Page 40 - A Narrative of the History of Roanoke Virginia

factories ended black access to semi-skilled jobs, eliminating employment for roughly
30 percent of African American females and 60 percent of African American males.
By 1883, consequently, almost all employed black women worked as domestic
servants and close to 90 percent of employed black males worked as unskilled
manual laborers. White men, by contrast, benefited the most from new industries,
with employment for them in skilled labor more than doubling.

Those moving to Roanoke from rural areas encountered numerous difficulties
adjusting to life in an urban setting. Newly arrived farmers, for example, saw nothing
wrong with letting livestock roam or with disposing of waste by simply throwing it
outside. Roanoke’s government attempted early on to end these and other practices,
but as residents poured in, it found itself fighting a losing battle to turn Roanoke into
something resembling a modern city. The town had no sewers, and although most
residents used box privies, some newcomers dumped their waste into streams or
yards. In the spring of 1882, after receiving numerous complaints, council passed a
law requiring all residents to use box privies. The ordinance stipulated that the boxes
be emptied beyond town limits at least twice a month but provided no municipal
resources for this.

In the fall, it also prohibited “owners of hogs from allowing them to run at large” and
ordered all residents to place waste in barrels monitored by the town scavenger,
imposing a fine of $5 to $10 on anyone caught dumping “soap-suds, slops, paper,
straw, melon or rinds, or refuse matter in any form” on any land within town limits.

In the spring of 1883, The Roanoke Leader reported that most new residents from the
countryside continued to do as they pleased. Many had strung up barbed wire fences
around their homes to keep livestock out and most, the paper complained, “are
accustomed to throw the accumulations of both chamber and kitchen into their yards,
while others dig holes in their yards and there deposit filth that causes stench that is
offensive to the olfactories of the neighborhood and inimical to health.” The paper’s
editor, S. S. Brooke, lectured the newcomers about the inappropriateness of barbed
wire fences and encouraged council to levy stiff penalties to “force them to have
regard for the health of their neighbors, if they have none for their own.”

In the eastern section of the city, the Roanoke Land & Improvement Company used
paternalism to push its residents to improve their section of town. The firm, “desirous
of adding to the beauty and attractiveness of the city,” began offering monetary
premiums to tenants with the “neatest & best laid out garden,” largest and best bloom,
and healthiest fruit or ornamental trees, shrubs, and vines. The company also
stepped in to supply amenities or services Roanoke’s under-funded municipal
government was unable to provide. On a hill to the southeast of the Machine Works,
for example, the firm laid out “Woodland Park” as a picnic and recreation space for
workers and their families. In the fall of 1883, Clarence Clark, a member of Roanoke
Land & Improvement Company, donated “a very unique and novel school house” for
shop workers’ children. Since many of those living in the company’s cottages were
Catholic, the firm also did what it could to facilitate their access to adequate worship
facilities. It provided an SVRR passenger car as a space for the town’s first Mass,
and in the fall of 1882, the firm donated a commanding hill behind the Hotel Roanoke