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Living Wages Equal Wages Gender and Labour Market
Policies in the United States 1st Edition Deborah Figart
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Deborah Figart
ISBN(s): 9781134480166, 0415273919
Edition: 1st
File Details: PDF, 1.27 MB
Year: 2002
Language: english
Living Wages, Equal Wages

“This book addresses an issue that is particularly timely after years of growing
income inequality and draconian decreases in welfare support for single mothers
which is likely to work increasing hardship as unemployment rises. The authors
deserve credit for making it clear throughout that their concern is not so much with
economics, as practiced by neoclassical economists, as with political economy. The
difference, as they make clear, is that the latter takes full cognizance of the importance
of social conditions and government policies, not merely market forces, in determin-
ing wages. This is an important lesson for an economics profession that has tended to
resist any efforts to improve upon a wage structure that rewards some with riches
beyond the dreams of avarice and leaves others destitute.”
Marianne Ferber, Professor Emerita, University of Illinois
“Moving from early twentieth-century struggles over minimum wages for both the
women worker and male breadwinner and post-World War II attempts at equal pay
through job evaluation and legislation onto recent battles for comparable worth and
the living wage, Figart, Mutari, and Power unmask wage setting as a central vehicle for
institutionalizing gender and race inequality in the United States. Their focus on the
wage as a living, as a price, and as a social practice demystifies the labor market
process at a time when employment has replaced income assistance as the goal of
welfare policy. Full of theoretical sophistication and historical insight, Living Wages,
Equal Wages is feminist political economy at its best.”
Eileen Boris, Hull Professor of Women’s Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
Wage setting has historically been a deeply political and cultural as well as an eco-
nomic process. This informative and accessible book explores how US wage regula-
tions in the twentieth century took gender, race-ethnicity, and class into account.
Focusing on social reform movements for living wages and equal wages, it offers an
interdisciplinary account of how women’s work and the remuneration for that work
have changed along with the massive transformations in the economy and family
structures.
The controversial issue of establishing living wages for all workers makes this book
both a timely and indispensable contribution to this wide-ranging debate, and it will
surely become required reading for anyone with an interest in modern economic issues.

Deborah M. Figart is Professor of Economics at Richard Stockton College, New

Jersey. Ellen Mutari is Assistant Professor of General Studies at Richard Stockton
College, New Jersey. Marilyn Power is a member of the Faculty of Economics at
Sarah Lawrence College, New York.
Routledge IAFFE Advances in Feminist Economics
Series editor: Jane Humphries

1 Living Wages, Equal Wages

Gender and labor market policies in the United States
Deborah M. Figart, Ellen Mutari, and Marilyn Power
Living Wages, Equal Wages
Gender and labor market policies in the
United States

Deborah M. Figart, Ellen Mutari, and

Marilyn Power

London and New York

First published 2002
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

© 2002 Deborah M. Figart, Ellen Mutari, and Marilyn Power

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 0-203-99413-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0–415–27390–0 (hbk)

ISBN 0–415–27391–9 (pbk)
Contents

List of illustrations vii

Series editor’s preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
List of abbreviations xiii

PART I
Laying the groundwork: methodological frameworks
and theoretical perspectives 1

1 Introduction: living wages, equal wages, and the

value of women’s work 3
2 Waged work in the twentieth century 16
3 Two faces of wages within the economics tradition:
wages as a living, wages as a price 34
4 The third face: wages as a social practice 52

PART II
Wage regulations in the twentieth century 65

5 An experiment in wage regulation: minimum wages

for women 67
6 A living for breadwinners: the federal minimum
wage 91
7 Job evaluation and the ideology of equal pay 120
8 Legislating equal wages 143
vi Contents
PART III
The century ahead 177

9 Living wages, equal wages revisited: contemporary

movements and policy initiatives 179
10 Applying feminist political economy to wage setting 208

Notes 221
References 231
Index 252
Illustrations

Plates

1.1 Secretary of Labor James Davis addressing the national

conference on women in industry, January 11, 1923 9
5.1 “The Woman Worker” poster 78
6.1 Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins 96
6.2 Women’s Bureau exhibit on minimum wage laws 106
7.1 “Scientists Might Prefer This,” the Armstrong Cork Company
advocating job evaluation 134
7.2 Job Evaluation: “How Does the Armstrong Plan Work?” 135
8.1 President John F. Kennedy signing the Equal Pay Act of 1963
in the White House Oval Office on June 10, 1963 162
9.1 “Where Is My 26¢?” 186

Figures

2.1 Total labor force participation by gender, 1900–2000 21

2.2 Labor force participation rates of married women, husband
present, by race, 1900–2000 24
2.3 Women’s labor force participation rates, by age, 1950–90 26
2.4 Percentage of family earnings contributed by wives, by ethnic
group, 1997 32
2.5 Gender-based wage ratio and wage gap, 1955–2000 33
9.1 Annual minimum wage earnings compared with weighted
average poverty thresholds, 1968–2000 185
10.1 A framework for understanding wage setting 210

Tables

2.1 Labor force composition, 1900–2000 19

2.2 Women’s civilian labor force participation rates, by marital
status, 1900–99 24
viii Illustrations
2.3 Labor force participation rates of married women, husband
present, by presence and age of children, 1950–99 25
2.4 U.S. wage earners by gender, 1900–90 27
2.5 Occupational distribution of black women, 1910–2000 29
2.6 Occupational distribution of white women, 1910–2000 29
2.7 Percent female by major occupation, 1900–2000 30
5.1 Minimum wage rates established in Washington, DC, 1919–21 86
7.1 Some major companies adopting job evaluation by 1940 126
8.1 State equal pay laws as of January 1, 1963 146
8.2 Language of state equal pay laws 148
8.3 Women’s organizations in favor of equal pay bills, 1945, 1948,
and 1963 152
8.4 Labor organizations in favor of equal pay bills, 1945, 1948,
and 1963 153
8.5 Testimony or statements in opposition to equal pay bills, 1945,
1948, and 1963 155
8.6 Annual salaries of 1958 college graduates in 1960 158
8.7 Advertised weekly wage rates in public employment offices,
1963 158
9.1 Living wage ordinances in order of their passage, 1994–2000 196
Series editor’s preface

The International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) was formed

in 1992 in response to several critical concerns. Economics is a conservative
and narrow discipline. Many issues pertaining to the experiences, well-being,
and empowerment of women have received little attention. Scholars under-
taking feminist economic research and policy advocacy typically experience a
lack of support from their colleagues and institutions. Researchers and activ-
ists on women’s issues often work in isolation, and feminist researchers in
different parts of the world face difficulties in finding out about each other’s
work.
IAFFE seeks to combat these problems and to advance feminist inquiry
into economic issues. The organization aims to increase the visibility and
range of economic research on gender; to facilitate communication among
scholars, policy makers, and activists concerned with women’s well-being
and empowerment; to promote discussions among policy makers about
interventions which serve women’s needs; to educate economists, policy-
makers, and the general public about feminist perspectives on economic
issues; to foster feminist evaluations of economics as a discipline; to expose
the gender-blindness characteristic of much social science and the ways in
which this impoverishes all research, even research that does not explicitly
concern women’s issues; to help expand opportunities for women, especially
women from underrepresented groups, within economics; and, to encourage
the inclusion of feminist perspectives in the teaching of economics.
IAFFE pursues these ends through a variety of publishing and networking
activities. These include: the publication of the scholarly journal Feminist
Economics to present theoretical, empirical, policy-related, and method-
ological work on economic issues from a feminist perspective; the holding of
regular summer conferences where feminist work is presented and discussed;
and, the organization of panel sessions at national, regional, and inter-
national meetings of economists and researchers from related disciplines.
The IAFFE book series pursues the aims of the organization by providing a
forum in which scholars have space to develop their ideas at length and in
detail. The series exemplifies the value of feminist research and the high
standard of IAFFE-sponsored scholarship.
x Series editor’s preface
Living Wages, Equal Wages: Gender and Labor Market Policies in the
United States by Deborah M. Figart, Ellen Mutari, and Marilyn Power is a
fitting volume to inaugurate the IAFFE series. Written for a wide, inter-
disciplinary audience, this fine book argues that wage setting is a political and
cultural as well as an economic process. Figart, Mutari, and Power identify
three different but coexisting approaches to wages and the process by which
they are set. Wages are a price, so supply, demand, and market adjustment
must play a role. Indeed orthodox economics would stop right here with
wages market determined. But wages are also a living and so socially accept-
able living standards must play a role. And finally wages are a social practice.
They grade the labor of workers by gender, class, race, and ethnicity so the
relationships between types of workers in families, unions, and workplaces
must influence where differentials stand. The three interpretations are not
mere theoretical constructs. The authors show how all three were appealed
to, mobilized, contested, and referenced by social reform movements for
living wages and equal wages in the U.S. in the twentieth century. The market
mattered, but so did the other interpretations of wages and wage setting.
Debates over wage regulations and practices at key junctures in the devel-
opment of U.S. labor market policies are examined to cast light on changing
ideas about what should matter in setting wages. The key historical moments,
all milestones in the campaign for equal wages for women and living wages
for all, are state minimum wage laws, the federal minimum wage introduced
under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the National War Labor
Board’s promotion of equal pay for equal work, and the Equal Pay Act of
1963.
The central theme of the book is that wage setting is a human story. By
demonstrating the importance of perceptions of wages and wage setting,
manifest in political and cultural movements, Living Wages, Equal Wages pro-
vides a richer understanding of how wages are really set. There are lessons on
many levels for students of the labor market.
Jane Humphries
October 2001
Acknowledgments

In developing a feminist economics or, as we prefer, feminist political econ-

omy of wage setting, we began by posing two questions: (1) What can we
learn from the range of perspectives in political economy, from classical to
marginalist? (2) What additional insights can we offer as feminists? For the
latter, we turned to feminist theory outside our own discipline as well as the
legacy of feminists working within heterodox political economy.
Colleagues from various disciplines who generously read and commented
on one or more of the chapter drafts or work-in-progress presented at
professional conferences include Randy Albelda, Nancy Ashton, Heather
Boushey, Jan Colijn, Penny Dugan, Robert Drago, Susan Feiner, Mat
Forstater, Mary King, Edward O’Boyle, Paulette Olson, Janice Peterson,
Steve Pressman, Dawn Saunders, Diana Strassmann, and Myra Strober. We
especially appreciate the careful attention to conceptual analysis and detail
that legal scholar Elaine Ingulli, economist Ann Jennings, and historian
Nancy Robertson gave to the entire manuscript. Of course, we retain
responsibility for any errors or omissions. We also had helpful discussions
about specific topics with Paula England and Robert Gregg. IAFFE book
series editor Jane Humphries and Feminist Economics editor Diana Strass-
mann championed this project. We received support and assistance from the
staff at Routledge (Taylor & Francis), especially economics editor Robert
Langham as well as Heidi Bagtazo and Terry Clague.
Our historical research has been aided by assistance from library staff at
Richard Stockton College, Sarah Lawrence College, and the Hagley Museum
and Library in Wilmington, Delaware. Research was partially funded
by a Distinguished Faculty Fellowship from Richard Stockton College, a
William Waters grant from the Association for Social Economics, and
a Research and Professional Development grant from Richard Stockton
College.
We received permission to draw upon and extend parts of our previously
published work, and gratefully acknowledge the following:

“Equal Pay for Equal Work: The Role of Job Evaluation in an Evolv-
ing Social Norm,” Journal of Economic Issues 34 (1): 1–19, by special
xii Acknowledgments
permission of the copyright holder, the Association for Evolutionary
Economics.
“The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and Competing Visions of the
Living Wage,” Review of Radical Political Economics 32 (3): 408–16, by
special permission of the Union for Radical Political Economics.
“Implicit Wage Theories in Equal Pay Debates in the United
States,” Feminist Economics 7 (2): 23–52, by special permission of the
International Association for Feminist Economics.
“Wage-Setting Under Fordism: Job Evaluation and the Ideology of
Equal Pay,” Review of Political Economy 13 (4): 405–25, by special permis-
sion of Taylor & Francis Ltd. (http://www.tandf.co.uk)

Still photographs were provided by the National Archives and Records

Administration, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, the John F. Kennedy
Library, and Albert C. Krawczyk, Member of the Vermont House of Repre-
sentatives (with assistance from the National Committee on Pay Equity).
Special thanks to Ken Parks for creating the photograph prints in Chapter 7.
The lengthy collaborative process that resulted in this volume has been fun
for the three of us, especially when we managed to combine intense discus-
sions about our progress and vision with trips to the Jersey shore. A truly
tri-authored work is based on friendship, trust, and mutual respect, and we
have sustained all three.
Abbreviations

ACORN Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now

ACWU Amalgamated Clothing Workers’ Union
ADC Aid to Dependent Children
AEA American Economic Association
AFDC Aid to Families with Dependent Children
AFL American Federation of Labor
AFL-CIO American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial
Organizations
AFSCME American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees
AMA American Management Association
ASPCA American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
BLS Bureau of Labor Statistics
BNA Bureau of National Affairs
BPW National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s
Clubs
CIO Congress of Industrial Organizations
CWA Communications Workers of America
EEOC Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
ERA Equal Rights Amendment
FDR Franklin Delano Roosevelt
FLSA Fair Labor Standards Act
GNP Gross National Product
IAF Industrial Areas Foundation
IAM International Association of Machinists
ICO Interfaith Community Organization
ILGWU International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union
ILO International Labour Office
NAM National Association of Manufacturers
NCL National Consumers’ League
NCPE National Committee on Pay Equity
NEMA National Electrical Manufacturers Association
NIRA National Industrial Recovery Act
xiv Abbreviations
NMTA National Metal Trades Association
NRA National Recovery Administration
NWLB National War Labor Board (World War II)
NWP National Woman’s Party
SEIU Service Employees International Union
SSA Social Structure of Accumulation
TANF Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
UAW United Automobile Workers
UE United Electrical Workers of America
Part I

