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“When the Cup of Endurance Runs Over: Defining Northern, Migrant Public Identity for the American Negro” By Itéa C. Bell Dissertation Director: Dr. Mark Krasovic Scholarship on the Great Migration has largely examined the event as a collective movement of one people, pushed or pulled by a number of interdependent factors. Few have studied the migrant himself, and even fewer have documented the shift in his public identity as he became a permanent member of Northern cities. For this reason, the objective of this research is to use twenty-five objects to track and define the way Northern Black migrants used and manipulated forces to in order to create their public identity over time of the in the United States during twentieth century. This work identifies the following points as critical to the migrant’s development as a Northerner over time: the end of his life as a sharecropper; the migrant in transit and his arrival as a new implant to a Northern, urban space; and his permanent settlement in Northern cities. An analysis of architecture, political cartoons, possessions, and the outward appearance of the Negro migrant were used as primary material culture resources in order to demonstrate the essential components of his identity. Through the examination of a variety of sites, the central identity components - internal drive and ambition; commitment to social and financial mobility; and to be skillfully innovative as a worker and inhabitant of a new environment – are linked to the development of key characteristics of the migrant’s identity at each of the three critical stages in time. This research determined that the identity of the Northern migrant was grounded in an ever-evolving hybrid of newly introduced Northern experiences and the deliberate retention of Southern qualities and traditions. Additionally, the fluidity of agency that Black migrants experienced at each stage of development led them to recognize the importance of wealth, influence, and upward mobility in order to display a positive public identity.

ETD_4792

M.A.

Includes bibliographical references

by Itéa C. Bell

http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore10002600001.ETD.000068658

doi:10.7282/T3FN14TG

ETD graduate

The author owns the copyright to this work.