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The Evolution of Getting a Living in Middletown

Chin Family, 1930 Federal Census Manuscript

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Minority Entrepreneurialism Not all members of the minority community focused on industrial work. Entrepreneurial activity was an important part of the work experience in the non-white community. Among the Black businesses of Muncie, a sense of community thrived, reflecting trends within the wider United States. The lack of opportunities for training and skill development caused a shift to the service sector for minorities, who would then take the chance to create a business, helping their community prosper.[1] Many of these new service sector jobs focused on the social settings of restaurants, pool rooms, and barbershops. Since Blacks could not patronize white-owned businesses, Black entrepreneurs found opportunities catering to their own community.[2]
The experience of Ralph Pettiford, the owner of “The Pettiford Rug and Furniture Cleaning Company,” is one example of the Black small business experience in Muncie. Pettiford ran the business personally for forty years, beginning in 1917.[3] He was also part of many organizations within the city, most notably as a part of the Business Men’s League as the Treasurer.[4] The League represented the Black businesses of Muncie and helped with community outreach. This was part of a larger organizational movement that held positions at the state level.[5] Initiated by W.E.B. Du Bois, the organization ran on the theory that African Americans' depression in economic sectors was related to the societal suppression of the race and that to reach middle-class heights through entrepreneurship would help uplift the entire community.[6]
Pettiford understood that the fate of his business was connected to the development of the local Black community. Pettiford employed the largest number of African Americans in the area for some time, according to an interview with Muncie local Charles Booher, as well as becoming a board member of the colored YMCA.[7]

Black business owners sometimes felt pressure to serve their community. Although Pettiford was heavily involved in the city's Black life, people within the community felt as though he did not do all he could. As another Muncie local, Thomas Hall, reported in an interview, “he [Pettiford] is in the position to help somebody, but I don’t think he did."[8] Hall expected more contributions from Pettiford and other business owners to the community, as it seemed to him that the status of the Black community was not improving for everyone, only a select few. These expectations held true not just for Black business owners in Muncie, but also in other communities.[9]

While Black-run enterprises were the most prevalent of the minority businesses, entrepreneurialism offered other minority groups a way to make a living in Muncie. Until relatively recently, the city only had a handful of Chinese people. While a Chinese-run laundromat once existed, it seems to have only lasted for a few years. A locally-run Chinese restaurant from the early twentieth century, the Mandarin, had a short life but would evolve into a long standing restaurant known as the Mandarin Inn. What is more apparent is that the experiences of the few Chinese people in Muncie are very different from those of the larger and more visible Black population of the city. Their treatment by the majority White population of Middletown was very different. Although Chinese immigrants in larger cities across the nation faced deep prejudices Muncie seems to have been more welcoming. This may be because the Chinese population was too small to cause concern among Whites, unlike in cities such as San Francisco where there was a much larger Chinese community.

The way minority groups, especially small business owners, had to run their businesses in Middletown came with compromises and limitations in what they could do. The Chinese Laundromat (which was listed on the Sanborn fire map as “Chinese Laundry”) run by a Mark Singh seemed to have only lasted for a couple of years. It is listed only in the 1899 Emerson’s Muncie Directory and as well as on the Sanborn Fire Map for Muncie in 1902.[10] It is likely that the business either became unprofitable or Singh simply just moved somewhere else for better opportunities. Chinese laundromats in Indiana have had a varied history and reception from White Hoosiers. While they were quite common throughout the state, from major cities such as Indianapolis to smaller towns such as Muncie, their existence was met with opposition that occasionally turned violent.[11] Many newspapers in both Indiana and across the U.S. tended to portray Chinese laundromats as unsanitary and untrustworthy, with many of these criticisms riding on racial connotations about the Chinese employees.[12] Overall, there were few opportunities for a Chinese person due to the economic barriers they faced in the first half of the twentieth century.
Laundromats started to wane in prevalence later in the twentieth century, and restaurants became a major pathway for Chinese immigrants to start a business.[13] In Muncie, a Chinese restaurant was opened in the early 1910s by Tom Chinn on East Jackson Street. It incorporated both Chinese cuisine as well as well-known American dishes to appeal to locals.[14] One advertisement lists Chinese cuisine alongside chili con carne, which is most likely to cater to the majority White community that either had no interest in Chinese food or were unfamiliar with it. The restaurant would eventually be handed over to Tom’s nephew Lloyd Chin sometime in the 1920s. A 1926 newspaper article about the first Chinese person born in Muncie (Lloyd’s son) noted that he owned the Mandarin Inn.[15] The family would run the restaurant until Lloyd’s death in the 1940s, and the restaurant would remain operational until the 1970s. The family and the restaurant seemed to avoid controversy in Muncie, and were even quite popular, being among the few Chinese families in the city, but this also led to them being exoticised.[16] Their fame increased further when then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited the city in October of 1938. The First Lady stopped by the Mandarin Inn for some food, an event featured in an Evening Press article.[17]

