American society changed immensely from 1880 to 1990. The evolution from an industrial to a post-industrial economy confronted successive cohorts of men and women with markedly different work and life opportunities. All classes and social groups had to accommodate themselves to this structural transformation, although their strategies and ability to exploit new options differed.

Our knowledge of social and economic change over the last century is extensive but fragmentary. We know myriad details about the confluence of structures and events in specific times and places, but have only a limited understanding of how long-term economic transformations affected the working lives of individuals and families across the nation. Since the 1960s, social historians have made great strides using community studies to illuminate the lives of the working class. Despite its undeniable achievements, however, this large body of research lacks the necessary frame of reference to enable consistent comparisons over time or to assess whether a particular community experience was typical. The working-class emphasis has also left poorly documented the evolution of middle-class family labor arrangements. Fortunately, new sources make it possible to redress these conspicuous deficiencies in our knowledge of the American past.

In my dissertation, I analyze the historical evolution of the American family economy over the last century. I examine the historical rates of female paid labor and, within the context of the family economy, explore the factors that induced women to enter the labor force. The analysis of male labor focuses on the evolution of the occupational structure and the attainment of specific social groups within it. Despite some revisionist arguments to the contrary, the experience of women in the economy changed dramatically since 1880, especially in the postwar period. The official record of female labor force growth is distorted, however. The gendered assumptions underlying occupation statistics necessitate a significant upward revision of published female work rates before 1940. Market labor performed in the household, particularly unpaid work, often went uncounted. The evidence also reveals a key change in family income-earning strategies in the twentieth century: married female paid labor went from being the last resort of needy families to a means of increasing family consumption. This transformation to paid labor outside the home, spearheaded by wives in lower white-collar families, was integral to women’s increased power in American society. As better jobs became accessible to women, the social status derived from work increasingly spurred middle-class female employment.

When the subject shifts from female to male labor, the analytical focus changes from labor force participation to position within the occupational structure. Economic rewards to specific jobs remained stable, but the entire occupational structure shifted upward as white-collar work grew at the expense of agriculture and unskilled labor. Although the economy steadily generated more better-paid occupations, men’s access to desirable jobs was persistently stratified by race, nativity, and age. In general, the steady evolution to higher-status jobs meant greater opportunities for each successive birth cohort, but the Great Depression and stagnation in the 1980s harmed the lifetime prospects of men who reached their work prime in those periods. Immigrants were disadvantaged in the labor market, but their sons consistently secured work of equal status to the native-born. In contrast, blacks of both sexes continue to suffer lower attainment than their human capital would suggest. Americans have always exhibited high rates of mobility in search of work, spurring visions ranging from a "safety valve" to the existence of a "floating proletariat." The census reveals that migration mildly enhanced male attainment, but geography was generally less important than a man’s personal characteristics.

I make extensive use of newly available quantitative sources in my dissertation, especially the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. The IPUMS combines U.S. census data from 1880 to 1990 into one coherent series, and is the core source for my thesis. For many people in the past, the census offers the only surviving record of their existence. The data enable us to penetrate beneath the published statistics to examine individuals’ actual responses on the original census manuscripts. For the first time, we can study at the individual level how employment status related to other personal and family characteristics for millions of persons over more than a century. As one of the designers of this historical database, I am the first researcher able to study the effects of occupational structure for the entire nation over such a time span. In addition to other quantitative evidence, I use archival sources to address the treatment of women’s labor by the Census Bureau.

My dissertation is fundamentally interdisciplinary, employing the methods, theories, and insights of recent historical work in sociology, economics, and history. Local studies will always remain vital and necessary, but the national, structural view of change is crucial to the further development of social and economic history. In addition to the specific questions my thesis addresses, it can provide valuable national historical context for other scholars, and will serve as a platform for my own future research.

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