Laying the groundwork

Methodological frameworks and
theoretical perspectives
1 Introduction
Living wages, equal wages, and
the value of women’s work

Throughout history and across cultures, women have always worked, and
their work has been essential in providing food, clothing, and shelter for
their families. That work has taken many forms, from gathering wild food to
churning butter, from selling handicrafts in the marketplace to working in a
textile factory, from assisting executives to caring for the sick, from selling
real estate to designing web pages and computer software. But women’s work
was not always work for a wage. In fact, at the beginning of the twentieth
century, waged work was viewed as an essential part of men’s, but not
women’s, identities.
Wage labor, in contrast to owning a farm or being an independent artisan,
was once viewed as undesirable and analogous to slavery. In the nineteenth-
century United States, the growth of industrialization and the influx of land-
less immigrants meant that an increasing proportion of people, especially
men, came to rely on working for a wage as a means of provisioning. Bread-
winning came to be viewed no longer as subjection to a master, but rather as a
means to economic independence. By the turn of the twentieth century,
working men joined unions and struggled with employers to achieve a family
wage, defined as a wage sufficient to support a dependent wife and children.1
As masculinity was redefined to incorporate and legitimate wage labor, a
family structure based upon a male breadwinner and female homemaker was
idealized. The fact that some women also worked for wages became increas-
ingly problematic. Women were largely excluded from wage labor unless
their families had no other means of providing for their needs. This escape
clause in the idealized vision of the male breadwinner family actually
accounted for a substantial amount of economic activity in the formal and
informal economy. Daughters in immigrant families, widows, and other poor
women, including a higher proportion of African American than white
women, participated in waged work. Other women continued their work
in farming or handicrafts, took in boarders, did laundry at home, and
performed a variety of other income-generating activities. This was market-
oriented work, but it took place on the periphery of capitalist production.
Gradually over the twentieth century, women’s productive work came to
be incorporated into the industrialized economy. What was once made in the
4 Laying the groundwork
home – clothing and canned food, for example – was now produced in factor-
ies and purchased for use in the home. At the same time, women began to
enter wage labor in rapidly expanding numbers.
From the moment women became an established presence in wage labor,
questions were raised about what their labor should be worth. The struggle
of male workers for a family wage implied the presence of a wife who did not
financially support herself or children. Mothering was identified as women’s
primary life purpose. Should women, then, be paid as much as men, or
should they be paid less, so as to maintain their dependent relation to men?
Would paying women “too much” encourage them to abandon their roles as
wives and mothers for lives of alleged waged comfort and ease? Would pay-
ing them “too little” injure their health (and therefore their futures as
mothers) or drive them into prostitution? Was the relative value of mother-
ing versus paid labor different for working-class and nonwhite women than
their white, middle-class sisters? Debate over women’s wages ranged over the
entire twentieth century and continues today. And, as these questions make
clear, it was not simply a debate over objective market values. What women
should be doing and how women should live were questions that infused the
debate from the beginning, with class and race-ethnicity playing central,
although not always explicit, roles. Men, too, have gender, and debates over
their wages were also inflected with gender, race-ethnicity, and class implica-
tions. As Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon comment, “The family wage . . .
was a vehicle for elaborating meanings of dependence and independence that
were deeply inflected by gender, race, and class” (1994: 319).
Women’s and men’s wages therefore derived from a complex interaction
of social and cultural assumptions, market forces, and government regula-
tion. This book traces the debates leading to government regulations and
policies regarding wages over the course of the twentieth century to illustrate
this interaction. Public policy discussions offer a rare opportunity to exam-
ine the underlying assumptions about wage setting during a particular histor-
ical period. During debates over wage regulations and practices, economic
actors often pause to articulate implicit wage theories, that is, what they see as
the basis for setting wages. These implicit wage theories affect wage outcomes
directly, as these same actors (employers, unions, etc.) interact in labor
markets.
Wage theories also operate indirectly. Succinctly, implicit wage theories
affect wage regulations which, in turn, affect wage-setting processes.
Although, in the final analysis, wages may be set by firms interacting with
employees or employee organizations, these market transactions are embed-
ded in a social fabric constituted by such institutions as the state and families.
Therefore, we view the process of wage setting as something that can be
studied at the macro and meso (organizational, institutional) levels as well as
the micro. Our research is meant to supplement microeconomic studies of
wages, not supplant them. Wage setting, we argue, is a deeply political and
cultural, as well as an economic, process. By recognizing that wages serve
 The value of women’s work 5
multiple functions and contain multiple meanings, we can better grasp the
complexity of wage-setting processes.
We identify three implicit wage theories in twentieth-century debates over
regulations in the United States: wages as a living, as a price, and as a social
practice. By wages as a living we mean the argument that the purpose of the
wage is to provide an adequate level of support for the worker (and, for some
theorists, her dependents as well). Arguments for wages as a living were
particularly prevalent among classical political economists of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, and continue to be espoused by political econo-
mists and political activists up to the present. Wages as a price focuses on the
equality between remuneration and an employee’s contribution to produc-
tion. In addition, this intellectual construct treats the wage-setting process as
analogous to that of any other commodity price, as an amount arrived at
through the workings of supply and demand in the marketplace. While all
schools of economic thought recognize the role of markets in wage setting, a
narrow focus on wages as a price is primarily characteristic of mainstream,
neoclassical economics.
To these two standard economic views we add wages as a social practice.
The concept of wages as a social practice emphasizes the socially and histor-
ically specific process of wage setting. Wages are a means of reinforcing or
changing cultural understandings of workers’ appropriate “places.” As a
concrete social practice, wages shape as well as reflect gender, class, and race-
ethnicity. Both mainstream and heterodox economic theories have tended to
neglect this dimension of wages and therefore present incomplete analyses
of wages. Rather than recounting alternative theories of discrimination and
explanations of the wage gap between men and women, our detailed study of
wage policies shows that the wage-setting process, itself, is gendered and
racialized.

Working women: a turning point

To set the stage, we will begin by describing a contentious conference on
women in industry held by the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of
Labor in 1923. By this time, wage labor for women was causing social and
political controversy. The January 1923 conference was attended by invited
delegates from all over the country, some representing unions, but many
more from women’s colleges, women’s clubs and religious associations, and
social work organizations. They gathered for three days to hear and discuss
testimony from employers, academics, activists, and representatives of the
Women’s and Children’s Bureaus. The focus of the conference was on labor
law, and the event was pervaded by underlying tension over the issue of
protective legislation, the gender-specific labor laws that were passed in many
states during the Progressive Era.2 This tension was exacerbated by a very
recent decision by the Federal Court of Appeals overturning Washington,
DC’s minimum wage law for women. The case was headed for the Supreme
6 Laying the groundwork
Court where, contrary to a number of determinedly optimistic predictions
by women present at the conference, the Appeals Court decision would be
upheld, effectively closing the door on gender-specific protective legislation.
The Women’s Bureau had, since its inception three years earlier, consist-
ently supported protective legislation for women workers.3 Although the
roster of experts included a few, largely from management, who opposed
such legislation, most of the speakers strongly supported it. Nevertheless,
many also made clear that their ultimate goal was gender-neutral protective
laws. This was clearly a politically strategic event, held at a politically delicate
moment, staged to influence policy at the national level. The discourse
among the delegates, as well as the roster selected by the Women’s Bureau,
illustrates the complex political-economic environment in which the regula-
tion of wages takes place. Let’s look more closely at this moment in 1923 to
examine the forces that were at play.4
At the macroeconomic level, industrialization was firmly established, and
the country was urbanizing rapidly. The 1920 Census was the first to record
more of the population living in urban than in rural areas (with “urban”
defined as towns of 2,500 or more). Mass-produced consumer goods, canned
foods, and electric household appliances were becoming commonplace, and
the first wave of suburbanization had begun. The period from 1915 to 1920
had seen a 100 percent rise in prices, largely but not entirely due to World
War I. Politically, the country had entered a period of reaction. A vicious
political purge had resulted in the jailing and deportation of immigrants
accused of holding socialist or anarchist views. Highly restrictive immigra-
tion laws were looming on the horizon, soon to slam the door shut on a
decades-long wave of immigration.
In 1923, social movements on behalf of working women were at a turning
point. Class divisions were reflected in differing political and economic con-
cerns. As thousands of young immigrant women had entered sweatshop
industries, a growing number of affluent women had completed college, in
some cases creating careers for themselves in the new field of social work.
Women with high school educations, generally “native born,” were entering
the expanding and newly feminized clerical occupations. In the parlance of
the time, they went into “business,” with the status and respectability
associated with white blouses and a clean, quiet working environment. For
middle-class women who saw the possibility of increased opportunity,
gender-specific protective legislation seemed an impediment. The National
Woman’s Party (NWP), headed by Alice Paul, represented this view. The
NWP was increasingly adamant in its opposition to any gendered legislation,
including minimum wages (which they had originally exempted from disap-
proval). As a result, the NWP was particularly at odds with the Women’s
Bureau. They had been invited to the 1923 conference, but agreed to come
only if they were given a speaking slot. When this was refused, Alice Paul
tendered an indignant refusal to participate that Women’s Bureau Director
Mary Anderson read to the assembled delegates with what we suspect was
 The value of women’s work 7
disingenuous regret. Anderson, a Swedish immigrant and former factory
worker in the shoe trade, had previously organized women workers into
unions with the Women’s Trade Union League. Her strategic emphasis was
on the problems of working-class women.5
In addition to class discord, racial differences were also being articulated.
While no African American women were on the roster of “expert” speakers,
three delegates were present from the National Association of Colored
Women. All three spoke during the open discussion period, and each
stressed the terrible conditions facing black women workers, reminded the
organizations present that much of the protective legislation they had lob-
bied for excluded the industries in which black women predominated, and
urged the white women to recognize the importance of solidarity across
racial lines. Nannie H. Burroughs, an activist and educator who was listed as
representing both Mississippi and Pennsylvania, challenged the audience
most directly, noting that “57 percent of the colored women in this country
who are wage earners work in the homes of the white women.” The delegates
at this conference, she pointed out, could engage in their public lives
“because there are women back in their homes now who are caring for their
children, who are laundering their clothes, who are looking after their
work . . . ”, while the delegates attended to the “interests of the white race of
this country” (100–1).6
Women’s recent acquisition of the vote, with passage of the Nineteenth
Amendment in 1920, added both excitement and urgency to the gathering.
It is probable that suffrage made the views of the women delegates of more
interest to the politicians of Washington. Additionally, World War I
created job opportunities for many new women workers. The conference
delegates were addressed by the Secretary of Labor, received by President
Warren G. Harding, and given a reception by the “ladies of the Cabinet” –
that is, the wives of the Cabinet members. And the excitement of the group
over the presence at the meeting of several women elected to the House of
Representatives comes across clearly in the transcript. But the aftermath of
suffrage left the feminist movement without a unifying cause. For feminists
working to better the conditions of women in the economic arena, wom-
en’s suffrage created concern that the nation would consider the problems
of women solved. In fact, the subsequent Supreme Court decision invali-
dating Washington, DC’s minimum wage would in part be based on the
assertion that, having attained suffrage, women no longer needed special
protection.
The rise of anticommunism and anti-immigrant sentiment, growing class
divides among women, and the advent of suffrage were new themes per-
meating the conference. But they coexisted with an older theme that suffused
much of the discussion. That young women worked for wages had become
an established fact, but not one that sat easily with many of the presenters.
More than one suggested that wage work for women was only desirable in
the face of desperate economic circumstances. Too many women, speakers
8 Laying the groundwork
argued, worked for frivolous reasons, because they desired luxuries. This
became symbolized as a quest for “silk underwear,” to which Melinda Scott
of the United Textile Workers retorted “Who has a better right to have them
than those who work for them?” (118). Most notably, a number of dele-
gates, particularly but not exclusively representing religious organizations,
expressed their concerns that women were turning away from their true
calling as mothers. Management representatives echoed this view, essentially
“taking the pledge” in many cases not to hire women with children. While a
few voices dissented and many speakers dodged the issue, the sacred duty of
women to bear and raise children was a recurrent theme. Speaker after
speaker warned that advocates for women in industry must not violate this
primary role.
The opening presentation by Secretary of Labor James J. Davis is worth
looking at, as he managed to merge traditional labor union concerns with
political conservatism and a celebration of motherhood, in essence reflecting
all of the forces converging to affect the regulation of women’s wages. In the
course of a rambling speech, he supported the limiting of immigration and
the deportation of “Reds,” restrictions on child labor, support for disabled
workers and the unemployed, equal pay for equal work for women workers,
and the elimination from industry of women with small children. Reflecting
the emotional tone used by many speakers on the topic, Davis stated virtu-
ally at the beginning of his speech, “For I say to you that the spectacle of
American mothers torn from their children while they strive in the toil and
turmoil of industry to earn a livelihood for themselves and their little ones is
an indictment of our modern civilization, . . . a menace to the whole struc-
ture of our national life.” He charged the conference to make this their
central goal: “If in this conference we can do this one thing, if we can each
and every one of us, go hence filled with the determination to stamp out the
need for the industrial exploitation of the mother whose babes need care, we
shall have accomplished much” (4–5). Advocates for women, in Davis’ view,
should place less emphasis on women’s wages and working conditions
than on protecting women’s traditional roles, presumably through the
enforcement of family wages for men.
Although Secretary Davis endorsed equal pay for equal work, presumably
to prevent employers from substituting cheaper women workers into male
jobs, this principle was still controversial. A representative of the National
Association of Manufacturers, Charles Cheney, expressed views that were
fairly typical of employers at the time:

