The Great Migration to the North and the Rise of Ethnic Niches for African American Women in Beauty Culture and Hairdressing, 1910–1920

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Abstract Ethnic niches are occupations into which minority workers concentrate in order to avoid employer discrimination and to advance economically. During the early years of the Great Migration, beauty culture and hairdressing became ethnic niches for African American women in northern cities. Based upon the labor market disadvantages of race and gender and on the rise of protected consumer markets, these niches sheltered many African American women from unemployment and provided some with ladders of upward social mobility. But while beauty culture and hairdressing created an economic enclave that led to prosperity for a few African American women, this enclave could not economically uplift African American women as a whole. So, like their male counterparts, African American women lacked suitable ethnic niches when they entered the industrial economy of the urban North.