THERE they would wait, standing around as white women would walk or drive by and eye them up and down. When they were chosen they faced a day of hard housework, for what they were told would be about 30 cents an hour, though sometimes employers reneged and paid only half that. The Black women with the most calloused knees would be hired first -- worn knees indicated that the women were accustomed to scrubbing floors. The work was brutal, as the white mistresses would palm off on their Black menials all the nasty jobs they didn't want to do themselves. Statements made to journalists of that time suggest that most of the whites doing the hiring on the corner were Jews.

From "The Bronx Slave Market" [online]