The most controversial question in connection with the employment of

women in industry is that of the compensation to be given as compared
with that of men. Many claim that there should be actual equality, and
many attempts have been made to express this thought as a formula.
Perhaps the most successful attempt at such an expression is that
“Women should have equal pay for work of equal value.” This may
 The value of women’s work 9

Plate 1.1 Secretary of Labor James Davis (standing) delivers the opening address at
the national conference on women in industry, January 11, 1923. Seated
third from the left is Grace Abbott, Director of the Children’s Bureau.
Women’s Bureau Director Mary Anderson is seated to the right of
Secretary Davis
Source: courtesy of National Archives (photo no. 86-G-9G-1)

approximate the truth or be far from it, according to our understanding

of what “equal value” means. How shall we measure value? (20)

The National Association of Manufacturers’ spokesman argued that it was

“natural” for women to be paid less than men. Employers, he asserted, must
take a variety of factors into their calculations when determining how much
to pay women and men. Value was not solely measured by length of time
worked, nor by the quantity or quality of product alone. Worth was also
determined, in part, by length of service, regularity of attendance, and
capability of performing several duties. A deficit in any of these factors
could lower the relative value of an employee’s contribution and, therefore,
Cheney claimed, the wage.
To the extent that these reductions “are arbitrarily attached to the
employment of women, the greater will be the margin of difference between
the pay of men and women. . . . It is folly to say that those differences can be
set aside by any arbitrary dictum or law” (21–2). Cheney continued: “All of
this argument is only an explanation of the world-wide fact that the market
rates for women’s work are less than men’s rates. When there is found in
operation a universal law, it is fairly safe to assume that there is sound
foundation for it” (22, emphasis added).
These were precisely the kinds of ideas that the Women’s Bureau and
other advocates for working women were confronting for much of the
10 Laying the groundwork
twentieth century. Advocates of equal pay sought to fight the image that
women worked for “silk underwear” or “pin money” and that they deserved
less than men. They made three types of argument. First, advocates argued
that women workers deserved more than they were earning because they
were breadwinners and family providers. Wages were a living for them and
their families. Second, women were productive and their labor was under-
valued. The price of their labor was incorrect because pay systems were
outdated and biased. Finally, wages were a product of established custom.
Working women and their advocates came face-to-face with what we refer to
as wages as a social practice. That is, wages were intertwined with issues of
whether women should work, which women should work, and why women
work for pay – not just the value of their work.
What this notable conference portrays is the contested nature of gender
ideology and the indeterminacy of gender relations that would intensify over
the remainder of the century. Although labor activists articulated that work-
ers deserved a living wage, there were, in fact, a multiplicity of living wages
and strategies for achieving them, reflecting multiple identities among mem-
bers of the working class. A “living wage” for a woman was not necessarily
equal to a “living wage” for a man; a “living wage” for a woman who was a
racial-ethnic minority was even lower. The idea of equal wages by gender was
a contradiction of prevailing norms, or, at best, a labor strategy to preserve
men’s jobs. However, out of the depression and war that the conference
participants could not foresee would come a series of historical junctures
that led to a shift in cultural norms. Living wages and equal wages, although
not taking the form that many feminists wished, would become essential
elements of the discussions of women’s wages.

Feminist methodology and economic theory

When feminists who sparked the second wave of the women’s movement in
the late 1960s and early 1970s attempted to understand the economic pos-
ition of women, they turned to the available economic methodologies for
guidance. It quickly became apparent, however, that an analysis of economic
outcomes in which gender took a central role required a level of complexity
and an attention to components of economic and social life that were not
generally incorporated into existing economic thought. Domestic labor, for
example, was rarely addressed by economic theorists because it is unpaid.
Many aspects of the sexual division of labor were naturalized, that is, seen as
outcomes of women’s and men’s “natural” interests and talents.
Feminist economics since the 1990s has taken neoclassical economic
theory as its subject, re-examining the gendered assumptions and principles
underlying mainstream models of “economic man” (see, for example, Ferber
and Nelson 1993; Woolley 1993; Kuiper and Sap 1995; Nelson 1996; Hewit-
son 1999). Paula England, for example, asserts that economic models of
market behavior incorrectly assume a “separative self,” that is, individuals
 The value of women’s work 11
whose utility (happiness) is independently achieved. Economic actors sup-
posedly “lack sufficient emotional connection to each other to make
empathy possible” (England 1993: 37). Although posited as a universal scien-
tific principle, this form of individualism is not hypothesized within the
boundaries of the household. Economic theory postulates altruistic
behavior among family members. England argues that the extreme bifurca-
tion of two radically different modes of behavior obscures the presence of
empathy and altruism within the economy at large as well as selfishness,
power differentials, and distinct interests within families. The resultant the-
ory systematically masks women’s subordination. Correcting these biases
would fundamentally alter the structure and “deductive certainty” of
economic theory (50).
Myra Strober (1994), another pioneer in feminist economics, argues that
the discipline of economics centers on the concepts of scarcity, selfishness,
and competition. However, these three concepts present only half of a series
of dichotomies: scarcity/abundance, selfishness/altruism, and competition/
cooperation. By excluding abundance, altruism, and cooperation, economic
well-being is narrowly conceived. Strober’s identification of these dichoto-
mies can be linked to feminist discussions of the definition of economics.
Economics is frequently defined in contemporary texts as the application of
rational choice by individuals under conditions of scarcity. This definition
of economics focuses on methodology rather than subject-matter. Julie
Nelson (1993, 1996) suggests that this definition renders economics a study
of rationality under abstract conditions rather than a study of the actual
material world. Instead, feminist economists have been drawn to institution-
alist definitions of economics as the provisioning of human life, or, in
Nelson’s words, “the commodities and processes necessary to human
survival” (1993: 32).
Neoclassical approaches to economics have dominated the economics dis-
cipline, especially since the late twentieth century. However, other theoretical
approaches, often referred to as “heterodox” or “political economy,” con-
tinue to influence many economists. Marxism (in its different guises), insti-
tutionalism (old and new), social economics, and post-Keynesianism, are
among the schools referred to as “heterodox” or “political economy.” The
adjective “heterodox” indicates the diversity of economic thought rather
than the hegemony of a particular theory or method. The term “political
economy” was commonly used by such classical economists as Adam Smith,
David Ricardo, and Karl Marx. Contemporary political economists generally
embrace the label to signal the importance of power, politics, and public
policy in the economic realm. It can also imply methodological pluralism or
an engagement with interdisciplinary scholarship.
There has been a long history of feminists in dialogue with these other
schools of economic thought (see Mutari 2000). Several feminist economists
have taken strong positions regarding the affinity between feminism and
particular schools of heterodoxy such as Marxism, radical institutionalism,
12 Laying the groundwork
or social economics.7 Although acknowledging that women’s experiences
have been undertheorized within each heterodox theory, each of these
writers believes that the methodological underpinnings of the theory is har-
monious with the work of feminists. Unfortunately, these arguments tend to
be clearer about the core principles of the more established schools than they
are about feminism. The problem is not that of the individual authors but of
the theoretical vagueness that still surrounds the idea of a feminist economic
theory. Only through a clearer consensus on the core assumptions of femi-
nist political economy can we address the issue of the relationship between
feminism and other heterodox schools of political economy.
Feminists, therefore, have moved beyond critique and deconstruction of
mainstream economic theories in order to reconstruct a unique theoretical
perspective on economic life. One intention in writing this book is to con-
tribute to the construction of an economic methodology that we term
“feminist political economy.” The term “feminist political economy” is used
in lieu of the currently popular “feminist economics” to emphasize the crit-
ical approach to orthodox economic theory that feminists within the discip-
line share with other heterodox political economists. The term “political
economy,” rather than economics, also signifies the interdisciplinarity of
this survey. Although work within the discipline of economics is the primary
focus, this can only be understood as part of a feminist scholarship that
crosses artificial disciplinary boundaries.
Our framework builds upon the bases provided by political economy and
feminist (gender) theory to develop a methodology where gender relations,
along with relations of class and race-ethnicity, are incorporated into the
analysis from the very beginning. This approach is different than introducing
gender and race-ethnicity specifically in the context of a theory of wage
discrimination. Of course women and racial-ethnic minorities experience
discrimination. However, associating gender and race-ethnicity solely
with discriminatory processes assumes that basic wage-determination
models remain unchanged. Discrimination becomes a special case of market
failure. In contrast, the underpinning of our approach is the belief that
gendered relations in society have fundamental effects on wages as well as
other economic outcomes. Such a methodology must be sensitive to the
dynamic interactions among all the institutions involved in the process of
provisioning, unpaid as well as paid, domestic as well as market. It must
recognize that culture matters, as does the relative power of employers and
workers. Rather than a static, market-clearing analysis, the analysis developed
must be dynamic, nondeterministic, and complex.
This methodological perspective, like that of institutional economics, is
grounded in a view of theory that eschews economic naturalism. Economic
naturalism treats economic systems as natural objects and economic science
as the discovery of a series of natural laws.8 In contrast, we view theory as
necessarily a social construct.9 Echoing the work of Gillian Hewitson, we
contend that economic theory “does not describe an independent ‘real
 The value of women’s work 13
world’, but rather contributes to the production of the real” (1999: 4). Eco-
nomic naturalism is consistent with the high status afforded mathematical
modeling within the discipline. We agree with Julie Nelson that formal
models can provide “misplaced concreteness.” That is, they offer an
unrealistic and misleading degree of precision (1996: 75). Neoclassical labor
economics exemplifies this fallacy in that it develops models in order to
deduce a definitive wage rate; thus it is referred to as a theory of
wage determination. For this reason, we prefer to view our approach as a
framework for understanding wage setting.