There were several more articles about the Chin family which suggest that they were treated as an unthreatening novelty. Of course, this is not to say they never faced any discrimination, but it was not as severe as in other places that were quite hostile to Chinese businesses. As stated before, the relative lack of Chinese people probably made people more curious rather than wary of the Chin family. In bigger cities, the Chinese were seen as more of a nuisance and even a threat due to the fears of Yellow Peril at the time, a fear many Americans shared of a supposed invasion of the United States by Asians. For the Chins and Mark Singh, their experience in Muncie was seems less dramatic. In the context of the early to mid-twentieth century, Muncie was a safer place for them to live and work in.

[1] Sherry Cable and Tamara L. Mix, “Imperative and Race Relations: The Rise and Fall of the American Apartheid System,“ Journal of Black Studies 34, no. 2 (2003): 200.
[2] Mr. and Mrs Charles Booher, interviewed by Hurley Goodall, February 14, 1972, transcript and recording, Middletown Digital Oral History collections, Ball State University Archives and Special Collections, https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/MidOrHis/id/67/rec/4.
[3] “Pettiford Rites Set for Thursday,” Muncie Evening Press (Muncie, Indiana), June 20, 1972.
[4] “Colored Citizens Form Business Men’s League,” The Star Press (Muncie, Indiana), October 11, 1921.
[5] “Black State League Formation,” The Star Press (Muncie, Indiana) July 21, 1907.
[6] Mark David Higbee, “W. E. B. Du Bois, F. B. Ransom, the Madam Walker Company, and Black Business Leadership in the 1930s,“ Indiana Magazine of History 89, no. 2 (1993): 118-119
[7] “Muncie African American YMCA Board of Directors,” 1948, Other Side of Middletown Photographs,MSS.254, Ball State University Archives and Special Collections, https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/othermiddle/id/111/rec/1.
[8] Thomas W. Hall, interviewed by Johnnie Johnson, ca. 1971-1976, transcript and recording, Middletown Digital Oral History collections, Ball State University Archives and Special Collections, https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/MidOrHis/id/49/rec/2.
[9] One of the best examples is just an hour south-west of Muncie in Indianapolis, as the Madam CJ Walker business was able to uplift the community in several ways through theaters, beauty salons, and a social center in the 1930s. See Higbee, "W. E. B. Du Bois, F. B. Ransom, the Madam Walker Company."
[10] “Muncie, Indiana Sanborn Map, 1902, Sheet 09,” Muncie Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps collection, Ball State University Archives and Special Collections, https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/SanbrnMps/id/98/rec/2.
[11] "Mr. Chinee: Warned by Police Not to Choose This City," The Call-Leader (Elwood, Indiana), Aug 27, 1907.
[12] Wang, Joan. “Gender, Race and Civilization: The Competition between American Power Laundries and Chinese Steam Laundries, 1870s - 1920s.” American Studies International 40, no. 1 (2002): 65.
[13] Chen, Yong. “The Rise of Chinese Food in the United States.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, 2017.
[14] Charles Emerson, Emerson’s Muncie Directory, 1913-1914, Muncie City Directories Collection, Ball State University Archives and Special Collections, p. 60.
[15] “Mr. Chin and His family, Meet Mr. Chin!" Muncie Evening Press (Muncie, Indiana), Aug 26, 1926.
[16] Muncie Evening Press (Muncie, Indiana), Aug 26, 1926.
[17] Muncie Evening Press (Muncie, Indiana), Oct 28, 1939.