Atlas Obscura and the Great Migration, by Rail

[Barb Stout]

I'm loving that the "Special Northern Pacific Train," which sounds very much like it follows (most of) the route of today's Empire Builder, collected Norwegians from the Northwest then Montana and the Dakotas before meeting up with other travelers (via Chicago, I bet?) in Minneapolis. "Proceed to New York, in one grand party." I bet the aquavit started flowing long, long before Minneapolis.

The May 1914 date is poignant. Historian David Fromkin titled his book on the run-up to war Europe's Last Summer.

redacted

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

Of course, the PacNW's most famous Norwegian's family hailed from Canada... (and he was born in.... wait for it... California)

Back to the Great Migration and Amtrak, I'm reminded of HS classmate who moved from the South, Louisiana, iirc, in the mid-80's (tail end of the Migration) and he complained about how cold Chicago was in July/August after getting off the train compared to the south - my questions was "wasn't the train air conditioned?" which of course it was.

 

[Trollopian]

Back to the Great Migration and Amtrak, I'm reminded of HS classmate who moved from the South, Louisiana, iirc, in the mid-80's (tail end of the Migration) and he complained about how cold Chicago was in July/August after getting off the train compared to the south - my questions was "wasn't the train air conditioned?" which of course it was.

And I'm reminded of the Black co-worker, on the IT staff of my small DC-based government agency, who rarely joined the (very normal) grousing about our workload and our clients and our layers of review and unreasonable deadlines and etc. He grew up near Philly but his parents sent him and his brother every summer to his grandparents in SC. And they worked. Really worked. Outdoors, in heat and humidity and insects, hard manual work. He remarked that any air-conditioned office job seemed plummy in comparison.

Sure enough, maps of the Great Migration (like this one, The Great Migration: The African American Exodus from The South - Priceonomics, and the sources cited in the post that kicked off this thread) suggest that African-Americans in eastern cities like DC, Baltimore, and Philly typically came from the Carolinas and Virginia, while the industrial Midwest received migrants from Mississippi and Alabama, and California from Louisiana and Texas.

Emmett Till, who was born and raised in Chicago, was visiting family in Mississippi when he was lynched. That, too, comports with the geography of Great Migration.

 

[Asher]

I’m reminded of a guy who worked for UPS in the early 80s who happened to be black. He stopped regularly at my shop and I had known him for quite some time when he told me he was leaving and moving back to Atlanta. My reaction was Why? He said he wanted to move back to live closer to family. It seems to have been a popular happening with many folks. I always regretted my rude response.