“Cotton Belt Blues”: Lizzie Miles’s Blues SongThe “Great Migration” of the second two decades of the 20th century (the teens and twenties) reshaped northern cities—roughly 70,000 southern blacks settled in Chicago alone. Many used the city only as a temporary destination, moving to other cities in the North and West. During these years New York’s black population grew from 91,709 to 152,467; Detroit’s from 5,741 to 40,878; and Philadelphia’s from 84,459 to 134,229. Northern newspapers, word of mouth, and letters sent home by earlier migrants all contributed to the anticipation black southerners felt about opportunities for a new life in the North. Once they had settled in northern cities, however, many newcomers responded more ambivalently to their new surroundings in the face of northern-style racism, cold weather, high prices, crime, and loneliness.Some African-American blues musicians used their songs to describe the migrants’ reactions to their new homes. Lizzie Miles’s “Cotton Belt Blues,” recorded in 1923, expressed yearning for a former southern home.