African American Food: Since Emancipation: Catering and Food Service

The African American caterers in particular were comparatively well to do; they employed other members of their community, met with prominent white families, and were social leaders and noted abolitionists. In The Philadelphia Negro, W. E. B. Du Bois described the situation in 1840s Philadelphia, but there were similar developments in New York and Boston:

The whole catering business, arising from an evolution shrewdly, persistently and tastefully directed, transformed the Negro cook and waiter into the public caterer and restaurateur, and raised a crowd of underpaid menials to become a set of self-reliant, original business men, who amassed fortunes for themselves and won general respect for their people.