30                       THE REVIEW

comprised 22.9 per cent.  To the social student, however, the
most significant fact is not that most Negroes are in domestic
service, but that an increasing number fill other employments.
To-day hundreds of Negroes fill positions in the city which
were practically beyond the reach of their race forty years
ago. The present generation has seen the rise of the profes-
sional class among Negroes, the semi-professional class and
the large entrepreneur.  The leaders of Negro society before
the war were largely among the caterers, head waiters and
coachmen; it is not so to-day.
      In the professions the census of 1900 gave 415 males and
170 females, 585 in all. There are today at least 1,000 Ne-
groes in that class, including physicians and surgeons, clergy-
men, dentists, teachers, electricians, architects, artists, musi-
cians, lawyers, journalists, civil engineers and surveyors, lit-
erary and scientific persons, actors, etc.; in fact, in nearly ev-
ery branch of professional service. Another comparatively
new line is the so-called semi-professional service, including
clerks, stenographers and typewriters, agents, bookkeepers,
etc.  Their rise in large numbers has been comparatively re
cent. Of the above there are now about 1,1OO in Philadel-
phia.
     The entrepreneur class has in the past twenty years made
great improvement, both in the amount of capital invested
and the character of the operations. The census of 1900 gave
297 males and 22 female retail merchants and dealers, and 10
wholesale. Besides these, there were 13 hotel keepers, 253
boarding house keepers, saloonkeepers and  others.       In  the




			

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 24, Num. 1

Negroes of Philadelphia

R.

Volume:  24
Issue Number:  01
Page Number:  20
Date:  07/1907