There is little direct evidence available for the period from about 1875 to 1909. The census of 1900 gave a return of Negroes in occupations which may indicate proprietors of establishments, but there is no way of ascertaining whether they owned, operated or were employed in such lines of business. There were in all 488 distributed as follows: Among the males, boarding and lodging-house keepers 10, hotel-keepers 23, restaurant keepers 116, saloon keepers 27, bankers and brokers 5, livery-stable keepers 9, merchants and dealers 162 (retail 155, wholesale 7), undertakers 15, clock and watchmakers and repairers 2, manufacturers and officials 36, and photographers 22. The females included boarding and lodging-house keepers 50, milliners 9, and photographers 2. A goodly number of Negro enterprises are very probably represented in this list. That this is true is evident from the large number of enterprises in the various lines of business that were found by the canvass of 1909. We may safely infer that the period was one of considerable growth in both the number and variety of business establishments. We shall, therefore, turn our attention to the result of the canvass of the last-named year. 3. THE NATURE OF THE ESTABLISHMENTS IN 1909 The first question which naturally arises is how many Negro business enterprises were in Manhattan in 1909. At the meeting of the National Negro Business League in New York City in 1908, a paper was read on "The Negro Business Interests of Greater New York and Vicinity." This paper gave a total of 565 enterprises. But as this included 100 dressmaking and 14 stenography and typewriting, this estimate doubtless included some cases that upon closer analysis could not have been designated as business establishments. A Negro business directory of New York City in 1909 gave names and addresses of 567 establishments. Upon investigation some of these could not be found at addresses given. From his own canvass, the writer estimates the number of bona-fide business enterprises in Manhattan to have been about 475. Of this number, records of 332 were secured and the remainder were either visited or certified by reliable testimony. Of the 332 records, 15 have been excluded either because the firm has ceased to do business or the records were too incomplete for use in this monograph; eight of the remainder were corporations and will be treated below separately. This left 309 establishments upon which to base conclusions. These establishments were so distributed as to be fully representative of the whole. According to the kind of service or goods offered to the public, these 309 establishments were as follows: