LaShawn Harris has studied women workers in Harlem’s “informal (or underground) economy” during a half-century of movement and settlement before World War II. These women were not wage workers with regular hours. Their jobs were definitely not on the books and their hours were casual. But they knew the streets, they were quick thinkers, and they respected themselves whether or not they were seen or known in their own communities.
During those years Harlem was becoming a constantly changing world of tough economies and cultural excitement. In multidecade waves of migration, African Americans were traveling north to settle among kinfolk and to change their lives among strangers. And so did immigrants at the same time: from the Philippines, the West Indies, and other Caribbean homelands. Harlem dazzled the newcomers. This was a time for thriving commerce at every class level, from retail shops to street bargains out of pushcarts, to...
