Feb. 5: Maia Silber, (Princeton University), “The ‘Stay-Overs’: Seasonal Farm Labor Migration and Public Employment Agencies, 1931-1973”

Comment: Cindy Hahamovitch, University of Georgia

This chapter of my dissertation in progress traces the history of domestic labor migration between Sanford, Florida, and New York’s Great Lakes region. Beginning in 1931, western New York vegetable growers recruited African American farm laborers from Florida’s “Celery City,” which shares the ecological characteristics that produce “muck” soil around the Great Lakes. Valued for their expertise in the difficult techniques of root vegetable cultivation, migrant farmworkers from Sanford constituted a labor force that was highly skilled and specialized even as it was also low-waged and exploited. Migrating seasonally between Florida for the winter harvest and New York for the late summer harvest, Sanford farmworkers were able to secure relatively regular work and develop strategies to survive the Jim Crow regimes of both the South and the North. Sanford farmworkers used the relatively high wages they earned in New York State to purchase property and establish businesses, in one case even aiming to incorporate an independent town. At the same time, farmworkers established social and economic networks during their time in western New York, enabling many to secure non-farm jobs and residence in New York cities such as Rochester, Syracuse, and Utica as well as small towns.

As a series of droughts, the adoption of mechanical harvest tools, and grower consolidation began to limit farm employment opportunities in New York State in the mid 1950s, Sanford farmworkers increasingly sought permanent urban residence in the North. The increasing settlement of migrant “stay-overs” produced a crisis in New York cities and towns. Local white elites accused migrant farmworkers of bringing crime and poverty to New York, while Black freedom activists and white social reformers aimed to draw attention to the low wages and harsh working conditions that led farmworkers to seek urban jobs and residence. But all three groups overlooked farmworkers’ skill and labor strategies, instead perceiving migrants as “wandering workers” who moved aimlessly up and down the East Coast in search of employment. As a result, they cooperated to pass legislation that enhanced the ability of public employment agencies to direct and restrict farmworkers’ movement through the licensing of crew leaders. It soon became, clear, though, that state agencies were more interested in maintaining growers’ labor supply than improving farmworkers’ labor conditions. In 1973, the NAACP joined forces with West-Coast advocates for Mexican-American farmworkers to sue the United States Employment Service for perpetuating forms of debt peonage. leading to a long series of legal actions over the course of the 1970s.

The Stay-Overs:Seasonal Farm Labor Migration and Public Employment Agencies