income

Thousandaires.

For the first time in 1940, the federal census recorded income. As reported in column 32, “Amount of money wages or salary received (including commissions),” these 27 men and women had the highest incomes among African-Americans in the city:

  • Joseph Cowan, $2355, medical doctor
  • Jasper McClain, $2200, bricklayer
  • Edward M. Barnes, $1720, principal — high school
  • Alex A. Morisey, $1600, newspaper reporter
  • Rufus Hilliard, $1300, power plant fireman — City of Wilson
  • Benjamin Mincey, $1280, plumber — City of Wilson
  • Luther Hamonds, $1274, fireman — light plant
  • Richard Foster, $1200, minister — Saint John Methodist
  • Aaron Pittman, $1200, brickmason
  • James Speight, $1200, janitor — post office
  • M.D. Williams, $1200, teacher — public school
  • Jeff Russell, $1190, bricklayer
  • James Sellers, $1170, brickmason
  • Cecil Spellman, $1140, farm demonstration — County of Wilson
  • Jesse Holden, $1100, brickmason
  • Flora Bethel, $1088, school teacher — Darden High School
  • Ruth Coppedge, $1078, school teacher — county school
  • Florence Whitley, $1078, school teacher — city graded school
  • Chester McNeal, $1066, porter — railroad station
  • Ike Collins, $1040, cook — cafe
  • Branch Hines, $1040, W.P.A. laborer
  • Roderick Taylor, $1040, barber
  • Fred Wingate, $1029, fireman — oil mill
  • Ned Brown, $1000, odd jobs laborer
  • Alberta Daniels, $1000, school teacher — private school
  • Tom Little, $1000, cement finisher — building contractor
  • Willie Reid, $1000, barber — own shop

Notes:

  • Only four women earned a thousand or more dollars a year, all of them teachers. (At what “private school” did Alberta Daniels teach?)
  • Dr. Joseph F. Cowan reported the highest salary of any African-American in town. However, other doctors and dentists in East Wilson, including Boisey O. Barnes, George K. Butterfield Sr., and William A. Mitchner, reported no wages or salary at all, perhaps because their income derived not from self-paid salaries, but from practice or business profits or investments.)
  • The (presumably) wealthiest businessmen and real estate developers in East Wilson, such as Samuel H. Vick, William Hines, Walter Hines, Camillus L. Darden and O. Nestus Freeman, also reported no income to the census enumerator.
  • Brickmasonry was far and away the most remunerative skilled construction trade.
  • Factory firemen, who stoked the enormous boilers that powered plants, were also relatively well-paid.