black workers, “2 dentists, 5 physicians, 5 ministers, 1 pharmacist, 18 teachers…”
Per capita income for Wheeling’s 284 black families with wage earners was about $1440.00 per year, or $21,349.00 in 2020.
Black-owned and operated businesses included “4 barbershops, 2 cleaning and tailoring, 2 grocery stores, 3 hotels, 3 ice and transfer, 3 pool rooms, 5 cafes, 1 theatre, 1 drug store, 1 repair and upholstery, 3 taxi companies…”
“A Survey of the Conditions Regarding Our Colored Population”
Another key file in the Blue Triangle Collection includes a 1931 Board of Public Recreation of the City of Wheeling survey of many of the largest employers in Wheeling and the Upper Ohio Valley at the time, regarding their employment of African Americans.
Signed “E.T. Attwell, Director” the “Negro Survey….Questionnaire” asked companies for their number of total employees and the number who were colored men or colored women. Of the 24 companies whose responses are still in the file, none said they employed black women.
Of the 11 companies who said they employed colored men, the numbers ranged from one to an impressive 300 (of 700 total – almost 43%) for the Elm Grove Mining Company.
Additional information sought included the “Average Daily Wage, which ranged from a low of $2.50 at the Wheeling Country Club, to a high of $5.50 at Bryan and Bippus Boiler Works,” and whether the work was “Skilled or Unskilled.” Only 3 of 24 companies said they had blacks working in “Skilled” jobs.
The most interesting responses came in reply to the last section of the questionnaire, which read:
“If you have no colored employed please state:
Have you ever employed colored: ___
If conditions improve, would there be opportunity in your business later on for employment of any of our colored citizens, Men ___ Women? ___ i.e., How many: ___”
Numerous companies simply answered “no” or “none” to all of these questions. Both Extruded Metal Products (a foundry) and Standard Sand and Gravel stated, “No colored employees.” The Spence Bags Stove Company went a step further: “Our men are skilled workers with two or three exceptions and we have never had occasion to use Negro men or women.” Imperial Glass made sure to note that all of its 260 employees were “White,” and Central Glass plainly stated, “We do not employ colored people.”
Wheeling Steel and Wheeling Corrugating took an egalitarian, free market stance: “Cannot answer. All depends on conditions. Colored are taken in employ on equal basis with whites, according to demand and supply.” Despite this claim, the largest employer in town had 1543 total employees, only 20 of whom were black men, less than 1.2% (blacks comprised about 3-4% of the Wheeling population at the time).
The table below charts the responses of all 24 of the companies whose survey reply letters are still in the file. The survey responses can be viewed below the table. Click here to see all 24 originals.
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