Overview
There have been major transformations in women’s and men’s economic
lives and the meaning of economic activity in their lives. Static theories of
wage setting cannot adequately account for such social and economic transi-
tions. We need a dynamic theory of wages, including relative wages, that
focuses on both rigidity and change. The remaining chapters in Part I of the
book elaborate our methodological framework for understanding wage
setting.
To provide a context, Chapter 2, “Waged Work in the Twentieth Cen-
tury,” summarizes the history of women’s and men’s work in the twentieth
century. The central theme of the book, developed in the two subsequent
chapters, is that wages are all at once a living, a price, and a social practice. The
first two elements, wages as a living and a price, are posited through a survey
of neoclassical and heterodox economic theories of wage determination in
Chapter 3, “Two Faces of Wages within the Economics Tradition.” As neo-
classical economic models gained hegemony over other forms of theorizing,
the concept of wages as a living has been shunted to the margins. In Chap-
ter 4, “The Third Face: Wages as a Social Practice,” we summarize the
emergence of gender as an analytical construct and demonstrate the insights
that are gained from attention to gender, class, and race-ethnicity as social
processes and wage setting as a contended social practice. Social practices are
a means of establishing and institutionalizing particular forms of gender,
class, and racial-ethnic relations. Our treatment of social practice is derived
from interdisciplinary gender and race theory (see Connell 1987, 1993, 1995;
Omi and Winant 1994; Brewer 1999) as well as the methodological
approaches of radical institutionalism and nondeterminist forms of
Marxism (see Dugger 1989; Dugger and Waller 1992; Williams 1995).
The gendered and racialized nature of U.S. social welfare policy (especially
aid to dependent children, old age assistance or social security, and
unemployment insurance) has been extensively investigated by other
scholars. However, labor market policies have been relatively unexamined.
By influencing wage setting for particular groups of workers, wage regula-
tions are important vehicles for institutionalizing particular social practices,
and thus particular masculinities and femininities and specific definitions of
14 Laying the groundwork
whiteness and blackness. To assess the relationship between wage regulations
and the three faces of wages, our methodology utilizes contemporaneous
sources (such as Congressional testimony, U.S. Women’s Bureau bulletins,
wage manuals and textbooks, and publications by policy advocates) and
interdisciplinary secondary research.
We examine key “moments” in the development of U.S. labor market
policies in the twentieth century. The second part of the book, “Wage Regu-
lations in the Twentieth Century,” contains four chapters that examine spe-
cific wage regulations: state minimum wage laws, the federal minimum wage
introduced under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the National War
Labor Board’s promotion of job evaluation and equal pay for equal work
during World War II, and the Equal Pay Act of 1963. These four policies are
landmarks in efforts to secure equal wages for women and living wages for
all. They illustrate the dynamic interaction of the state, the market economy,
and families and other social institutions in articulating how wages should be
determined. As gender relations have changed and women’s involvement in
waged work has increased, social practices regarding wages have been
transformed.
Chapter 5 focuses on one of the earliest attempts to legislate a living wage,
gender-specific minimum wage laws instituted by a number of states during
the Progressive Era. The chapter analyzes the arguments leading to their
creation and the ensuing debate over what constituted an appropriate wage
for a woman worker. The need for legislative protection signaled women’s
lack of equality. The debate over whether to establish minimum wages for
women, and at what level, illustrates conflicting views over the nature and
extent of women’s paid employment, as well as the degree of economic
autonomy they should be permitted. This “experiment” was brief, abruptly
ending with a 1923 Supreme Court decision; while laws remained on the
books in some states, they were no longer actually enforced.
The federal minimum wage is explored in Chapter 6, “A Living for Bread-
winners.” In this chapter, we examine the transition from minimum wages as
a gender-specific form of protective legislation to an ostensibly gender-neutral
federal minimum wage that exempted many occupations and industries in
which women of all races and men of color were employed. The relationship
between legislated wage floors and the more elusive concept of a living wage
is analyzed. In debates over passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938),
advocates utilized alternative definitions of the term “living wage.” In part,
these alternative views reflected attempts to distinguish different forms of
masculinity.
Chapter 7 looks at a key aspect of wage determination and its contribution
to equal pay ideology. During the interwar period and after World War II,
large employers adopted job evaluation plans as a means of stabilizing class
relations. The practice of job evaluation rested on a theory of wage
determination that set wages according to the principle of equal pay for
equal work. That is, wages were based on the attributes of the job rather than
 The value of women’s work 15
the individual worker in the job. This approach to wage setting destabilized
the prevailing practice of separate pay scales for men and women in the same
job. The process of reconciling equal pay as an ideology and gender wage
disparities was a political one. The National War Labor Board during World
War II endorsed an equal pay principle and urged adoption of job evaluation
by wartime industries. The job evaluation systems formalized after the war
resulted in the institutionalization of unequal pay for men’s and women’s
jobs, along with a narrow definition of equal work.
The legislation of equal wages is covered in Chapter 8. Here the relation-
ship between an equal pay policy that focuses on women working in
male-dominated and integrated jobs and policies to raise wages in
female-dominated occupations is evaluated in depth. Following a brief
summary of the legislative history of equal pay at the state and federal levels,
the analysis focuses on passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The struggle to
define an appropriate public policy represented a negotiation over the defin-
ition of equal wages and which actors would take part in defining equality.
Therefore, this chapter illuminates how wages also serve as a social practice
that institutionalizes particular sets of gender relations.
The final section of the book is about “The Century Ahead.” The struggle
for equal wages and living wages continues. Due to the limited scope of the
Equal Pay Act and the steadily eroding value of the federal minimum wage,
activists have sought new policy approaches. Once again, decentralized pol-
icy experiments are creating models for public policy, as described in Chap-
ter 9. In the 1980s, the comparable worth movement revived the effort for
equal pay for work of equal value. Over the decade of the 1990s, a revived
“living wage” movement became identified with a particular type of muni-
cipal ordinance placed before legislators and voters. Unlike the living wage
movement of the late nineteenth century which privileged white male
breadwinners, today’s living wage and pay equity movements have a broader
vision. Merging primary and secondary research, with a focus on one
city-wide living wage campaign, this chapter examines the strengths and
limitations of these strategies.
Chapter 10 revisits our feminist political economy of wage setting in light
of the historical study in previous chapters. Using our discussion of the
evidence from the twentieth century, we present a feminist model of wage
setting that illustrates the contending forces at play. We conclude with the
implications for labor market theory and policy in the twenty-first century.
2 Waged work in the
twentieth century

Many of us take for granted the idea that most people, male or female, will
hold down jobs for much of their lives. Waged work is so much a normal
part of our lives that we lose sight of the fact that it was once a controversial
activity. During the early days of U.S. nationhood, the Jeffersonian ideal was
a relatively self-sufficient farmer who owned land, worked his farm with his
family, and produced most necessities at home. In pursuit of this ideal, the
territory of the U.S. was expanded westward, repeatedly displacing the
Native American inhabitants, to carve out farms for European American
settlers. Given access to land, who would choose to submit themselves to an
employer or risk unemployment due to changed fortunes or mere whim?
Wage labor was scarce. In its place, there was slavery or indentured servitude.
In the South, those who could afford not to do their own labor often kept
slaves. People who could not afford to pay the fare to come to the U.S. –
debtors, and some criminals – were sold as indentured servants to work until
their monetary or social debts were repaid, a temporary form of bondage. In
the urban areas of the North, independent artisans (for example, silver-
smiths, cobblers, and blacksmiths) took on apprentices and journeymen who
lived with the family until they could set up their own business.
Industrialization, beginning around the 1820s, led employers to search out
new sources of labor, in particular people who would work for wages. Some
of the pioneers in waged work were young, white, single daughters of farm
families. Sons were used in the fields or were migrating west, mothers ran the
household, and fathers certainly would not submit to the indignity of
employment. But time could be allocated in girls’ lives between their training
in household crafts and their future as farm wives for the earning of money
to raise their families’ standards of living, pay off farm debts, or build dow-
ries.1 In some of the first factories, they spun thread, just as they had done at
home. Young women were also sent to work as domestic servants in the
homes of wealthier families.
However, as the availability of land declined while industrialization
expanded over the course of the nineteenth century, the nature and meaning
of waged work began to change. “Heavy” industries developed, including
railroads, iron and steel, and oil refining. Paid employment became defined
 Waged work in the twentieth century 17
as a man’s world, and more specifically, as a white man’s world. New def-
initions of whiteness and of masculinity went hand-in-hand with the growth
of men’s work. In his study The Wages of Whiteness, David Roediger (1991)
contends that white working-class males came to accept wage labor by associ-
ating paid employment with whiteness, creating a contrast with slave labor.
R.W. Connell, in research on masculinities, suggests that the expansion of
capitalism coincided with the creation of a working-class masculinity based
on “wage-earning capacity, skill and endurance in labor, domestic patriarchy,
and combative solidarity among wage earners” (1993: 611). This was a
“hegemonic” form of masculinity, that is, it was the cultural ideal of the
moment, even though not every male was a married, heterosexual bread-
winner.2 Correspondingly, a “Cult of Domesticity” (or “Cult of True
Womanhood”) originating in the early-to-mid-nineteenth century insisted
that women’s virtue was found in submissiveness, purity, piety, and a
unilateral focus on home and family.
Under this male breadwinner ideal, a young girl from a family of modest
means might spend a few years contributing to her family’s income before
she got married. The jobs that she could respectably hold were few. Once
married, the Cult of Domesticity dictated that she should concentrate on the
private sphere of home and family. This cultural mandate was enforced by
marriage bars, which were employer policies to fire women once they mar-
ried. Unless, that is, they were the daughters of immigrants, immigrants
themselves, or African Americans and other women of color. Public opinion
countenanced the employment of married working-class immigrant women
and women of color, as well as a few middle-class women that historian Lynn
Weiner refers to as “women of rare talents” (1985: 104).
The dominant (or hegemonic) model of gender relations – based on a male
breadwinner and a female, full-time homemaker – never became the norm for
African American women. In a major study of black women’s experiences
since slavery, Jacqueline Jones (1986) establishes that African American
women typically began self-sustaining work around age 15, stayed in the
labor force when married and raising children, and worked through middle
age. The necessity of paid labor by married African American women
reflected, in part, the constraints imposed by racism against black men. For
the first hundred years after slavery, relatively few African American men
earned wages sufficient to support a family, a so-called breadwinner wage or
family wage (Jones 1986; Amott and Matthaei 1996). In addition, employers,
including the white women who hired black women as domestics, viewed
African American women as workers first, to the detriment of their family
life. Thus, black women were, by their circumstances, defined as “less than a
moral, ‘true’ woman” (Giddings 1984: 47).
This definition was not passively accepted. There is evidence that African
American women, both working class and middle class, forged an alternative
set of gender norms. Two studies of the history of black women since the
nineteenth century – one focusing primarily on working-class women (Jones
18 Laying the groundwork
1986) and one focusing on middle-class women (Landry 2000) – agree that
African American women defined their lives in terms of interrelated
commitments to family, community, and paid employment. According to
Landry, “just as a particular ideology of white womanhood influenced white
wives’ employment decisions, so too a particular ideology of black woman-
hood, developed within the black community, shaped black wives’ orientation
to paid work” (2000: 30–1). Rather than embracing the male breadwinner
model, African American women posited a “co-breadwinner” model.3
In this chapter, we examine the unraveling of the male breadwinner model
and the ideal of women’s domesticity, particularly as markers of whiteness.
This overview is designed to situate the subsequent discussion of specific
wage policies in the chapters that follow. We introduce a story about
women’s and men’s economic lives in general and their employment status
in particular over the course of the twentieth century, placed in the context
of political economic transformations and shifts in gender norms.

Labor force participation: the twentieth century’s

gradual revolution
Compared with a century ago, today, women of all racial-ethnic groups are
more likely to be employed and spend many more years of their lives work-
ing for wages. Women’s increased wage labor has been a gradual, but pivotal
revolution. To demonstrate this trend, we present two important measures
or indicators of economic status: labor force composition and labor force
participation.
First a word on data. Since we begin our story in 1900, we follow the lead
of other scholars and utilize published data from census sources to identify
major trends. Despite pitfalls and inconsistencies in using the decennial Cen-
sus to measure women’s paid employment, it remains the key source used by
historians and economists. One problem is that women’s economic activity
is undercounted in such official sources. Early in the twentieth century
women often engaged in production for the market that was spatially located
in the home. Women, principally married women, took in boarders, laundry,
sewing, and needlework; worked in family businesses and agriculture; and
engaged in piecework at home for manufacturers. This work is frequently
overlooked by official government statistics. Economic historian Claudia
Goldin (1990) explores this problem; however, she primarily identifies this
undercount with the 1890 census, making adjustments to derive new esti-
mates. The second problem is that the U.S. Census underwent a major revi-
sion mid-century. Federal statistical agencies only adopted the concept of
labor force participation in 1940. Prior to 1940, a more subjective concept
called “gainful employment” was utilized. Again, Goldin asserts that the two
measures will provide relatively consistent results for women’s labor force
participation in the sectors covered by the census. Recognizing its limita-
tions, historian Lois Scharf argues that census data is the central source for
 Waged work in the twentieth century 19
quantitative measurement of women’s employment (1980: 211; see also
Weiner 1985: 8).4
The first indicator is labor force composition, or the percent of the total paid
labor force in the U.S. that is made up of women. Imagine the total labor
force as a pie. The total pie is divided into two parts, the portion of the labor
force that is male and the portion that is female. Table 2.1 depicts the chan-
ging labor force composition, the percentage of the labor force that is male
and female, from 1900 to 2000. At the beginning of the twentieth century,
81.7 percent of the total labor force was men and only 18.3 percent was
women. In other words, eight out of ten labor force members in 1900 were
men.5 Change in these proportions was slow until the 1940s. Thus, paid work
was largely a male domain, with pockets of employment for women.
The composition of the labor force began to change after World War II,
with women representing a steadily growing proportion of the labor force.
During the war, women, as new labor force entrants or as crossovers from
female-dominated jobs, replaced the men who had entered the military and
filled the growing need for wartime workers. As the wartime women in fac-
tories and defense plants, termed “Rosie the Riveters,” gained experience
and access to better wages, many sought to remain in the labor force follow-
ing the war. At mid-century women were 27.8 percent of the labor force; by
the end of the century, women were 46.6 percent of the labor force. The
labor force today has almost as many women as men. The doubling of
women’s share since 1940 is referred to as a process of “feminization”
of the labor force.
The other statistic that helps to express the growing involvement of
women in the workforce is the labor force participation rate. For the labor
force participation rate, the pie or denominator is all women (or all men)
rather than the total labor force. The labor force participation rate is the
number of women (or men) in the labor force divided by the number of

Table 2.1 Labor force composition, 1900–2000

Year Percent Percent Year Percent Percent

female male female male

1900 18.3 81.7 1960 32.1 67.9

1910 21.2 78.8 1970 37.2 62.8
1920 20.5 79.5 1980 42.6 57.4
1930 22.0 78.0 1990 45.2 54.8
1940 24.3 75.7 2000 46.6 53.4
1950 27.8 72.2

