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This paper is an attempt to give the most accurate facts obtainable bearing upon the question of colored domestic service in Philadelphia. It endeavors to show the relation of the colored domestic to the general domestic service problem on the one hand, and to the great mass of the Negro people on the other. The purpose, scope and methods of the work are the same as those already explained at length by Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois in the introduction to this volume, constituting the general report of the investigation conducted by the University of Pennsylvania.

The section treating Domestic Service is no unimportant division of the general subject. On the contrary, it is probably of more consequence than any other single aspect of the problem, since the number of domestic servants among colored wage-earners is shown by the last census to be greater in thirty-two out of forty-eight States than the number engaged in any other occupation; while in many cases it is greater than the number engaged in all other employments taken together. Indeed this predominance of domestic service over all other occupations followed by the Negroes, is recorded of every State in the Union, excepting the Southern States, where agriculture stands first and domestic service second. It will doubtless be surprising to many to hear that the census record shows that each of the Northern and Western States, with the single exception of Delaware, has more colored people in domestic service than in any other occupation, while in nearly seven in every ten of these States colored domestic service more than outnumbers the aggregate of all other occupations of colored people. The record for the State of Pennsylvania as given by the last census shows the following facts concerning occupations of Negroes throughout the State: