Chicago, Jazz, and the Great Migration

Research Resources on Chicago and the Great Migration

Introduction

Some histories of jazz still cling to the romantic notion that jazz came north to Chicago on Mississippi riverboats after the closing of New Orleans' Storyville district in 1917. It makes a nice story, but the reality is a lot grittier. Jazz came straight to Chicago's 12th Street station via the Illinois Central Railroad, 200 miles east of where riverboats docked on the river. Part of a mass movement of African Americans from South to North -- what came to be called "The Great Migration" -- jazz musicians came north for the same reasons that other people did : failing crops and discrimination in the South; WWI demand for workers in Chicago factory jobs, paying decent money; and ads in the Chicago Defender holding out the hope of a better life up North.

Between about 1916 and the end of the 1920's, at least 75,000 Southern immigrants arrived on the South Side of Chicago -- including musicians. The newcomers immediately became part of an already flourishing African-American community on Chicago's South Side, the economic and entertainment district of which was known as "The Stroll." It was the prospect of work in a community that could afford to pay to have a good time that drew musicians to Chicago, where they assembled in an unprecedented critical mass of jazz talent.

Chicago boasted major musical talent and famous venues well before Storyville closed; sheet music featuring the Pekin Theater at 2700 South State dates from 1904. According to the Chicago Defender, Vendome Orchestra leader Erskine Tate played his first violin recital in Chicago in 1910; Wilbur Sweatman was in Chicago playing clarinet in 1906; and Jelly Roll Morton led the band at the Richelieu starting in 1914 and also appeared at the DeLuxe and Elite #2 Cafes during 1914-15. Various New Orleans musicians had already been north before 1917; Tom Brown's band in 1915 is widely regarded as the first band to come north.

By the time Freddie Keppard, Sidney Bechet, Lee Collins, King Oliver, and other New Orleans musicians arrived in 1918 to rub musical shoulders with the local talent, the classic New Orleans style had already begun to change in deference to local tastes. Chicago venue owners, patrons, and musicians expected hard-driving, uptempo playing, and they expected elegantly turned out musicians in sophisticated surroundings -- places like the Grand and Vendome Theaters, the Dreamland Ballroom, and clubs with posh names like Royal Gardens, Alvadere, Panama, and Sunset Cafe.

The rich musical scene on The Stroll inspired musicians from all over town; it was not unusual for white musicians to head to the Stroll after their North side gigs to see what they could pick up. Among those appearing regularly for "music lessons" in South Side clubs were Jimmy McPartland, Bud Freeman, Frank Teschemacher, Dave Tough, Gene Krupa, Muggsy Spanier, and Eddie Condon, who would collectively be credited with the creation of the "Chicago" jazz style of the 20's. [Introduction © 2003, Chicago Jazz Archive]

Lesson plans and curricular resources for teachers

Print Sources

Adero, Malaika, ed. Up South : stories, studies, and letters of this century's Black migrations New York : The New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton, 1993.
Adkins, LaTrese Evette. Dangers seen and unseen: Black women's mobility, community, and work during the migration era, 1915-1940. [M.A. thesis] Michigan State University, 1998. UMI AAT 1392175
Black, Timuel D. Jr. Bridges of Memory: Chicago's First Wave of Black Migration Chicago:Northwestern University Press, 2003.
Blair, Cynthia Marie. Vicious commerce: African American women's sex work and the transformation of urban space in Chicago, 1850--1915. Harvard University, 1999. UMI AAT 9949732
Davis, Angela Y. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holliday. New York : Pantheon Books, 1998.
DeSantis, Alan Douglas. Selling the American Dream: The Chicago Defender and the Great Migration of 1915-1919. Indiana University, 1993. UMI AAT9410408
Goodwin, E. Marvin Black migration in America from 1915 to 1960 : an uneasy exodus Lewiston : E. Mellen Press, c1990. E185.86.G640 1990
Grant, Robert B. The Black man comes to the city: a documentary account from the great migration to the great depression, 1915 to 1930 Chicago, Nelson-Hall Co., 1972
Griffin, Farah Jasmine. Who set you flowin'? Migraton, urbanization and African-American culture. Yale University, 1992. Not available from UMI
Grossman, James R. Land of hope : Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1989. F548.9.N4G760 1989
Grossman, James R., ed. Black workers in the era of great migration, 1916-1929 [Microfilm, 25 reels] Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, c. 1985 microfm E374
Harrison, Alfertdteen, ed. Black exodus : the great migration from the American South Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, c1991. E185.6.B6250 1991
Holley, Donald. The second great emancipation : the mechanical cotton picker, Black migration, and how they shaped the modern South Fayetteville : University of Arkansas, 2000. HD8039.C662 U644 2000
House, Roger Randolph, III. 'Keys to the highway': William 'Big Bill' Broonzy and the Chicago Blues in the era of the Great Migration. Boston University, 1999. UMI AAT9928197
Kalil, Timothy Michael. The role of the Great Migration of African-Americans to Chicago in the development of traditional black gospel piano by Thomas A. Dorsey, circa 1930. Kent State University, 1993. UMI AAT 9419241
Kenney, William Howland. Chicago jazz : a cultural history, 1904-1930 New York : Oxford University Press, 1993. ML3508.8.C5K460 1993
Lemann, Nicholas. The promised land : the great Black migration and how it changed America New York : Vintage Books, 1992. E185.6.L360 1992
Marks, Carole. Farewell, we're good and gone : the great black migration Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1989. E185.8.M220 1989
Peretti, Burton William. The creation of jazz : music, race, and culture in urban America Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1992. ML3508.P450 1992
Prince, Valerie Renee Sweeeny. Finding a place of my own: Home and the paradox of blues expressiveness (Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Randall Kenan, Gayl Jones, Ralph Ellison). University of Michigan, 1998. UMI AAT 9909969
Rodgers, Lawrence Richard. The Afro-American Great Migration novel. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1989. UMI AAT 8915557
Rowe, Mike. Chicago breakdown London : Eddison Press Ltd., 1973. ML3556.R87
Reprinted as: Chicago Blues, the City and the Music New York: DaCapo Press, 1975, 1981.
Sernett, Milton C. Bound for the promised land : African American religion and the great migration Durham [N.C.] : Duke University Press, 1997. BR563.N4 S474 1997
John Steiner, "Chicago" in Nat Hentoff and Albert J. McCarthy, eds. Jazz: New Perspectives On The History Of Jazz By Twelve Of The World's Foremost Jazz Critics And Scholars Da Capo Press, 1975
Stewart, Jacqueline Najuma. Migrating to the movies: The emergence of Black urban film culture, 1893--1920. [Chicago] The University of Chicago, 1999. UMI AAT 9951844
Trotter, Joe William Jr., ed. The Great migration in historical perspective : new dimensions of race, class, and gender Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1991 E185.86.G650 1991

Online sources

Primary source materials

The Chicago Jazz Archive's maps and items from the collections about jazz clubs in Chicago 1915-1940's , the first wave of the Great Migration.
Finding aid for materials on the Migration and on Chicago Jazz and Blues held in the Vivian Harsh Collection, Woodson Regional Branch of the Chicago Public Library.
Handwritten letters in response to the Bethlehem Baptist Association's listing in the Chicago Defender offering to assist migrants in finding work and places to live. [scroll down the page; click on image twice to enlarge]
Article from the Chicago Defender encouraging migration from the South courtesy of the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale University.
Documents from the History Matters site:
Electronic text of the Harlem issue (March 1925) of The Survey Graphic, courtesy of the Univ. of Virginia library.
Census Maps of the Migration from the University of Illinois - Chicago. [scroll down]
UofC only Scans of census records from Heritage Quest: Campus users Dial-up users
Charles Walton's Bronzeville Conversations from the Jazz Institute of Chicago
47th Street History from the website of Chicago jazz landmark Gerri's Palm Tavern

General

The Library's African-American Studies page
Loren Schoenberg on the Great Migration and Race Records from PBS
From PBS: The South, the North, and the Great Migration: Blues in Literature.
Chicago and the Great Migration courtesy of Illinois Periodicals Online from Northern Illinois University.
The Chicago Defender and the Great Migration courtesy of PBS
Chicago: Destination for the Great Migration from the African-American Mosaic at the Library of Congress
The Great Migration from the Online Encyclopedia of Chicago from the Chicago History Museum and the Newberry Library.
Great Migrations Resource Page from the University of Illinois - Chicago.
Understanding the Great Migration from the Illinois State Museum
Alabama and the Great Migration: Resources from the Alabama Department of Archives and History. Bibliography
Prof. Gerald Early's essay on the Great Migration from PBS. Includes an audio interview with Adero Malaika about his film, "Up South."
From the City of Chicago:
- Black Metropolis - Bronzeville District
- African-American History Tour
- The 1919 Chicago Race Riots from the Chicago Public Library
Chicago's Black Metropolis courtesy of the National Park Service
Chicago's Black Metropolis from DePaul University

The Great Migration in art, photos, and film

Katherine Horner's Prosperity from Sadness: Two Artists Depict The Great Migration from the University of North Carolina.
Frank Driggs and Harris Lewine, Black Beauty, White Heat: A Pictorial History of Classic Jazz 1920-1950. New York: DaCapo Press, 1995.
Up South: African-American migration in the era of the Great War Video and resources from the American Social History Project at CCNY.
By river, by rail [video] Princeton, N.J. : Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 1998. Mixed Media, VidCassE185.6.B9 1998

Accounts by musicians who came to Chicago during the Migration:

Thomas Brothers, ed. Louis Armstrong in his own words Oxford University Press 1999.
Louis Armstrong, Satchmo: My life in New Orleans Da Capo Press, 1986.
Sidney Bechet, Treat it Gentle: An Autobiography Da Capo Press, 1978.
Warren "Baby" Dodds with Larry Gara, The Baby Dodds Story Rev. ed. Louisiana State University Press, 1992.
James Dickerson, Just for a thrill : Lil Hardin Armstrong, first lady of jazz Cooper Square Press, 2002.
Alan Lomax et. al. Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and "Inventor of Jazz" University of California Press, 2001.
Laurie Wright, Walter C. Allen & Brian A.L. Rust's "King" Oliver Storyville Publications Co. Ltd., 1987.

Return To: Jazz Research