Demographic change and entrepreneurial occupations: African Americans in northern cities

In the early twentieth century, the African American (AA) populations of northern cities grew rapidly, whereas the foreign-born white populations of these cities stabilized. Stanley Lieberson has hypothesized that, in these cities, the resulting shifts in the ethnic composition negatively affected the economic prospects of AAs. The present study shows that the transformation of business enterprise among AAs in the urban North during 1900-1930 is consistent with this hypothesis. Census data and evidence from historical case studies suggest that the above demographic changes affected two trends: 1) a decline in the concentration of AAs in entrepreneurial occupations which served whites and 2) an increase in their concentration in entrepreneurial occupations serving other AAs.