Migration panel 36. They arrived in great numbers into Chicago, the gateway of the West.

A line of livestock trails across the foreground of the panel horizontally. Two packing houses stand in the background pumping thick smoke into the air. Here, Lawrence counters his traditional depictions of Southern farm life and poverty in the series, depicting an industrialized agriculture instead. Farms as such differed from the Southern farms migrants were used to. Livestock and crops were sent from the Midwest to major cities to be processed and distributed. Chicago, being a major hub for the meat packing industry, was not only a large source of industrial agricultural sites, but also employment. Stockyards and meatpacking plants drew thousands of black workers to them both during and after World War I, as portrayed on this panel.
SKU: 65191
Creator: Jacob Lawrence
Date: 1940-41
Original Medium: Tempera on gesso on composition board
Original Size: 12 x 18 in
Location: Museum of Modern Art, NY
© 2016 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York