placing contracts for supplies and using business methods realize
handsome incomes. Many Negroes thus enriched purchased real estate and
went into business in Cincinnati.[31] The other force, the rise of the
Negro mechanic, was made possible by overcoming much of the prejudice
which had at first been encountered. A great change in this respect had
taken place in Cincinnati by 1840. Many who had been forced to work as
menial laborers then had the opportunity to show their usefulness to
their families and to the community. Colored mechanics were then getting
as much skilled labor as they could do. It was not uncommon for white
artisans to solicit employment of colored men because they had the
reputation of being better paymasters than master workmen of the more
favored race.[32] White mechanics not only worked with colored men but
often associated with them, patronized the same barber shop, and went to
the same places of amusement.[33]

In this prosperous condition the Negroes could help themselves. Prior to
this period they had been unable to make any sacrifices for charity and
education. Only $150 of the $1,000 raised for Negro education in 1835
was contributed by persons of color. In 1839, however, the colored
people raised $889.30 for this purpose, and thanks to their economic
progress, this task was not so difficult as that of raising the $150 in
1835. They were then spending considerable amounts for evening and
writing schools, attended by seventy-five persons, chiefly adults. In
1840 Reverend Mr. Denham and Mr. Goodwin had in their schools sixty-five
pupils each paying $3 per quarter, and Miss Merrill a school of
forty-seven pupils paying the same tuition. In all, the colored people
were paying these teachers about $1,300 a year. The only help the
Negroes were then receiving was that from the Ladies' Anti-Slavery
Society, which employed one Miss Seymour at a salary of $300 a year to
instruct fifty-four pupils. Moreover, the colored people were giving