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The fluctuations in occupations for Negroes reveal losses and gains in the number of workers in the same occupations in which other workers have lost and gained, the percentage of which may vary but as a rule the direction, whether up or down, is the same for Negroes as for whites.  There are hopeful signs with respect to this record.  The gains for Negroes are frequently in excess of the gains for the total population.  Salesmen and saleswomen, for instance, increased by 75.7 per cent, but Negro salesmen and saleswomen increased by 111 per cent.  In the case of wholesale dealers, importers and exporters, showing a 13.5 per cent increase, Negroes so classified increased by 94 per cent.  Where librarians increased 93.5 per cent, Negro librarians increased 204.3 per cent.  The principal changes in Negro occupations are shown in the master table on employment. (See Appendix, Table IX.)

Business

Considerable progress has been made in the field of business. The following table shows the progress in small retail business owned and operated by Negroes. 

TABLE VI. 

DISTRIBUTION OF NEGRO RETAIL DEALERS 
IN THE UNITED STATES 
and 
PER CENT CHANGE 1930-1920

[[table]] 

             Negro Retail Dealers | Per Cent
Dealers In |    1930  |    1920   | Change

ALL RETAIL DEALERS | 28,213 | 23,526 | 19.9
Automobiles and Accessories | 111 | 45 | 117.0
Candy and Confectionery | 1,333| 573 | 132.6
Department Stores | 18 | 34 | -47.1
Drug Stores | 1,482 | 910 | 62.8
Hucksters and Peddlers | 4,356 | 3,194 | 36.4
Jewelry | 88 | 96 | -8.3
Junk and Rags | 2,445 | 1,232 | 98.2
Opticians | 44 | 50 | -12.0

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The total business class among Negroes, exclusive of barber shops, hairdressing parlors, and hucksters and peddlers, now numbers approximately 65,000 entrepreneurs.  The importance of this group in our economic life is becoming increasingly evident. 

The Professions 

There exists a popular conception that professional occupations among Negroes are overcrowded.  This is not true.  Though 136,000 Negroes are employed in the professions, we are badly understaffed in all professional occupations save in the field of the ministry.  The problem is not one of over-population, but one of congestion.  Negro professionals increased from 34,000 in 1890 to 135,000 in 1930.  In the technical fields, despite the onslaught in the Machine Age, there has been a marked advance, particularly in the field of chemistry and metallurgy where the number of Negro technicians increased twice as rapidly as the white group.  Mining, civil, electrical and mechanical engineers increased 90 per cent during the 1920-1930 decade, while the total number increased approximately 65 per cent. Architects, draftsmen, and designers showed only a slight increase. 

Medical practitioners increased rapidly from 1900 to 1910, but much less rapidly from 1920-1930.  In fact, since 1910 there has been a relative decline in the number of physicians-both white and black.  On the other hand, there has been a twelve-fold increase in the number of dentists who now number approximately 1,700. 

Of growing importance is the employment of librarians and social workers, actors, artists and musicians.  Each of these groups showed increases of more than half their total 1920 occupancy 1930.  Actors increased more than 100 per cent.  The motion picture industry gave employment to approximately 5,000 Negroes, annually, during the period 1925-1930.  During 1928 more than 10,000 Negroes received extra employment through Hollywood’s Central Casting Bureau.  Social workers increased from 1,200 in 1920 to 2,400 in 1930.  Musicians and teachers of music, riding the crest of the popular demand for syncopated rhythm, increased from 5,700 to 11,500-three times as rapidly as did the white group.
 
Teachers and clergymen, representing the older individual professions, assumed much larger proportions in the last decade.  College presidents and professors, now numbering approximately 1,100 increased more than 100 per cent; while school teachers increased 53.3 per cent. Both of these

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