“To Make the Negro Anew:” The African American Worker in the Progressive Imagination, 1896-1928 by Paul Raymond Din Lawrie A Thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Department of History, in the University of Toronto ©Copyright by Paul R.D. Lawrie, 2011 Abstract “To Make the Negro Anew”: The African American Worker in the Progressive Imagination, 1896-1928 Paul Raymond Din Lawrie Doctor of Philosophy University of Toronto, Department of History 2011 This dissertation examines how progressive era social scientists thought about African American workers and their place in the nation‘s industrial past, present, and future. Turn of the century racial thought held that certain peoples were naturally equipped to perform certain forms of labor. African Americans were confined to, or excluded from, certain industrial spaces on the pretext that they were congenitally unfit for the rigors of modern industrial life. Elites argued that freed from the protective embrace of slavery African Americans were doomed to degeneration. However, the imperatives of industrialization, migration, and world war soon required new forms of racial labor evaluation and hierarchies. Despite their differences, observers across the color line drew on a common discourse of industrial evolution that linked racial development with labor fitness. Evolutionary science merged with scientific management to create new taxonomies of racial labor fitness. I chart this process from turn of the century actuarial science which defined African Americans as a dying race, to wartime mental and physical testing that acknowledged the Negro as a vital -albeit inferior- part of the nation‘s industrial workforce. During this period, African Americans struggled to prove their worth on the shop-floor, the battlefield, and the academy. New socioeconomic realities produced new forms of racial knowledge. Progressive era social ii scientists maintained that mastery of this knowledge was needed to navigate and rationalize America‘s rapidly shifting industrial landscape. Many progressives sought to understand these complex and overarching social shifts in stark biological terms. My analysis of the progressive era Negro problem links African American, Labor, and Disability History to examine how notions of the fit and unfit body colored the progressive era labor economy. Adopting a corporeal perspective allows me to foreground World War One as both a catalyst and an agent of African American proletarianization. The war mobilized African Americans for the work of war and organized social scientists to develop new methods of measuring racial labor fitness. Initiatives such as the draft and vocational rehabilitation endeavored to transform rural southern black migrants into efficient modern workers/soldiers. Throughout these processes tensions between biological and social models of racial fitness persisted. This thesis contends that the modern Negro type- African Americans as objects of social scientific inquiry- which came of age in the post-World War Two era, was born in the draft boards, factories, trenches, hospitals, and university classrooms of the Progressive Era. iii To My Son William Anthony Ellison Lawrie And Once Again, To Rose iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………vi Introduction.......................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Counting a Vanishing Race: Statistical Narratives of African American Extinction in Turn of the Century America.......................................................21 Chapter Two: ―Adjusting the Colored Worker‘s Industrial Consciousness:‖ The Department of Negro Economics and Wartime Racial Labor Policy 1917-1921..........................................................................................................................71 Chapter Three: ―Measuring Men for the Work of War‖: Anthropometry, Race, And the Draft 1917-1919..................................................................................................114 Chapter Four: ―To Make the Negro Anew?‖ Race, Rehabilitation, and African American Veterans 1917-1924.............................................................................163 Chapter Five: ―A New Negro Type:‖ The National Research Council (NRC) And the Production of Racial Knowledge in Postwar America 19191929......................207 Epilogue...........................................................................................................................255 Bibliography....................................................................................................................261 v Acknowledgements The best part about completing this dissertation is having the chance to thank the various peoples and institutions which made it possible. My debts are numerous. Research was facilitated by grants from the Department of History, University of Toronto, Department of Humanities, University of Toronto Scarborough, and the Centre for American Studies (CSUS) at the Munk Centre, Trinity College, University of Toronto. Further assistance was provided by an archives grant at the Rockefeller Archives Centre, Tarrytown, NY, and a Summer Library Fellowship at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. This project was brought to life by an amazing set of archivists who answered my vague and rambling inquiries with patience, humor, and unstinting professionalism. I would like to thank the staff at the Library of Congress, the Schomburg Centre in New York, Mary Ann Quinn at the Rockefeller Archive Centre, Fath Ruffins at the Smithsonian, Earl Spamer at the American Philosophical Society, and Richard Boylen and Walter Hill at the National Archives, College Park Maryland. Mr. Hill‘s immense knowledge of NARA‘s holdings in African American history saved me innumerable hours and led me on many productive detours. Even in the last stages of a losing battle with cancer, Mr. Hill remained a classic model of scholarly dignity and grace. Over the years I received invaluable guidance from a diverse group of scholars. Thanks to Stephen Brooke and Marc Stein at York University for setting me on this path as a young undergraduate. At the University of Toronto I would like to thank Elspeth Brown, Russ Kazal, Carol Chin, Yonatan Eyal, Kenneth Bartlett, Lori Loeb, and Randall Hansen for their support. Thanks also to Daravian Baldwin, Trinity College for profound last minute insights, and my external reader Mia Bay of Rutgers. Most importantly I was blessed with a remarkably vi supportive and gifted set of advisors. Michael ‗Discourse‘ Wayne consistently provided much needed intellectual and personal perspective. I am forever grateful to Rick Halpern who fought for me from my first day of graduate school to the last. Daniel Bender was a model advisor, providing any and all forms of intellectual, financial, and emotional support. I simply could not have asked for a better mentor. A wonderful cohort of my peers helped relieve much of the isolation and tedium of my graduate school experience, and helped shape my project in many unexpected ways. Thanks to Nancy Catton, Benjamin Pottruff, Nathan Cardon, Camille Begin, Holly Karibo, Peter Mersereau, and Ian Rocksborough-Smith. Thanks to Jared Toney and Nadia Lewis, great scholars, and better friends. My dear life-long friends outside the program sustained and supported me throughout the years. Thank you to Damian Temporale, Matthew Nailer, Mike Mjanes, Mike Hersh and Sarah Kissko for their hospitality in NYC, Ian Gooley, Jen Woods, Mark Melnyk, Sandra and Brian Neary, Patricia Moretti, and Jerry and Natalie Boccia. Special thanks to my co-conspirator in graduate studies and old friend, Dr. Jeremy Shtern. This project would simply not have been impossible without the unwavering love and encouragement of my family. My incredible in-laws, Tony and Pina Moretti fed, clothed, and housed us, all while caring for our little William. Though they may never read this dissertation, it exists because of their remarkable sacrifices. I can never begin to repay that debt. In Italy, Domencio Romanelli and family provided incredible hospitality and support. To my brother Matthew, a decent, kind, and talented man: don‘t forget us little people when you hit it big. To my parents, thank you for a lifetime of love and support. My father, Dr. Bruce Lawrie introduced me to the joys of the life of the mind, and my mother Linda Lawrie fortified me with her love and strength. I love you both very much. vii Finally, to my incredible wife Rose, words cannot fully express what you mean to me. You are my love, my partner, and my best friend. I am sorry for all the mistakes I have made in the past, and the many I am sure to make in the future, but with you at my side all is well. I cannot wait to see what the future holds for us. From the day you decided to sit beside me in a dreary undergraduate European history lecture at York University, you have brought laughter, passion, and happiness into my life. Ti amo mia venere tascabile. This dissertation is dedicated to our son, William Anthony Ellison Lawrie. Born during its initial stages, his finger prints are quite literally all over the project. His laughter, incessant questions about everything and anything, and non-stop diatribes about the merits of trains versus dinosaurs were always a welcome distraction. Your presence in my life is an extraordinary and sublime gift. You are my pride, my