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau (1975: Series D 11–25); U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of
Labor Statistics (2001: Table 2)
Notes
The labor force equals employed plus unemployed. The years 1980–2000 show the civilian labor
force, otherwise total labor force.
20 Laying the groundwork
women (or men) in the population who are over the age of 16, that is, “eli-
gible” for work. This ratio is expressed as a percent. Sometimes the total
population, including the armed forces and people in prisons and other
institutions, is the denominator; more commonly today, the civilian, non-
institutional population is used. To understand change over time, we look at
different cohorts of women by mapping the labor force participation rate
over different decades. This helps us picture women’s labor market behavior
over the life cycle, specifically whether married women or women of
child-bearing years are more likely to drop out or work intermittently.
In 1900, only 18.8 percent of all women were in the labor force compared
with 80.0 percent of men. Since then, men’s and women’s rates moved in
different directions. As we can see from Figure 2.1, women’s labor force
participation rates rose steadily while the labor force participation rate of
men gradually fell. The increases in women’s labor force participation rates
accelerated in the second half of the twentieth century, especially in the
1960s and 1970s. In 2000, the rate stood at 60.2 percent. This means that six
out of ten women over the age of 16 were employed or were actively seeking
work. In contrast, men’s labor force participation rate peaked at 81.3 percent
in 1910 and gradually declined, reaching 74.7 percent in 2000. Men in their
prime earning years remained at work. Younger men pursued higher
education while older men retired earlier, pulling down the overall rate.
Some secondary research culled from decennial U.S. Census data provides
a telling story about the role of race-ethnicity and class. According to histor-
ian Julia Kirk Blackwelder, at the turn of the last century, the labor force
participation rates for women whose parents immigrated to the U.S. and
those who had immigrated themselves were higher than the rate for white
women of native parentage (1997: 14–15). The labor force participation rate
of single white women in 1900 was only 21.5 percent in contrast with 34.3
percent for those whose parents were born overseas and 60.9 percent for
those who were themselves foreign born. Additionally, African American
women consistently had higher labor force participation rates than white
native-born women across all marital groups. For example, divorced black
women had a labor force participation rate of 82.2 percent in 1900 compared
with 26.0 percent of married and 47.4 percent of single black women. Bart
Landry notes that in some urban labor markets, the percentage of married
black women working for pay was as high as 65.0 percent (2000; see also
Hunter 1997). High rates of immigration and the migration of Southern
blacks to Northern cities brought new sources of waged labor to urban
industries.
The movement of new groups of women into the paid labor force has
been called a “subtle revolution” (Smith 1979: 2) or a “quiet revolution”
(Blackwelder 1997: 3) because it is not traceable to any abrupt event. In fact,
there were multiple factors leading to the rise in women’s labor force partici-
pation and these factors interacted with each other in complex ways.
Although some economists reduce this complex causation to a linear narra-
 Waged work in the twentieth century 21

Figure 2.1 Total labor force participation by gender, 1900–2000

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau (1975: Series D 11–25); U.S. Census Bureau (1999: Table 651)
Note
1980–2000 includes civilian labor force only.

tive based on changes in either supply or demand,6 we favor a more eclectic

approach.
The expansion of the post-World War II economy clearly drew women
into the labor force, especially in rapidly growing clerical and sales employ-
ment. Therefore, some economists and sociologists have looked to the types
of jobs available to explain women’s rising labor force participation (see, for
example, Oppenheimer 1979). This approach, sometimes called the “suitable
jobs theory,” says it is the nature of the jobs that employers want to fill that
generates a demand for women’s employment. If the jobs involve tasks
related to women’s responsibilities in the home, employers hire women.
Specifically, structural changes in the economy led to both increased
employment in such traditionally female professions as teaching and nursing
and also new opportunities in clerical and technical work, where shortages
of qualified workers enabled women to gain entry (Goldin 1990; Blackwelder
1997).
However, women’s movement into paid employment cannot be reduced
to a primary explanatory variable such as increased demand in specific
22 Laying the groundwork
occupations. One reason is that the types of jobs considered women’s work
changes over time. Sociologists Barbara Reskin and Patricia Roos (1990)
provide a more dynamic approach in their queuing theory. Employers rank
the preferability of groups of workers in a symbolic queue depending upon
their view of the characteristics of the job. Men are not always preferred; in
some situations employers want to hire women so they can pay lower wages
or induce higher turnover among employees (see Cohn 1985). Workers also
have a queue, ranking jobs according to their preferences; jobs with higher
wages tend to be ranked more highly by both men and women. The “best”
jobs go to the most desired workers. Nevertheless, when an occupation is
expanding or labor markets are tight, employers are forced to look further
down the queue and take less-desirable groups of workers. Often, they
redefine the necessary qualifications and characteristics of the job to explain
or rationalize the presence of this new group.7 The growth of occupations
designated for women is therefore only a secondary factor in the growth of
women’s employment.
The steady commodification of more and more of the production that
once occurred in the home is key to the story. People work in order to meet
certain monetary needs that are socially defined and tend to escalate in capit-
alist economies. This was especially true during the postwar period (1945–
73), when U.S. economic growth was predicated upon rising domestic con-
sumption linked to gains in productivity (Hunnicutt 1988; Appelbaum and
Batt 1994). A culture of consumerism influenced the social context in which
economic decisions were made.8 As the standard of living considered normal
and desirable for working- and middle-class families increased and included
more purchased commodities, additional income from family members was
needed.9 David Wells (1998) argues that attention to consumerism helps
explain why the labor force participation rates of middle- and upper-class
women increased during the 1960s, a decade of rising male real wages (see
also Schor 1998).
Some scholars, such as Barbara Bergmann (1986), maintain that women
were available for paid employment because the arduous household produc-
tion performed by their mothers and/or their mothers’ servants was being
replaced by purchased commodities. Household appliances and other labor-
saving devices in the home made cooking, washing, cleaning, and shopping
easier. This argument assumes a fixed amount of housework that can be
reduced through technological innovation. Far from being fixed, however,
social standards regarding housework are quite fluid. In addition, the
increase in household purchases itself raised the amount of time spent on
household maintenance and record-keeping. Therefore, it is not clear that the
total volume of housework has diminished over time, although the nature of
the work has changed (Power 1983).
Finally, transformations in social attitudes and gender culture are crucial,
especially in prompting the growing proportion of white, married mothers
in the workforce in the second half of the twentieth century (see, for
 Waged work in the twentieth century 23
example, Kessler-Harris 1982; Weiner 1985; Blackwelder 1997). Declining
birth rates, wrought in part by the availability of birth control, and rising
divorce rates had tremendous implications for women’s expectations regard-
ing marriage and motherhood. The impact of the women’s movement
should not be underestimated. Gender ideology changed profoundly in con-
cert with women’s labor force participation. The idealization of the male
breadwinner family lost its dominance, although it did not completely fade
away.

Marriage, children, and women’s work

Differences in the trends in labor force participation rates by marital status
are indicative of shifting gender norms. According to Table 2.2, in 1900, the
labor force participation rate of single women was more than double the rate
for all women. This was the era of the “working girl,” who contributed to
her family’s earnings while preparing for her future role as wife and mother.
Even in 1940, on the eve of World War II, the participation rate of single
women was 45.5 percent compared with 13.8 percent for married women
with a husband present.10 However, the era of the working girl would evolve
into a world where working mothers became a cultural norm. This occurred
in two stages, as first marital status and then the presence of children ceased
to delimit women’s paid employment.
A sweeping change in married women’s work behavior took place follow-
ing World War II. The civilian labor force participation rate of married
women rose considerably (see Table 2.2), from 13.8 percent in 1940 to 61.2
percent in 1999. In contrast, the rate for widowed, divorced, and separated
women remained relatively steady until the 1970s. Many women who re-
entered the labor force in these latter decades were “displaced homemakers”
who had to work in the paid labor force to feed themselves and their families.
African American women have always had higher labor force participation
rates than white women. But, as shown in Figure 2.2, the gap was wider in the
first part of the century. The labor force participation rates of black and
white married women began to converge after the Great Depression of the
1930s and narrowed significantly in the 1940s. This convergence was primar-
ily due to white women’s increased labor force attachment, that is, more
continuous participation over the life cycle. While the rate for African
American women more than doubled in the twentieth century, the labor
force participation rate for white women increased more than 10 times, from
6 percent to 62 percent. Since 1970, white and African American women’s
labor force participation rates have increased at roughly the same pace.
The decade of the 1950s exposes a particularly important finding. It is
often assumed or perceived as common knowledge that married women left
the labor force after World War II to make room for returning veterans. The
1950s is sometimes termed the decade of the “nuclear family.” However,
Figure 2.2 reveals a steep increase in the labor force participation rate for
24 Laying the groundwork
Table 2.2 Women’s civilian labor force participation rates, by marital status (in
percent), 1900–99

Year Total Single Married, husband Widowed/divorced/

present separated

1900 20.6 43.5 — 32.5

1910 25.4 51.1 — 34.1
1920 23.7 46.4 — —
1930 24.8 50.5 — 34.4
1940 25.8 45.5 13.8 30.2
1950 29.0 46.3 21.6 32.7
1960 34.5 42.9 30.6 36.1
1970 41.6 50.9 39.6 36.8
1980 51.5 64.4 49.9 43.6
1990 57.5 66.7 58.4 47.2
1999 60.0 68.7 61.2 49.1

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau (1975: Series D 49–62); U.S. Census Bureau (2000: Table 652)
Notes
1900–30 includes people aged 15 and over; 1940–60 includes people aged 14 and over; 1970–99
includes people aged 16 and over.

Figure 2.2 Labor force participation rates of married women, husband present, by
race, 1900–2000
Sources: Weiner (1985: Table 6); U.S. Census Bureau (2000: Table 654)
 Waged work in the twentieth century 25
married women; in fact the rates of increase (or slopes) for white and for
black married women were steeper in the 1950s than in any other decade.
Although women lost well-paid jobs in war industries, they fought to stay in
the labor market, even if this meant lower-paid women’s work (see Milkman
1987; Chafe 1991).
In the early decades of the century, as we have seen, white women’s rela-
tionship to the labor force largely depended on whether or not they were
married. By mid-century, the age of a woman’s children was pivotal. Women
with young children were less likely to work in paid employment than
women with school-age children. As noted by historian William Chafe
(1991), caring for children full time during the pre-school years was now seen
as fulfilling women’s responsibilities as mothers even if they returned to the
labor force once their children began kindergarten. Employment, especially
part-time employment that did not conflict with after-school care, was now
deemed socially acceptable.
The gap between women with pre-school children and women with
older children narrowed beginning in the 1970s. This trend is exhibited in
Table 2.3. The labor force participation of women with children aged 6–17
years increased from 28.3 percent in 1950 to 77.1 percent in 1999, a
relative increase of 172 percent. There was an even greater surge of labor
force participation of married women with young children under the age
of six. From 1950 through 1999, there was a more than fivefold increase
(11.9 percent to 61.8 percent). The age of the working mother had
arrived.
The data in the early decades in Table 2.3 reflect what economists have
called an “intermittent labor force participation.” Working women once had
a bimodal distribution over their work lives, shaped like a letter “M,” as in
Figure 2.3. That is, young women began to work from age 16 through 19,
then tended to drop out during the childbearing years of 20 to 34, then began
to return to work when their children were grown or in school. Three

Table 2.3 Labor force participation rates of married women, husband present, by
presence and age of children (in percent), 1950–99

Year No children < 18 years Children 6–17 years Children < 6 years

1950 30.3 28.3 11.9

1955 32.7 34.7 16.2
1960 34.7 39.0 18.6
1965 38.3 42.7 23.3
1970 42.2 49.2 30.3
1980 46.0 61.7 45.1
1985 48.2 67.6 53.4
1999 54.4 77.1 61.8

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau (1975: Series D 63–74); U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics (1989: Table 57); U.S. Census Bureau (2000: Tables 653, 654)
26 Laying the groundwork
clusters of women by age in the postwar U.S. illustrate this M-shaped distri-
bution – women in 1950, 1960, and 1970. By 1980, women had a more
continuous labor force participation rate until near retirement; in 1990, the
distribution took on the shape of men’s labor force behavior over the life
cycle. More and more women with children sought to balance work and
family, boosting their labor force attachment.
One impressive statistic that signifies the shift in men’s and women’s labor
force participation is a comparison of the number of male versus female
workers in the household. The number is nearly equal today, and was vastly
different a century ago. Table 2.4 shows the contrast from 1900 to 1990. Like
the male labor force participation rate, the number of male workers per
household has declined steadily. Early in the century, more than one male
contributed to family earnings as sons (as well as daughters) went to work.
As sons have gone to college and as female-headed families have increased,
the average number of male workers per household diminished. The number

Figure 2.3 Women’s labor force participation rates, by age, 1950–90

Sources: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (1980: Table 4); U.S. Census
Bureau (1999: Table 650)
 Waged work in the twentieth century 27
Table 2.4 U.S. wage earners by gender, 1900–90

Year No. male workers per household No. female workers per household

1900 1.69 0.38

1910 n.a. n.a.
1920 1.51 0.39
1930 1.41 0.40
1940 1.18 0.38
1950 1.14 0.43
1960 0.99 0.46
1970 0.92 0.54
1980 0.78 0.58
1990 0.73 0.61

Source: Blackwelder (1997: Table 9.1)

Notes
1900–50 includes workers aged 10 and over; 1960 includes workers aged 14 and over; thereafter
aged 16 and over

of female workers per household has risen from 0.38 in 1900 to 0.61 in 1990,
an increase of 60 percent. The table also belies the existence of the male
breadwinner family (relying upon one male wage). The “average” household
always relied upon more than one income.
The increase in women’s labor force participation and attachment has
indeed been a social revolution, perhaps subtle, perhaps not. This revolution
has redefined what it means to be a worker, a breadwinner, and even a wife
and mother. Yet the sexual division of labor within the home remained
intact. As feminist economists Teresa Amott and Julie Matthaei have argued,
“Although the relationship between productive and reproductive labor was
changing in this way, the sexual division of labor between the two did not
change – if anything, it became more extreme” (1996: 297). Acknowledging
that women still do the majority of the unpaid housework and child care, we
focus our attention on the jobs in their labor market.

