S3E22: A Great Migration of Culture
The Great Migration of 1910-1970 delivered and developed much of our current American popular culture.
This episode is on the shorter side, but the topic itself is rather large. My drop-in guest, Gloria, who teaches social studies in Indiana, wished to talk about music related to the Great Migration of the 20th century, and we did, but we also found ourselves covering a great many other topics related to the mass movement of African Americans from the Southeast to points North and West between 1910 and 1970.
The map that I made part of the episode cover art shows the diaspora of Black people from the American South into (predominantly) urban areas of the North and West during the 20th century. The two World Wars in that period contributed to very strong waves, as Gloria points out, but they weren’t the sole reasons for the movement of people. Since the end of the Civil War African Americans were marginalized, persecuted and targeted in Southern society, both in practice and then by law, causing a build-up of desire to move to simmer by the late 19th century. By 1910, the numbers of families and individuals moving from South to North and West was to large enough proportions to be recognized historically.
The growth of the cities in this era is owed to both immigrants moving in from abroad and from these internal movements. Ida B. Wells is often compared with Jane Addams—they were friends, after all—because they both established settlement houses to assist new arrivals from Europe or the former Confederate States in getting adjusted to their new, urban surroundings. Both Wells and Addams were part of a generation of “New Women”; born during or right after the Civil War, college educated, reform-minded—these women would lead the charge of reshaping American culture in the transformational times of the turn of the century as the country went from Agricultural Empire to actual Empire.
The effects of these efforts and this movement of people on Pop Culture are immeasurable and as you’ll hear on the podcast, Gloria and I hardly go a minute without realizing how music, art, sports and even UFO-mania have ties to the Great Migration.