BHS US History II Practice Test

Industrial job opportunities in Northern cities drive the growth of Northern populations during the Great Migration. As factories expanded and wartime demand for labor surged, many African Americans left rural areas in the South to take higher-wage, steady jobs in urban plants—steel mills, auto plants, meatpacking, railroads, and other industries—in cities like Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia. This urban-industrial pull explains why Northern cities swelled while the South remained more agrarian.

Other options don’t fit as well: migration was not caused by new laws banning it, and such laws were not a real factor in this period. Deindustrialization would reduce industrial jobs and population growth, not explain the significant Northward flow during the early 20th century. Rural farming prospects in the North were limited; the North offered more industrial opportunities in cities than farmland for migrants seeking work.