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Housing Migrant Labor

Housing Migrant Labor

Between 1939 and 1945, Seabrook Farms and neighboring agricultural enterprises in southern New Jersey, such as the Campbell Soup Company, received an enormous influx of seasonal migrant workers to meet increased wartime production needs. These workers came from Barbados, Jamaica, and other islands of the British West Indies, as well from Puerto Rico and the United States South. Taking advantage of its privileges as a wartime contractor, Seabrook used the War Manpower Commission, a federal agency created during the war, and the United States Information Service, a network of employment agencies, to manage its recruitment needs.



Seabrook Farms both built and leased housing accommodations for migrant laborers and their families. In 1942, Seabrook had constructed flimsy prefabricated housing – located in “Field No. 16” – that were occupied by white Southern migrant workers and their families. In an anonymous November 1943 letter to Helen Sater, a representative of the Labor Department who had investigated living conditions at Seabrook, a white woman from Tennessee complained that although she and other workers had been promised free housing upon their recruitment, the company was now charging them $2.75 a month for single rooms and $2 a month for doubles. According to the writer, company officials justified the new terms by appealing to racial anxieties. White workers, the Tennessee author noted, were told that the rent would “keep the place for people like us,” and keep out black tenants.



Black workers from the South and Caribbean lived in a temporary tent village, a vacated Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp, and the camp at Big Oaks. The camp at Big Oaks was administered by the Farm Security Administration and in June 1943 housed 516 single Jamaican men living in prefabricated wooden housing and converted barns with an additional 500 migrant black laborers from the South, including families, living in tents. Neither Seabrook nor the FSA provided adequate food storage or cooking facilities, and very few structures were equipped with indoor plumbing. Instead, tiny outhouses built over shallow pits served as communal toilets, and water faucets were located at the end of the street; hot water was not usually available. No childcare was offered to workers who had come to New Jersey with their families. No agency took responsibility for garbage collection, an arrangement which left fecal matter and waste rotting in piles around the perimeter of the camps. Although these accommodations were only supposed to be temporary, few of the migrant workers remained at Seabrook long enough to move into the better accommodations built by the Federal Public Housing Authority, which ended being occupied by paroled internees instead.



These deplorable sanitary conditions created a breeding ground for diseases, infections, and other health hazards. In addition to the investigation conducted by the Department of Labor along with the War Manpower Commission, Seabrook Farms also found itself facing scrutiny from the Consumers League of New Jersey, a reform agency that was pushing for the improved treatment of migrant workers in the states. As Mary Dyckman, President of the League quipped in a 1944 letter to the New Jersey Department of Health, after observing conditions at Big Oaks camp: “That place looks to me like a beautiful set up for the development of any epidemic.” Persistent pressure eventually led the New Jersey state legislature to pass a Migrant Labor Act in 1945, which provided baseline and enforceable standards for what companies had to provide to migrant workers. In Seabrook’s case, however, the legislation had little effect with the arrival of Issei and Nisei workers who were housed in permanent accommodations.

Bridgeton, New Jersey. Seabrook Farm. Company houses built by Seabrook for migrant workers

Prefabricated houses - located in "Field no. 16" - were preferred residences at Seabrook, and in 1943 and 1944 housed white Southern migrant workers and their families. Though small and made of flimsy material, they were provided better shelter than the simple tents and converted farmhouses provided to mainly black migrants from the South. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress

Typed transcript of letter to Helen Sater, U.S. Dept. of Labor, November 6, 1943

In this letter, a white woman residing at Seabrook writes that although she and other workers had been promised free housing at Seabrook, the company was now attempting to charge them. The company's justification for the increase - that it was necessary to "keep the place for people like us" and exclude black workers - demonstrates management's attempts to foster racial antagonism in order to increase profits. Courtesy of the Consumers League of New Jersey Records, MC 1090, Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries

Bridgeton, New Jersey. FSA (Farm Security Administration) agricultural workers' camp

The Farm Security Administration, which operated the camp at Big Oaks, constructed housing using materials not affected by wartime shortages.These structures typically housed guestworkers from the Caribbean, who, subject to treaty agreements with the British colonial governments in Barbados and Jamaica, usually received better accommodations than black migrants from the U.S. South. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress

Bridgeton, New Jersey. FSA (Farm Security Administration) agricultural workers' camp. Picker and farmhand who lives in the corner of an old barn by himself on a farm

A worker stands outside of a barn in the Big Oaks FSA migrant labor camp in Bridgeton, NJ. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress

Bridgeton, New Jersey. FSA (Farm Security Administration) agricultural workers' camp. Single men live in the tents; families live in the houses

Tent housing at the FSA migrant labor camp was occupied mainly by black workers from the U.S. South. These workers typically received the worst housing accommodations. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress

Bridgeton, New Jersey. Migrant who lives alone in a barn on the farm where he works

Migrant workers like the man living in this barn often did not have adequate food storage or cooking facilities. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress

Bridgeton, New Jersey. FSA (Farm Security Administration) agricultural workers' camp. Prefabricated houses, made from materials not affected by wartime shortages, at the camp

Toilets installed over pits were among the many sanitary concerns that surrounded living conditions in the migrant labor camps. Visitors to the camp commented on the unbearable smell that emanated from the outhouses, which were also breeding places for mosquitoes. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress

Bridgeton, New Jersey. FSA (Farm Security Administration) agricultural workers' camp. Water is piped conveniently through the camp

Pumps like the one featured here were the sole source of water at the FSA camp. Access to uncontaminated water posed another concern to reformers. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress

Bridgeton, New Jersey. FSA (Farm Security Administration) agricultural workers' camp. Wash day. In the near future the camp will have a completely modern laundry unit

Special laundry stations were created by the FSA at Big Oaks, and were served by pumped-in cold water. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress

Letter from Mary Dyckman to NJ Dept of Health, August 11, 1944

A letter from Mary Dyckman, President of the New Jersey Consumers League, to Dr. Julius Levy, a state health official, details sanitary conditions at the camps and notes racial discrimination in the allocation of housing. While housing conditions for laborers at Seabrook would improve with the opening of new residencies in 1944 and 1945, most migrant laborers would not benefit from improved conditions, with the newer housing going to Japanese parolees and Estonians instead. Courtesy of the Consumers League of New Jersey Records, MC 1090, Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries