National Urban League records, 1911-1916

Thousands of African Americans migrated from the rural south to the industrial north at the start of the twentieth century. Having left the country in search of better jobs and higher wages, many were disappointed with the conditions of urban life and labor: racial discrimination, exploitation, paltry wages and squalid living conditions. Several social welfare organizations emerged in the early twentieth century to address these problems and The National Urban League emerged in 1911 from three such predecessor organizations: the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes (CUC); the National League for the Protection of Colored Women (NLPCW); and the Committee for Improving the Industrial Conditions of Negroes in New York (CIICNNY).

The NLPCW and the CIICNNY were founded between 1905 and 1906 and set out to provide support for African American women (who often found themselves forced into prostitution to survive) and to ameliorate industrial conditions for African American workers respectively. These forerunners of The National Urban League laid important groundwork for the organization and many projects and personnel transferred over. However, both had narrow missions that failed to address wider issues that contributed to the problems facing urban African Americans and had limited access to funds and resources, with the CIICNNY's staff solely comprised of volunteers.

The CUC was established in 1910 to address a broader spectrum of problems and became the immediate forerunner of the Urban League. Two figures were the primary force behind establishing the League: George Edmund Haynes, an African American sociologist and Columbia University Ph.D. graduate and Ruth Standish Baldwin, a white social activist. A wealthy widow, Baldwin was an active member in both the CIICNNY and NLPCW and recruited Haynes to expand the mandate of both organizations to address broader educational, sociological and vocational issues related to African American migration.

Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1880, Haynes obtained his Bachelor's degree from Fisk University, Tennessee in 1903 and was subsequently admitted to Yale Graduate School on a scholarship to pursue his Master's in sociology. Having spent the following two years working as a traveling student secretary for the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), Haynes returned to graduate school, completing his Ph.D. at The University of Chicago and Columbia University's School of Social Work, where he became the University's first African American doctoral graduate in 1912. His thesis, The Negro at Work in New York City, was published by Columbia University Press in the same year.

The CUC merged with the NLPCW and CIICNNY in 1911 to form The National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes (a name shortened to The National Urban League in 1920). An interracial committee of 18 men and 7 women formed the first committee with Professor Edwin R. A. Seligman of Columbia University, serving as chairman from 1911 to 1913. The organization's initial projects included counseling new African American migrants, training African American social workers and expanding employment and educational opportunities for African Americans. It also conducted research into the difficulties facing urban African Americans, including housing, health and sanitation. By the end of World War I, the organization had 81 staff members working in 30 cities.

Haynes served as director of the National Urban League between 1911 and 1918, with Baldwin as his chairwoman between 1913 and 1915. Haynes accepted a position at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee in order to organize a department of social science to train African American social workers. Haynes taught a course on urban conditions for African Americans and opened the Bethlehem Training Center in 1914, a League-supported center which trained African American social workers. He also corresponded regularly with important figures in the League including Board Chairman Hollingworth L. Wood, later industrial relations director T. Arnold Hill and his former classmate and economist, Edmund Ewing Pratt. In 1918, Haynes left for Washington, D.C. to work as director of Negro Economics for the Department of Labor. Eugene Kinckle Jones succeeded him as director of the League, retiring several decades later in 1941. Both The League and Haynes continued to flourish, with Haynes working as a Professor at City College, New York and the League expanding to a national organization with affiliates in 35 states in 2008. (Historical information provided by the website for the National Urban League.).