1. Jacksonville was an early twentieth century Black metropolis
Dinner hour on Jacksonville’s riverfront docks in the course of the first decade of the twentieth century. | Library of Congress
Based by Isaiah D. Hart in 1822, Jacksonville grew into an antebellum river port the place enslaved African laborers labored as loggers, turpentiners, pilots, stevedores, carpenters, masons, and mill arms. It was additionally a hub for transport agricultural merchandise from surrounding plantations to market. After the Civil Warfare, Jacksonville developed into a serious regional railroad heart and a preferred vacationer vacation spot in the course of the Gilded Age.
For Gullah Geechee descendants in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, Jacksonville was referred to as the “Magic Metropolis” throughout an period when African People flocked to the town in search of financial alternatives. By 1900, African People made up 57% of Jacksonville’s inhabitants, setting it aside from the racial demographics of different Southern cities on the time.
2. Residence to the most important prepare station south of Washington, D.C.
Accomplished in 1919, the Jacksonville Terminal was designed by New York-based architect Kenneth M. Murchison and modeled after Penn Station. Lots of Murchison’s first main commissions have been railroad stations constructed for the Pennsylvania Railroad firm. | State Archives of Florida
In 1893, Henry F. Flagler established the Jacksonville Terminal Firm in LaVilla, simply west of downtown. Formally integrated on April 7, 1894, the corporate’s Union Depot passenger railroad station opened its doorways on February 4, 1895. By 1912, with not less than 92 trains passing by means of every day, plans have been made to assemble what would turn out to be the most important prepare station south of Washington, D.C. In 1915, New York architect Kenneth Murchison was chosen to design the brand new terminal.
Murchison’s early main commissions have been for railroad stations for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Among the many stations he designed have been the Delaware Lackawanna Station in Hoboken, New Jersey; the Lackawanna Terminal and the Lehigh Terminal in Buffalo, New York; and Pennsylvania Station in Baltimore, Maryland. For Jacksonville’s terminal, Murchison drew vital inspiration from the design of New York’s Pennsylvania Station.
As a transportation hub, Jacksonville grew to become the point of interest of the migration in the course of the station’s growth. Between 1916 and 1920, the town misplaced greater than 6,000 of its 35,000 Black residents to the Nice Migration. An extra 14,000 individuals from surrounding rural areas handed by means of the station en route out of the state. Research present that the most important proportional actions of African People within the South throughout this era occurred from West Florida, Tampa, and Jacksonville.
3. Pennsylvania Railroad recruits Jax’s disenfranchised Black labor pressure
African People on the Jacksonville Terminal, ready for a prepare headed to Newark, New Jersey in 1921. Between 1916 and 1940, it’s estimated that round two million African People migrated from the American south to New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and different northern industrial cities. | State Archives of Florida
Earlier than World Warfare II, railroad and manufacturing firms in northern cities relied on immigrants as their major labor pressure. When the struggle started in Europe, the stream of immigrants to the nation halted, prompting these industries to show to African People within the South to fill jobs wanted for his or her continued development.
Round this time, the Jacksonville Terminal Firm employed greater than 2,000 individuals, making it the town’s second-largest employer. Many of those employees, together with Pullman porters, part arms, and firemen, have been African American.
In early 1916, the Pennsylvania Railroad started recruiting Black laborers from Jacksonville by providing increased wages and free transportation to the North for these prepared to work on the railroad. The New York Central Railroad rapidly adopted swimsuit, hiring 500 males from the town in June 1916 and a complete of 1,500 over the next months.
With recruiting brokers providing six or seven {dollars} a day—in comparison with lower than a greenback a day in Jacksonville and surrounding rural areas—many African People have been keen to go away. By 1918, greater than 12,000 southern African People had taken benefit of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s free transportation program to the North.