Women’s work now and then: the ongoing problem of

occupational segregation
Technological and industrial change have played a role in the kinds of jobs
available to both men and women over the last century. The shift from an
agriculturally based economy to manufacturing, and then to the service sec-
tor can also be seen as the extension of the market into more and more forms
of production that once occurred in the home. From goods to services, from
clothes and cars to fast food and child care, such increased commodification
has reshaped the labor market. Further, beginning at the end of the nine-
teenth century, the growth in the size of enterprises also led to an expanded
clerical workforce to keep records and increased layers of management and
supervision to maintain control. Nevertheless, women remained in a small
28 Laying the groundwork
subset of occupations and industries for most of the century. Compared
with the impressive change in women’s labor force participation, the kinds
of occupations in which women have been employed has changed relatively
little.
Tables 2.5 and 2.6 contrast the trends in occupational distribution of
black and white women respectively. We focus on the distinction between
African American and white women since these were the dominant racial
categories in U.S. national data during much of this period. In 1910, for
example, nine out of ten black women were employed in either farming (52
percent) or private household service (38.5 percent). These two fields were
the major occupations for white women as well, but only employed 29.3
percent of white women workers. White women had more occupations open
to them, working in clerical and sales positions as well as low paid blue-collar
operator and laborer positions. Clerical and sales positions required more
education, an expensive wardrobe, and provided a cleaner work environment.
Therefore, such jobs were financially inaccessible to poorer women and
reinforced a class distinction between “respectable” women’s jobs and
lower-status occupations. Even when African American women had access
to education and financial resources, cultural biases excluded them from
occupations involving face-to-face contact with customers and clients. In
other words, African American women were screened out of occupations
where they were “visible” in serving the public or working in proximity to a
white male boss (Jones 1986; Chafe 1991). A small group of white women
found employment in professional-technical fields, but this was less than 12
percent. Women managers, white or black, were rare. Women who worked
did so largely from necessity and for the most part toiled in relatively
low-status and low-paid occupations.
By 1940, technological improvements in agricultural production meant
that labor requirements were reduced. The percentage of black women in
agriculture diminished from 52 percent in 1910 to 15.9 percent thirty years
later. Over the same period, the percentage of white women in agriculture
fell from 12.1 percent to 2.3 percent. The use of servants and other private
household workers also declined as electric appliances made housework less
physically demanding and as former domestics found increased access to
other, “better” jobs. For white women, their share in private household
employment began falling in the 1940s; for black women, it was a decade
later. Black women began to shift out of private household work and into
clerical, sales, and service work in the 1950s, but even more rapidly in the
1960s and 1970s (see also Power and Rosenberg 1995). White women also
moved into these same job categories at a swift pace with the growth of
bureaucracies and paperwork in the 1940s and 1950s. As Randy Albelda
(1985) and Mary King (1992) also find, occupations of white and black
women converged during the immediate postwar period. By century’s end,
the single largest broad occupational category employing both black and
white women was clerical/sales work. The second most predominant job
 Waged work in the twentieth century 29
Table 2.5 Occupational distribution of black women (in percent), 1910–2000

Occupation 1910 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Professional-technical 1.5 4.3 5.3 7.7 10.0 13.2 14.8 17.8

Managers 0.2 0.7 1.3 1.1 1.4 2.9 7.5 10.7
Clerical and sales 0.3 1.3 5.4 9.8 21.4 33.1 39.1 34.9
Craft 2.0 0.2 0.7 0.7 0.8 1.2 2.3 2.1
Operators and laborers 2.3 7.0 16.8 15.5 17.7 14.1 12.2 9.1
Private household 38.5 59.9 42.0 38.1 19.5 7.5 3.1 1.4
Other service 3.2 11.1 19.1 23.0 28.5 26.8 24.2 23.7
Farming 52.0 15.9 9.4 4.1 0.5 0.3 0.3 0.2

Sources: Based on Aldridge (1999: Table 11.1); U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics (2001: Table 10)
Notes
After 1970 “Professional-technical” is professional specialty plus technicians and related
support; “Managers” is executive, administrative, and managerial; “Clerical and sales” is
administrative support, including clerical plus sales occupations; “Craft” is precision produc-
tion, craft, and repair; “Operators and laborers” is operators, fabricators, and laborers;
“Farming” is farming, forestry, and fishing. Totals may not equal 100 percent due to rounding.

Table 2.6 Occupational distribution of white women (in percent), 1910–2000

Occupation 1910 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Professional-technical 11.6 14.7 13.3 14.1 15.5 16.9 19.1 22.1

Managers 1.5 4.3 4.7 4.2 4.7 7.6 11.6 14.8
Clerical and sales 17.5 32.8 39.3 43.2 43.4 42.3 45.3 36.9
Craft 8.2 1.1 1.7 1.4 1.1 1.8 2.1 2.1
Operators and laborers 22.7 21.2 22.2 18.1 14.9 11.8 7.8 6.4
Private household 17.2 10.9 4.3 4.4 3.7 1.7 1.2 1.2
Other service 9.2 12.7 11.6 13.1 15.1 16.7 15.2 15.2
Farming 12.1 2.3 2.9 1.5 1.6 1.1 1.1 1.3

Sources: Based on Aldridge (1999: Table 11.1); U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics (2001: Table 10)
Notes
After 1970 “Professional-technical” is professional specialty plus technicians and related
support; “Managers” is executive, administrative, and managerial; “Clerical and sales” is
administrative support, including clerical plus sales occupations; “Craft” is precision produc-
tion, craft, and repair; “Operators and laborers” is operators, fabricators, and laborers;
“Farming” is farming, forestry, and fishing. Totals may not equal 100 percent due to rounding.

category for black women was service work, while white women moved into
professional and technical work.
Neither black nor white women have been able to break down the entry
barriers into skilled blue-collar craft occupations. No more than 2 percent of
all working women, white and black, were employed as craft workers
throughout most of the twentieth century (see Tables 2.5 and 2.6). When
women did obtain jobs in manufacturing, they were relegated to lower-paid
and less-unionized operator and laborer positions. These jobs typically
30 Laying the groundwork
involved repetitive assembly in textiles, apparel, food processing, and small
electrical appliances. When on the factory floor, the dirtier, more hazardous
jobs were likely to be filled by women of color. Few African American
women were machine operators before the 1950s (see also Women’s Bureau
1938). During the postwar period, African American women began to gain
access to machine operator jobs. With the flight of manufacturing jobs over-
seas in the 1970s, even these inroads were undermined as women of color
lost their jobs along with other factory workers.
While occupational distribution indicates the influence of sectoral change
on the types of jobs women hold, percent female in an occupation evaluates
women’s parity with men.11 A job is generally considered to be feminized or
“female dominated” if 70 percent of the incumbents are female and “male
dominated” if less than 30 percent of the incumbents are female. This is
demonstrated by looking at the percentage female by occupation in Table
2.7. The feminization of clerical work is dramatically illustrated. Clerical
workers were 24.2 percent female (male dominated) in 1900 and 73.6 percent
female (female dominated) by 1970. More than nine out of ten private house-
hold service jobs were and still are held by women, with imperceptible changes
over time. In contrast, skilled blue-collar craft work remained the preserve
of men, primarily white men. Even less-skilled blue-collar occupations,
operators and laborers, remained male dominated from 1900 through 2000.
What we consider to be typically female professions such as teaching,
nursing, social work, and librarianship were feminized early in the twentieth
century. As white-collar work grew over the course of the century, women
made more inroads into professional and managerial jobs. Over time, the
broad category of professional and technical workers has been relatively

Table 2.7 Percent female by major occupation, 1900–2000

Occupation 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1983 2000

Professional-technical 35.2 41.3 44.2 44.8 41.5 39.5 38.1 40.2 48.1 53.5
Managers 4.4 6.1 6.8 8.1 11.0 13.6 14.5 16.7 32.4 45.3
Clerical 24.2 34.6 47.7 51.8 54.2 62.3 67.6 73.6 79.9 79.0
Sales 17.4 21.6 26.3 24.1 26.8 34.3 36.4 39.9 47.5 49.6
Craft 2.5 2.5 1.9 1.7 2.2 3.0 2.9 5.0 8.1 9.1
Operators and laborers 19.1 18.2 16.9 15.6 18.0 21.6 22.8 26.9 26.6 23.6
Private household 96.6 96.4 96.4 95.6 94.4 94.8 96.4 96.8 96.1 95.6
Other service 34.3 36.8 37.0 37.7 38.9 44.7 52.4 55.7 57.4 58.8
Farming 9.3 10.2 10.3 8.8 5.6 8.6 9.5 10.0 n.a. 20.6

