and Exuma, however, retained their status as British subjects in hopes of eventually returning to their homelands. Moreover, the dramatic increase in the city's black population between 1910 and 1920 is partly attributable to an influx of roughly 5,000 Bahamians brought to Miami during World War I to work in the vegetable fields of Dade County.5

The total number of white immigrants in Miami between 1910 and 1920 was negligible. In 1910 only 358, or 6.5 percent, of the city's population were foreign-born whites. Ten years later the 2,563 foreignborn whites in the city constituted 8.7 percent of Miami's population. The major groups of white immigrants in Miami by 1920 were 244 Germans, 351 Canadians, 373 Englishmen, and 479 West Indians. Clearly, then, with respect to the relative size of its white immigrant population between 1910 and 1920, Miami was overwhelmingly a city of native Americans.

Until 1917 Miami's prosperity depended heavily upon winter tourists and Henry Flagler's railroad. The vacation season lasted only from January through March, with the rest of the year for most of the permanent population rather haphazard in terms of employment. But with the establishment of flight training centers in the city after the United States entered the war, work became available for virtually everyone, and Miami had its first experience with inflation. Soldiers from the Aero Gunners School at Chapman Field, sailors from Dinner Key Naval Air Station, and marines from Curtiss Field crowded local businesses and spent much-welcomed dollars. Wages

5 Works Progress Administration, Miami and Dade County, Including Miami Beach and Coral Gables (Northport, N.Y., 1941), p. 4.

6 U.S., Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1910), vol. 2, Population, p. 197.

7 Hoyt Frazure, "Memories of Old Miami," Miami Herald, 1964.

for common laborers rose from $1.50 a day to $1.00 an hour. Carpenters who had been making $5.00 a day now made two to three times as much. For many Miamians it was time to be a "boomer," not a "knocker." 9 Between June 5, 1917, and September 12, 1918, there were three Selective Service registration periods in the United States. The first, on June 5, 1917, registered men between twenty-one and thirty; the second, between June 5 and August 24, 1918, registered men twenty-one years old; and the third, on September 12, 1918, registered men between eighteen and twenty and between thirty-two and forty-five years of age. In Dade County, Florida, the total registration for the three periods was 9,482, the city of Miami claimed over two-thirds of that figure.10

Using seven broad occupational categories ranging from unskilled to professional, the total of 6,435 Miami registrants was divided into four groups: native white, foreign white, native black, and foreign black. As the tables indicate, in terms of membership in the manual and nonmanual categories, the occupational distribution. among native whites was the most evenly divided of the four groups. With respect to membership within each category, the majority, 56 percent, of native-white manual workers were skilled, while the largest proportion of nonmanual workers, 34 percent, were proprietors-owners of establishments such as bicycle repair shops, restaurants, tailor shops, and grocery stores.

8 Ibid.

9 This was an expression used in the Official Directory of the City of Miami, 1907, p. 6.

10 Second Report of the Provost Marshal General to the Secretary of War on the Operations of the Selective Service System to December 20, 1918 (Washington, D.C., 1919), p. 503.

11 The seven categories shown in the tables are those applied by Richard J. Hopkins in his study, “Occupational and Geographic Mobility in Atlanta, 1870-1896," Journal of Southern History 34 (1968): 200-213.

The second most evenly divided group in terms of manual versus nonmanual occupations were foreign whites, who constituted only 10 percent of Miami's total number of registrants. Like the native-white manual workers, the majority of foreign whites in the manual class, 52 percent, were skilled, while the largest proportion of nonmanual workers, 63 percent, were proprietors. Why 63 percent of foreign-white nonmanual workers, were proprietors, as opposed to 34 percent of native-white nonmanual workers, is difficult to determine. The situation in

Miami, however, was neither unique nor even unusual in this respect, since European immigrants in other cities were often merchants, perhaps as the first step toward upward mobility either intra- or inter-generational. According to Richard J. Hopkins, for example, 34 percent of Atlanta's immigrants in 1870 were in the proprietorial class, compared to 22 percent of native whites. Many of these immigrant proprietors, Hopkins suggests, were transient peddlers.12 Whether this suggestion applies to Miami, however, is a question still to be answered, although the limited data analyzed thus far indicate that there were no immigrant peddlers in the city during the 1917-18 period.

.

