T HE purpose of this study is to give a general view of the major changes which have taken place in the composition of our laboring force during a period when striking economic changes have occurred in the United States as a whole. The attempt has been made to secure roughly homogeneous occupational groups from the data furnished in the decennial censuses from I850 to I920. The character of these data precludes the obtaining of rigorously demonstrable conclusions; yet the decisiveness and persistence of certain of the tendencies are such as to warrant several interesting inferences. Economic theory indicates that, with the development of a nation along industrial lines, a larger proportion of the population tends to be engaged in the rendering of services, and a smaller proportion in the production of goods. Statistical verification of this tendency has been sought in the present investigation, and the results, though derived from data highly unsatisfactory in many respects, do furnish a definite confirmation of economic theory upon this point. It must be granted at the outset that the present paper can endeavor to utilize data from but a small fraction of the numerous occupational tables. Many other lines of inquiry are suggested from an examination of these decennial reports. The student of social statistics might find greater interest in examining the changes in the relative numbers of women and children engaged in the various gainful occupations. The economic historian might prefer to make international comparisons which would indicate the stages of development of our nation from an industrial point of view. These lines of departure, as well as many others, would undoubtedly prove of interest, but lie wholly beyond the present attempt to give a broad picture of changes in the main groups of our working population for the past three quarters of a century. In I850 the first effort was made to enumerate comprehensively the workers engaged in the various lines of industry. Prior to that year, there had been fragmentary compilations (as early as I820), but nothing which could readily be joined to the more complete data in later reports. From the middle of the nineteenth century onward, however, it is possible to divide the gainfully employed population into six main groups, with sufficiently clear lines of demarcation to avoid serious errors in classification. These six groups, which will be discussed in much more detail below, are: primary production (including farmers, miners, etc.), manufacturing production, trade, transportation, professional service, and domestic and personal service. Continual changes in the compilation of the census material render the computation of such group totals very difficult. For example, the I850 census reported only males over the age of I5 in the various industries; while that of i860 reported both males and females over the age of I5, with no indication of the proportions of the sexes. In I870, both men and women were included for the ages I0-I5, I6-59, and 6o and over. So far as the main age groups are concerned, the I870 model has been followed for subsequent reports. In other respects, however, modifications have continued to be made. Regularly, from one decennial period to the next, there are certain changes in the industrial organization which call for the addition of new categories, and lead to the abandonment of others. In addition, there have been two major revisions of the arrangement and form of the occupational reports, the first in I870, and the second in I9g0. These changes, while improving greatly the utility of the reports, seriously hinder the obtaining of homogeneous groups, and, indeed, in many cases are of such a character that no statistical operation can furnish results which are assuredly trustworthy. A process of chaining has been employed in bridging these years in which sweeping changes in form have been made, and it appears that despite the many uncertainties involved in the handling of individual occupations, the main results give definite indication of the more significant and persisting changes. At first thought, one might suppose that all census reports are highly comprehensive and reliable statistical compilations. Many enumerations are necessarily fragmentary and inexact be-
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Dec 1, 1988
Fernando Flávio Marques De Almeida + 3