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau (1975: Series D 182–232); U.S. Census Bureau (1999: Table 675);
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (2001: Table 9)
Notes
After 1970 “Professional-technical” is professional specialty plus technicians and related sup-
port; “Managers” is executive, administrative, and managerial; “Clerical” is administrative sup-
port, including clerical; “Craft” is precision production, craft, and repair; “Operators and
laborers” is operators, fabricators, and laborers; “Farming” is farming, forestry, and fishing.
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 CONCLUSION.
Among books specially interesting to the student of The Nights, I
may mention Weil’s “Biblische Legenden der Muselmänner, aus
arabischen Quellen zusammengetragen, und mit jüdischen Sagen
verglichen” (Frankfort-on-Main, 1845). An anonymous English
translation appeared in 1846 under the title of “The Bible, the Koran,
and the Talmud,” and it also formed one of the sources from which
the Rev. S. Baring-Gould compiled his “Legends of Old Testament
Characters” (2 vols., 1871). The late Prof. Palmer’s “Life of Haroun
Al-Raschid” (London, 1881), is not much more than a brief popular
sketch.
The references to The Nights in English and other European
literatures are innumerable; but I cannot refrain from quoting Mark
Twain’s identification of Henry the Eighth with Shahryar (Huckleberry
Finn, chap. xxiii.)
“Why, you ought to see old Henry the Eighth when he was in bloom.
He was a blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day, and
chop off her head next morning. And he would do it just as
indifferent as if he was ordering up eggs. “Fetch up Nell Gwynne,” he
says. They fetch her up. Next morning, “Chop off her head.” And
they chop it off. “Fetch up Jane Shore,” he says; and up she comes.
Next morning, “Chop off her head.” And they chop it off. “Ring up
Fair Rosamun.” Fair Rosamun answers the bell. Next morning. “Chop
off her head.” And he made every one of them tell him a tale every
night, and he kept that up till he had hogged a thousand and one
tales that way, and then he put them all in a book, and called it
Domesday Book—which was a good name, and stated the case. You
don’t know kings, Jim, but I know them, and this old rip of corn is
one of the cleanest I’ve struck in history. Well, Henry, he takes a
notion he wants to get up some trouble with this country. How does
he do it—give notice?—give the country a show? No. All of a sudden
he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbour overboard, and whacks out
a declaration of independence, and dares them to come on. That
was his style—he never give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of
his father, the Duke of Wellington. Well, what did he do?—ask him to
show up? No—drownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat. Spose
people left money laying around where he was—what did he do? He
collared it. Spose he contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and
didn’t set down there and see that he done it—what did he do? He
always done the other thing. Spose he opened his mouth—what
then? If he didn’t shut it up powerful quick he’d lose a lie, every
time. That’s the kind of a bug Henry was.”
 COMPARATIVE TABLE OF THE TALES IN THE
PRINCIPAL EDITIONS OF THE THOUSAND AND
ONE NIGHTS, viz.:—
1. Galland.
2. Caussin de Perceval.
3. Gauttier.
4. Scott’s MS. (Wortley Montague).
5. Scott’s MS. (Anderson; marked A).
6. Scott’s Arabian Nights.
7. Scott’s Tales and Anecdotes (marked A).
8. Von Hammer’s MS.
9. Zinserling.
10. Lamb.
11. Trébutien.
12. Bul. text.
13. Lane.
14. Bres. text.
15. Habicht.
16. Weil.
17. Mac. text.
18. Torrens.
19. Payne.
20. Payne’s Tales from the Arabic (marked I. II. III.).
21. Calc.
22. Burton.
As nearly all editions of The Nights are in several volumes, the
volumes are indicated throughout, except in the case of some of the
texts. Only those tales in No. 5, not included in No. 4, are here
indicated in the same column. All tales which there is good reason to
believe do not belong to the genuine Nights are marked with an
asterisk.
The blank column may be used to enter the contents of some other
edition.
 Caussin Von
Scott’s
Galland. de Gauttier. Scott. Hammer’s Zinserling. Lamb. Trébutie
MS.
Perceval. MS.
Introduction - 1 -
Story of King
Shahryar and his 1 1 1 1 1
brother
a. Tale of the Bull
1 1 1 A 1
and the Ass
Tale of the Trader
1 1 1 1 1
and the Jinni
a. The First
1 1 1 1 1
Shaykh’s Story
b. The Second
1 1 1 1 1
Shaykh’s Story
c. The Third
- - 1 -
Shaykh’s Story
The Fisherman and
1 1 1 1 1
the Jinni
a. Tale of the Wazir
and the Sage 1 1 1 1 1
Duban
ab. Story of King
Sindibad and - - ? -
his Falcon
ac. Tale of the (Full
Husband and 1 1 1 ? 1 contents
the Parrot from
ad. Tale of the Introd. to
Prince and the 1 1 1 ? 1 No. 4 not
Ogress given: 3e
b. Tale of the and 4 are
Ensorcelled 1 1 1 1 1 apparently
Prince wanting.)
The Porter and the
Three Ladies of 1 1 1 1 1
Baghdad
a. The First
Kalandar’s 2 1 1 1 1
Tale.
b. The Second
2 1 1 1 1
Kalandar’s Tale
ba. Tale of the
Envier and the 2 1 1 ? 1
Envied
c. The Third
Kalandar’s 2 1 1 1 1
Tale.
d. The Eldest
2 2 1 1 1
Lady’s Tale
e. Tale of the
2 2 1 1 1
Portress
Conclusion of the
Story of the Porter 2 2 1 1 1
and three Ladies
Tale of the Three
3 2 2 2
Apples
Tale of Nur Al-Din
and his Son Badr 3, 4 2 2 2 1
Al-Din Hasan
The Hunchback’s
4 2 2 1 2 1
Tale
a. The Nazarene
4 2 2 1 2 1
Broker’s Story
b. The Reeve’s Tale 4 2 2 1 2 1
c. Tale of the
4 3 2 ? 2 1
Jewish Doctor
d. Tale of the Tailor 4, 5 3 2 1 2 1
e. The Barber’s
5 3 2 1 2 1
Tale of Himself
ea. The Barber’s
Tale of his 5 3 2 1 2 1
First Brother
eb. The Barber’s
Tale of his
5 3 2 ? 2 1
Second
Brother
ec. The Barber’s
Tale of his 5 3 2 1 2 1
Third Brother
ed. The Barber’s
Tale of his 5 3 2 1 2 1
Fourth Brother
ee. The Barber’s
Tale of his 5 3 2 1 2 1
Fifth Brother
ef. The Barber’s
Tale of his 5 3 2 1 2 1
Sixth Brother
The End of the
5 3 2 1 2 1
Tailor’s Tale
Nur Al-Din Ali and
the Damsel Anis 7 4 3 1 3 1
Al-Jalis
Tale of Ghanim Bin
Ayyub, the
8 4, 5 4 4 1
Distraught, the
Thrall o’ Love
a. Tale of the First
Eunuch, ?
Bukhayt
b. Tale of the
Second ?
Eunuch, Kafur
Tale of King Omar
Bin Al-Nu’uman,
and his sons 1
Sharrkan and Zau
Al-Makan
a. Tale of Taj Al-
Muluk and the
1
Princess
Dunya
aa. Tale of Aziz
1
and Azizah
b. Tale of the
?
Hashish-Eater
c. Tale of Hammad
1
the Badawi
The Birds and Beasts (Nos. 10–
and the Carpenter 19
The Hermits represented
The Water-fowl and by 7
the Tortoise Fables.)
The Wolf and the Fox
a. Tale of the
Falcon and the
Partridge
The Mouse and the
Ichneumon
The Cat and the
Crow
The Fox and the
Crow
a. The Flea and the
Mouse
b. The Saker and
the Birds
c. The Sparrow and
the Eagle
The Hedgehog and
the Wood Pigeons
a. The Merchant
and the Two
Sharpers
The Thief and his
Monkey
a. The Foolish
Weaver
The Sparrow and the
Peacock
Ali Bin Bakkar and
5, 6 3 3 2, 3 1
Shams Al-Nahar
Tale of Kamar Al-
6 3, 4 3 2 3 1, 2
Zaman
a. Ni’amah bin Al-
Rabia and
9 ?
Naomi his
Slave-girl
Ala Al-Din Abu Al-
9 2
Shamat
Hatim of the Tribe of
2 1 3
Tayy
Ma’an the son of
Zaidah and the 2 1 3
three Girls
Ma’an son of Zaidah
2 1 3
and the Badawi
The City of Labtayt 2 1 3
The Caliph Hisham
and the Arab 2 1 3
Youth
Ibrahim bin Al-Mahdi
and the Barber- 2 1 3
Surgeon
The City of Many-
columned Iram
2 1 3
and Abdullah son
of Abi Kalabah
Isaac of Mosul 7 2 1 3
The Sweep and the
2 1 3
Noble Lady
The Mock Caliph 9 2 2 1 -
Ali the Persian 2 1 3
Harun Al-Rashid and
the Slave-Girl and
- - -
the Imam Abu
Yusuf
The Lover who
feigned himself a 2 1 3
Thief
Ja’afar the
Barmecide and the 2 - -
Bean-Seller
Abu Mohammed
9 2 - -
hight Lazybones
Generous dealing of
Yahya bin Khalid
? - -
the Barmecide
with Mansur
Generous Dealing of
Yahya son of
Khalid with a man ? - -
who forged a letter
in his name
Caliph Al-Maamun
and the Strange 2 1 3
Scholar
Ali Shar and
2 1 1
Zumurrud
The Loves of Jubayr
Bin Umayr and the 2 1 1
Lady Budur
The Man of Al-Yaman
and his six Slave- 2 1 3
Girls
Harun Al-Rashid and
the Damsel and 2 1 3
Abu Nowas
The Man who stole
the dish of gold
2 1 3
whereon the dog
ate
The Sharper of
Alexandria and the 2 1 3
Chief of Police
Al-Malik Al-Nasir and
the three Chiefs of 2 1 3
Police
a. Story of the
Chief of the
2 1 3
new Cairo
Police
b. Story of the
Chief of the 2 1 3
Bulak Police
c. Story of the
Chief of the
2 1 3
Old Cairo
Police
The Thief and the
- - -
Shroff
The Chief of the Kus
Police and the - - -
Sharper
Ibrahim bin al-Mahdi
and the Merchant’s 2 1 3
Sister
The Woman whose
hands were cut off 2 1 3
for alms-giving
The devout Israelite 2 1 3
Abu Hassan Al-Ziyadi
and the Khorasan 2 1 3
Man
The Poor Man and
- - -
his Friend in Need
The Ruined Man who
became rich again 2 1 3
through a dream
Caliph Al-Mutawakkil
and his Concubine 2 1 3
Mahbubah
Wardan the Butcher’s
Adventure with the 2 1 3
Lady and the Bear
The King’s Daughter
2 1 3
and the Ape
The Ebony Horse 11 7 5 5 2 - -
Uns Al-Wujud and
the Wazir’s
6 4 6 2 1 1
Daughter Rose-in-
Hood
Abu Nowas with the
Three Boys and
2 1 -
the Caliph Harun
Al-Rashid
Abdullah bin
Ma’amar with the
2 1 3
Man of Bassorah
and his Slave-Girl
The Lovers of the
- - -
Banu Ozrah
The Wazir of Al-
Yaman and his 2 1 3
young Brother
The Loves of the Boy
2 1 3
and Girl at School
Al-Mutalammis and
- - -
his Wife Umaymah
Harun Al-Rashid and
Zubaydah in the 2 1 3
Bath
Harun Al-Rashid and
2 1 3
the Three Poets
Mus’ab bin Al-Zubayr
and Ayishah his 2 1 3
Wife
Abu Al-Aswad and
- -
his Slave-Girl
Harun Al-Rashid and
2 1 3
the two Slave-Girls
Harun Al-Rashid and
the Three Slave- - -
Girls
The Miller and his
2 1 3
Wife
The Simpleton and
- - -
the Sharper
The Kazi Abu Yusuf
with Harun Al-
A A - - -
Rashid and Queen
Zubaydah
The Caliph Al-Hakim
2 1 3
and the Merchant
King Kisra
Anushirwan and 2 1 3
the Village Damsel
The Water-carrier
and the 2 1 3
Goldsmith’s Wife
Khusrau and Shirin
2 1 3
and the Fisherman
Yahya bin Khalid and
- - -
the Poor Man
Mohammed al-Amin
- - -
and the Slave-Girl
The Sons of Yahya
bin Khalid and Said - - -
bin Salim
The Woman’s Trick
against her 2 1 3
Husband
The Devout Woman
and the Two 2 1 3
Wicked Elders
Ja’afar the
Barmecide and the 2 1 3
old Badawi
Omar bin Al-Khattab
and the Young 2 1 1 3
Badawi
Al-Maamun and the
2 1 3
Pyramids of Egypt
The Thief and the
2 1 3
Merchant
Masrur the Eunuch
2 1 3
and Ibn Al-Karibi
The Devotee Prince 2 1 3 3
The Schoolmaster
who fell in Love by 2 1 3
Report
The Foolish Dominie - -
The Illiterate who set
up for a 2 1 3
Schoolmaster
The King and the
2 1 3
Virtuous Wife
Abd Al-Rahman the
Maghribi’s story of 2 1 3
the Rukh
Adi bin Zayd and the
2 1 3
Princess Hind
Di’ibil Al-Khuza’i with
the Lady and
2 1 3
Muslim bin Al-
Walid
Isaac of Mosul and
2 1 3
the Merchant
The Three
2 1 3
Unfortunate Lovers
How Abu Hasan
- - -
brake Wind
The Lovers of the
2 1 3
Banu Tayy
The Mad Lover 2 1 3
The Prior who
2 1 2 3
became a Moslem
The Loves of Abu Isa
2 1 3
and Kurrat Al-Ayn
Al-Amin and his
Uncle Ibrahim bin 2 1 3
Al-Mahdi
Al-Fath bin Khakan
2 1 3
and Al-Mutawakkil
The Man’s dispute
with the Learned
Woman concerning
2 1 3
the relative
excellence of male
and female
Abu Suwayd and the
2 1 3
pretty Old Woman
Ali bin Tahir and the
2 1 3
girl Muunis
The Woman who had
a Boy, and the
2 1 3
other who had a
Man to lover
Ali the Cairene and
the Haunted 2 1 1
House in Baghdad
The Pilgrim Man and
2 1 3
the Old Woman
Abu Al-Husn and his
Slave-girl 2 1 1
Tawaddud
The Angel of Death
with the Proud
2 1 3
King and the
Devout Man
The Angel of Death
2 1 3
and the Rich King
The Angel of Death
and the King of
2 1 3 3
the Children of
Israel
Iskandar zu Al-
Karnayn and a
2 1 3
certain Tribe of
Poor Folk
The Righteousness
of King 2 1 3
Anushirwan
The Jewish Kazi and
2 1 3
his Pious Wife
The Shipwrecked
Woman and her 2 1 3
Child
The Pious Black
2 1 3
Slave
The Devout Tray-
maker and his 2 1 3
Wife
Al-Hajjaj bin Yusuf
2 1 3
and the Pious Man
The Blacksmith who
could Handle Fire 2 1 3
Without Hurt
The Devotee to
whom Allah gave a
Cloud for Service 2 1 3
and the Devout
King
The Moslem
Champion and the 2 1 3
