The Family Economy: Women and Children

Printed Page 557

Key Factors

In 1900, the typical male worker in manufacturing earned $500 a year, about $12,000 in today’s dollars. Many working-class families, whether native-born or immigrant, lived in or near poverty, their economic survival dependent on the contributions of all family members, regardless of sex or age. “Father,” asked one young immigrant girl, “does everybody in America live like this? Go to work early, come home late, eat and go to Sleep? And the next day again work, eat, and sleep?” Most workers did. The family economy meant that everyone contributed to maintain even the most meager household.

family economys

image Economic contributions of multiple members of a household that were necessary to the survival of the family. From the late nineteenth century into the twentieth, many working-class families depended on the wages of all family members, regardless of sex or age.

CHAPTER LOCATOR

Why did American cities experience explosive growth in the late nineteenth century?

What kinds of work did people do in industrial America?

Why did the fortunes of the Knights of Labor rise in the late 1870s and decline in the 1890s?

How did urban industrialism shape home life and the world of leisure?

How did municipal governments respond to the challenges of urban expansion?

Conclusion: Who built the cities?

image LearningCurve

Check what you know.

image
Figure false: Bootblacks
Figure false: The faces and hands of the two bootblacks shown here with a third boy on a New York City street in 1896 testify to their grimy trade. Boys as young as six worked on city streets as bootblacks and newsboys. For these child workers, education was a luxury they could not afford. Alice Austin photo, Staten Island Historical Society.

In the cities, boys as young as six years old plied their trades as bootblacks and newsboys. Often working under an adult contractor, these children earned as little as fifty cents a day. Many of them were homeless — orphaned or cast off by their families. “We wuz six, and we ain’t got no father,” a child of twelve told reporter Jacob Riis. “Some of us had to go.”

Child labor increased each decade after 1870. The percentage of children under fifteen engaged in paid labor did not drop until after World War I. The 1900 census estimated that 1,750,178 children ages ten to fifteen were employed, an increase of more than a million over thirty years. Children in this age range constituted more than 18 percent of the industrial labor force.

The number of women working for wages in nonagricultural occupations more than doubled between 1870 and 1900 (Figure 19.2). Yet white married women, even among the working class, rarely worked for wages outside the home. In 1890, only 3 percent were employed. Black women, married and unmarried, worked out of the home for wages in much greater numbers. The 1890 census showed that 25 percent of married African American women were employed, often as domestics in the houses of white families.

image
Figure false: FIGURE 19.2 Women and Work, 1870–1890
Figure false: In 1870, close to 1.5 million women worked in nonagricultural occupations. By 1890, that number had more than doubled to 3.7 million. More and more women sought work in manufacturing and mechanical industries, although domestic service still constituted the largest employment arena for women.