Reading these letters to the ''Chicago Defender'' makes a person realize how desperate the lives of many southern blacks were at the time. They all seem so anxious to get to Chicago, but I have to wonder how much they knew about the city and what life was like there. Here are women asking for any sort of job they can get so that they can support their families, but from our other readings we can infer that all that will be offered to them, if anything, will be difficult and low paying domestic service work. And the more black women who went North, the more they probably competed against one another and drove down their own potential wages. -Mary Ann | Reading these letters to the ''Chicago Defender'' makes a person realize how desperate the lives of many southern blacks were at the time. They all seem so anxious to get to Chicago, but I have to wonder how much they knew about the city and what life was like there. Here are women asking for any sort of job they can get so that they can support their families, but from our other readings we can infer that all that will be offered to them, if anything, will be difficult and low paying domestic service work. And the more black women who went North, the more they probably competed against one another and drove down their own potential wages. -Mary Ann |