When examining black occupational distribution in Miami during World War I, it seems appropriate to discuss the native- and foreign-born together, given the striking similarity between the two groups. The tables show, for instance, that in each aggregation over 90 percent of the members were in the manual class and that the vast majority in each group were unskilled. Of the nonmanual workers in each category, most were proprietors, with the larger percentage found among the foreign-born. Here, according to one source, the tendency among black Bahamians in Miami to own property in greater proportions than native blacks can be explained as one of several cultural differences between the two groups. In the Bahamas, with blacks heavily in the majority, opportunities for the possession of property, no matter how little, were generally available to blacks as well as whites, while in the United States blacks seldom participated in property ownership.13

During World War I the overwhelming majority of both foreign- and native-born blacks in Miami performed most of the un

12 Ibid.

13 Interview with Rev. Theodore Gibson, Episcopal priest in Miami and former president of the local chapter of the NAACP, Coconut Grove, Aug. 19, 1970.

skilled tasks of the city's work force such as common day labor. White immigrants, on the other hand, although over two-to-one in the manual class, were more evenly dispersed occupationally than either black group and were heavily concentrated in the skilled category. Given the disparity between both black groups and the white immigrants, it is plain that racial considerations were paramount in Miami's employment structure. A foreigner and a native American were treated alike if both were black. With respect to the distribution of native whites, it is not surprising that they occupied the position of greatest strength in relation to the other groups and un

doubtedly enjoyed the greatest number of benefits resulting from the city's wartime prosperity. The key queston of whether the occupational experience of blacks "fits anywhere on the immigrant spectrum" 14 requires further historical investigation. Hopefully, it will receive at least partial treatment from other researchers in their exploration of the World War I Selective Service records available in Atlanta.

14 Stephan Thernstrom, "Immigrants and WASPS: Ethnic Differences in Occupational Mobility in Boston, 1890-1940," in Stephan Thernstrom and Richard Sennett, eds., Nineteenth-Century Cities: Essays in the New Urban History (New Haven, 1969), pp. 125-164.

JACK F. KILFOIL

The most effective and stimulating approach to the study of history is that which allows the student to write it himself. Additional incentive is provided if the student is convinced that he is breaking new ground -that his research will perhaps result in a unique contribution to the study of history. In 1971 the history department at California State College, Dominguez Hills, with the cooperation of the Los Angeles Federal Records Center conducted an experimental class in historical methods for undergraduate history majors by using the resources of the records center as a historical laboratory. The following is a description of the pilot project.

First, a dozen items were selected from the center's preliminary inventories. Documents that were in fragile condition or that might be easily disarranged when handled by novice researchers were omitted. From this material three types of records were chosen as especially promising, using as criteria the self-contained nature of the set, the amount of narrative as opposed to printed forms, and the inherent interest of the material, for example, Chinese deportation cases rather than government boundary survey reports.

The assignment to the students was intentionally vague-go to the records center, plan to spend a few hours looking over the selected material in the search room, visit the center at least once again, and complete a report describing the experience. While it was not a requirement, the students were encouraged to try to unearth a story or a coherent sequence of events from the documents. Originally the students were to be given a tour of the records center to acquaint them with the history and purpose of the federal records centers. Unfortunately, a severe earthquake in February 1971 disrupted these plans, and, except for the initial group of six students, orientation was conducted on an individual basis as each student arrived. Because time would not allow this method as a regular procedure, a videotape tour and lecture was produced and in the future will be shown to each class prior to their visit to the center. It was also recommended that students read Gerald T. White, "Government Archives Afield: The Federal Records Centers and the Historian," Journal of American History, 55 (1969): 833-842.

The student reports produced after contact with archival material varied from general surveys evaluating the usefulness of such primary material to specific topics as, for example, "Racial Discrimination in the Federal Courts (United States District Court, Southern Division), 1912," "Cigar Smuggling and the United States Customs Office, San Diego, 1880-1886," "Enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Act in the Second Judicial District of the Territory of Arizona, 1907," and "Indian Families on the Fort Apache Reservation, 1912." These reports demonstrated that the students devoted extraordinary time and effort to the project primarily because they were thrilled at the prospect of seeing and touching the original source materials. One student, although he complained that the archival material was "quite dry and boring," visited the center more often than required and compiled a report that represented many hours of concentrated reading in a wide range of primary materials. Curiosity and the interest stimulated by contact with old documents acted as powerful attractions. One student stressed that "the work at the archives was a particularly interesting and beneficial exercise primarily because it was a new experience, but also because we seemed to be putting into practice what we had been studying and discussing in class.” The most common student complaint,

one that had been anticipated, was that they were unable to comprehend the significance of documents because their historical background was inadequate. Several more experienced history majors, prepared with background material, are now using records center resources for more ambitious research projects. The vast majority of Dominguez Hills history majors are preparing for elementary and secondary school teaching careers and probably will never undertake full-scale research projects. Their introduction to archival material was primarily to impress upon them the vast gulf between the raw evidence that has survived and the smooth narrative history texts, which they are assigned and from which they in turn will teach. Students learned that neither historians nor histories are infallible.

Because of the success of the pilot project, a new course, "Research Methods and Field Study," has been added to the history curriculum at Dominguez Hills. Required of all history majors in the junior year, the course seeks to develop critical and bibliographical skills for historical research and provide guided observation and analysis of manuscript collections and specialized libraries. The college will make use of the federal records center, where not only the historian and graduate student but the undegraduate is welcomed.