Christian Damsel
The Christian King’s
Daughter and the 2 1 3
Moslem
The Prophet and the
Justice of 2 1 3
Providence
The Ferryman of the
Nile and the 2 1 -
Hermit
The Island King and
6 2 1 3
the Pious Israelite
Abu Al-Hasan and
Abu Ja’afar the 2 1 3
Leper
The Queen of the
2 1 3 1
Serpents:
a. The Adventure
2 1 3 1
of Bulukiya
b. The Story of
2 1 3 1
Janshah
Sindbad the Seaman
and Sindbad the 3 2 2 2 3 - -
Landsman
a. The First Voyage
of Sindbad the 3 2 2 2 3 - -
Seaman
b. The Second
Voyage of
3 2 2 2 3 - -
Sindbad the
Seaman
c. The Third
Voyage of
3 2 2 2 3 - -
Sindbad the
Seaman
d. The Fourth
Voyage of
3 2 2 2 3 - -
Sindbad the
Seaman
e. The Fifth Voyage
of Sindbad the 3 2 2 2 3 - -
Seaman
f. The Sixth
Voyage of
3 2 2 2 3 - -
Sindbad the
Seaman
 ff. The Sixth
Voyage of
Sindbad the
Seaman
g. The Seventh
Voyage of
3 2 2 2 3 - -
Sindbad the
Seaman
gg. The Seventh
Voyage of
- - - - -
Sindbad the
Seaman
The City of Brass 3 2 1 1
The Craft and Malice
A A 3 - -
of Women:
a. The King and his
A A - -
Wazir’s Wife
b. The
Confectioner,
A A - -
his Wife and
the Parrot
c. The Fuller and
A A
his Son
d. The Rake’s Trick
against the
Chaste Wife
e. The Miser and
the Loaves of
Bread (Would
include
f. The Lady and
A A subordinate
her two Lovers
tales.)
g. The King’s Son
and the A A
Ogress
h. The Drop of
A A
Honey
i. The Woman who
made her
A
husband sift
dust
j. The Enchanted
A A
Spring
k. The Wazir’s Son
and the
A
Hammam-
keeper’s Wife
l. The Wife’s
device to
A A
cheat her
Husband
m. The Goldsmith
and the
1 A A
Cashmere
Singing-girl
n. The Man who
never laughed
A A
during the rest
of his days
o. The King’s Son
and the
A A
Merchant’s
Wife
p. The Page who
feigned to
know the
Speech of
Birds
q. The Lady and
her five A A
Suitors
r. The Three
Wishes, or the
Man who
A
longed to see
the Night of
Power
s. The Stolen
A A
Necklace
t. The Two Pigeons
u. Prince Behram
and the
A A
Princess Al-
Datma
v. The House with
A A
the Belvedere
w. The King’s Son
and the Ifrit’s
Mistress
x. The Sandal-
wood
Merchant and
the Sharpers
y. The Debauchee
and the
Three-year-old
Child
z. The Stolen Purse
aa. The Fox and
the Folk
Judar and his
3 2 1 1
Brethren
The History of Gharib
and his Brother 3 2 1
Ajib
Otbah and Rayya 3 2 3
Hind, daughter of Al-
Nu’man and Al- 3 2 3
Hajjaj
Khuzaymah bin Bishr
and Ekrimah al- 3 2 3
Fayyaz
Yunus the Scribe and
the Caliph Walid 3 2 3
bin Sahl
Harun Al-Rashid and
3 2 3
the Arab Girl
Al-Asma’i and the
three girls of 3 - -
Bassorah
Ibrahim of Mosul and
3 -
the Devil
The Lovers of the
6 4 6 3 -
Banu Uzrah
The Badawi and his
3 2 3
Wife
The Lovers of
3 2 3
Bassorah
Ishak of Mosul and
his Mistress and 3 2 3
the Devil
The Lovers of Al-
3 2 3
Medinah
Al-Malik Al-Nasir and
3 2 3
his Wazir
The Rogueries of
Dalilah the Crafty
and her Daughter 3 2 2
Zaynab the Coney-
Catcher
a. The Adventures
of Mercury Ali 3 2 2
of Cairo
Ardashir and Hayat
7 3 2 1 2
Al-Nufus
Julnar the Sea-born
and her son King
7 4 3 3, 4 3 - -
Badr Basim of
Persia
King Mohammed bin
Sabaik and the 1 3 2 2
Merchant Hasan
a. Story of Prince
Sayf Al-Muluk
and the 1 3, 4 2 2
Princess Badi’a
Al-Jamal
Hasan of Bassorah 3 4 3 2 2
Khalifah the
Fisherman of 4 3 2
Baghdad
a. The same from
the Breslau
Edition
Masrur and Zayn Al-
4 3 2 2
Mawassif
Ali Nur Al-Din and
Miriam the Girdle- 4 3 2 2
Girl
The Man of Upper
Egypt and his 4 3 - 3
Frankish Wife
The Ruined Man of
Baghdad and his 4 3 - 3
Slave-Girl
King Jali’ad of Hind
and his Wazir
Shimas, followed
by the history of
4 3 3 3
King Wird Khan,
son of King Jali’ad,
with his Women
and Wazirs
a. The Mouse and
4 3 3 3
the Cat
b. The Fakir and his
4 3 3 3
Jar of Butter
c. The Fishes and
4 3 3 3
the Crab
d. The Crow and
4 3 3 3
the Serpent
e. The Wild Ass
4 3 3 3
and the Jackal
f. The Unjust King
and the 4 3 3 3
Pilgrim Prince
g. The Crows and
4 3 3 3
the Hawk
h. The Serpent-
Charmer and 4 3 3 3
his Wife
i. The Spider and
4 3 3 3
the Wind
j. The Two Kings 4 3 3 3
k. The Blind Man
and the 4 3 3 3
Cripple
l. The Foolish
4 3 3 3
Fisherman
m. The Boy and the
4 3 3 3
Thieves
n. The Man and his
4 3 3 3
Wife
o. The Merchant
and the 4 3 3 3
Robbers
p. The Jackals and
4 3 3 3
the Wolf
q. The Shepherd
4 3 3 3
and the Rogue
r. The Francolin
and the 4 3 3 3
Tortoises
Abu Kir the Dyer and
4 3 1 3
Abu Sir the Barber
Abdullah the
Fisherman and
4 3 1 3
Abdullah the
Merman
Harun Al-Rashid and
Abu Hasan, the 4 3 3
Merchant of Oman
Ibrahim and Jamilah 4 3 1 3
Abu Al-Hasan of
4 3 1 3
Khorasan
Kamar Al-Zaman and
4 3 1 3
the Jeweller’s Wife
Abdullah bin Fazil
4 3 3
and his Brothers
Ma’aruf the Cobbler
and his wife 4 3 3 3
Fatimah
Asleep and Awake 9 5 4 4
a. Story of the
Lackpenny
and the Cook
The Caliph Omar ben
Abdulaziz and the
Poets
El Hejjaj and the
Three Young Men
Haroun Er Reshid
and the Woman of
the Barmecides
The Ten Viziers, or
the History of King
8 6
Azadbekht and his
Son
a. Of the
uselessness of
endeavour
against
persistent ill-
fortune
aa. Story of the
Unlucky 8 6
Merchant
b. Of looking to the
issues of
affairs
bb. Story of the
Merchant and 8 6
his Sons
c. Of the
advantages of
Patience
cc. Story of Abou
8 6
Sabir
d. Of the ill effects
of
Precipitation
dd. Story of
8 6
Prince Bihzad
e. Of the issues of
good and evil
actions
ee. Story of King
Dabdin and 8 6
his Viziers
f. Of Trust in God
ff. Story of King
8
Bekhtzeman
g. Of Clemency
gg. Story of King
8 6
Bihkerd
h. Of Envy and
Malice
hh. Story of Ilan
Shah and 8 6
Abou Temam
i. Of Destiny, or
that which is
written on the
Forehead
ii. Story of King
Ibrahim and 8 7
his Son
j. Of the appointed
Term, which if
it be
advanced,
may not be
deferred, and
if it be
deferred, may
not be
advanced
jj. Story of King
Suleiman Shah 8
and his Sons
k. Of the speedy
Relief of God
kk. Story of the
Prisoner, and
8
how God gave
him relief
Jaafer Ben Zehya
and Abdulmelik
Ben Salih the
Abbaside
Er Reshid and the
Barmecides
Ibn Es-Semmak and
Er-Reshid
El Mamoun and
Zubeideh
En Numan and the
Arab of the Benou
Tai
Firouz and his Wife
King Shah Bekht and
his Vizier Er
Rehwan
a. Story of the Man
of Khorassan
his son and
his governor
b. Story of the
Singer and the
Druggist
c. Story of the King
who knew the
quintessence
of things
d. Story of the Rich
Man who gave
his fair
Daughter in
Marriage to
the Poor Old
Man
e. Story of the Rich
Man and his
Wasteful Son
f. The King’s Son
who fell in
love with the
Picture
g. Story of the
Fuller and his
 Wife
h. Story of the Old
Woman, the
Merchant, and
the King
i. Story of the
credulous
Husband
j. Story of the
Unjust King
and the Tither
jj. Story of David
and Solomon
k. Story of the
Thief and the
Woman
l. Story of the
Three Men
and our Lord
Jesus
ll. The Disciple’s
Story
m. Story of the
Dethroned
King whose
kingdom and
good were
restored to
him
n. Story of the Man
whose caution
was the cause
of his Death
o. Story of the Man
who was
lavish of his
house and his
victual to one
whom he
knew not
p. Story of the Idiot
and the
Sharper
q. Story of Khelbes
and his Wife
and the
Learned Man
r. Story of the
Pious Woman
accused of
lewdness
s. Story of the
Journeyman
and the Girl
t. Story of the
Weaver who
became a
Physician by
his Wife’s
commandment
u. Story of the Two
Sharpers who
 cheated each
his fellow
v. Story of the
Sharpers with
the Money-
changer and
the Ass
w. Story of the
Sharper and
the Merchants
wa. Story of the
Hawk and the
Locust
x. Story of the King
and his
Chamberlain’s
Wife
xa. Story of the
Old Woman
and the
Draper’s Wife
y. Story of the
Foul-favoured
Man and his
Fair Wife
z. Story of the King
who lost
Kingdom and
Wife and
Wealth, and
God restored
them to him
aa. Story of
Selim and
Selma
bb. Story of the
King of Hind
and his Vizier
El Melik Ez Zahir
Rukneddin Bibers
El Bunducdari, and
the Sixteen
Officers of Police
a. The First
Officer’s Story
b. The Second
Officer’s Story
c. The Third
Officer’s Story
d. The Fourth
Officer’s Story
e. The Fifth
Officer’s Story
f. The Sixth
Officer’s Story
g. The Seventh
Officer’s Story
h. The Eighth
Officer’s Story
ha. The Thief’s
Story
i. The Ninth
Officer’s Story
j. The Tenth
Officer’s Story
k. The Eleventh
Officer’s Story
l. The Twelfth
Officer’s Story
m. The Thirteenth
Officer’s Story
n. The Fourteenth
Officer’s Story
na. A Merry Jest
of a Thief
nb. Story of the
Old Sharper
o. The Fifteenth
Officer’s Story
p. The Sixteenth
Officer’s Story
Abdallah Ben Nafi,
and the King’s Son
of Cashgbar
a. Story of the
Damsel Tuhfet
El Culoub and
Khalif Haroun
Er Reshid
Women’s Craft 2 3 6
Noureddin Ali of
Damascus and the
Damsel Sitt El
Milah
El Abbas and the
King’s Daughter of
Baghdad
The Two Kings and
the Vizier’s
Daughters
The Favourite and
her Lover
The Merchant of
Cairo and the
Favourite of the
Khalif El Mamoun
El Hakim bi
Amrillah
Conclusion 4 3 3
History of Prince
8 5 4 4
Zeyn Alasnam
History of Codadad
8 5 4 4
and his Brothers
*a. History of the
Princess of 8 5 4 4
Deryabar
Story of Aladdin, or
the Wonderful 9, 10 5, 6 4 4, 5
Lamp
Adventures of the
Caliph Harun Al- 10 6 5 5
Rashid
*a. Story of the
Blind Man, 10 6 5 5
Baba Abdallah
*b. Story of Sidi
10 6 5 5
Numan
*c. Story of Cogia
Hassan 10, 11 6 5 5
Alhabbal
Story of Ali Baba and
11 6 5 5
the Forty Thieves
Story of Ali Cogia, a
Merchant of 11 7 5 5
Bagdad
Story of Prince
Ahmed and the 12 7 5 5
Fairy Peri Banou
Story of the Sisters
who envied their 12 7 5 5
younger sister
(Anecdote of Jaafar
the Barmecide, =
No. 39)
The Adventures of Ali
and Zaher of
Damascus
The Adventures of
the Fisherman,
Judar of Cairo, and
his meeting with
the Moor
Mahmood and the
Sultan Beibars
The Physician and
the young man of 1
Mosul
Story of the Sultan of
Yemen and his 6 3 6
three sons
Story of the Three
Sharpers and the 6 3 6
Sultan
a. Adventures of
the Abdicated 6 3 6
Sultan
b. History of
Mahummud, 6 3 6
Sultan of Cairo
c. Story of the First
8 6 3 6
Lunatic
d. (Story of the
Second
2 3 6
Lunatic = No.
184)
e. Story of the
Sage and his 6 3 6
Pupil
f. Night adventure
6 3 6
of the Sultan
g. Story of the first
3
foolish man
h. Story of the 6 3 6
broken-backed
 Schoolmaster
i. Story of the wry-
mouthed 6 3 6
Schoolmaster
j. The Sultan’s
second visit to 6 3 6
the Sisters
k. Story of the
Sisters and the
6 3 6
Sultana, their
mother
Story of the
Avaricious Cauzee 6 3 6
and his wife
Story of the Bang-
Eater and the 6 3 6
Cauzee
a. Story of the
Bang-Eater 6 3 6
and his wife
b. Continuation of
the
Fisherman, or 6 3 6
Bang-Eater’s
Adventures
The Sultan and the
Traveller Mhamood 6 3 6
AlHyjemmee
a. The Koord
Robber (= No. 3 6
33)
b. Story of the
3 6
Husbandman
c. Story of the
Three Princes
and 6 3 6
Enchanting
Bird
d. Story of a Sultan
of Yemen and 6 4 6
his three Sons
e. Story of the first
Sharper in the 4 6
Cave
f. Story of the
second 4 -
Sharper
g. Story of the third
4 -
Sharper
h. History of the
5 4 6
Sultan of Hind
Story of the
4 6
Fisherman’s Son
Story of Abou Neeut
and Abou 6 4 6
Neeuteen
Story of the Prince of
Sind, and Fatima,
6 4 6
daughter of Amir
Bin Naomaun
Story of the Lovers 6 4 6
of Syria, or the
 Heroine
Story of Hyjauje, the
tyrannical
Governor of 4 6
Confeh, and the
young Syed
Story of the Sultan
4 -
Haieshe
Story told by a
4 -
Fisherman
The Adventures of
Mazin of 6 4, 5 6
Khorassaun
Adventure of Haroon
6 5 6
Al Rusheed
a. Story of the
Sultan of 5 -
Bussorah
b. Nocturnal
adventures of
5 6
Haroon Al
Rusheed
c. Story related by
5 6
Munjaub
d. Story of the
Sultan, the
Dirveshe and 5 6
the Barber’s
Son
e. Story of the
5 -
Bedouin’s Wife
f. Story of the Wife
and her two 5 -
Gallants
Adventures of Aleefa,
daughter of
Mherejaun, Sultan
of Hind, and 6 5 6
Eusuff, son of
Sohul, Sultan of
Sind
Adventures of the
three Princes, sons
5 5 6
of the Sultan of
China
Story of the Gallant
5 -
Officer
Story of another
5 -
officer
Story of the Idiot and
5 -
his Asses
Story of the Lady of
Cairo and the 5 -
Three Debauchees
Story of the Good
Vizier unjustly 6 5 6
imprisoned
Story of the Prying
Barber and the
5 -
young man of
Cairo
Story of the Lady of
Cairo and her four 6 5 6
Gallants
a. The Cauzee’s
5 6
Story
b. The Syrian 5, 6 -
c. The Caim-
makaum’s 6 -
Wife
d. Story told by the
6 -
Fourth Gallant
Story of a Hump-
6 -
backed Porter
The Aged Porter of
Cairo and the 6 -
Artful Female Thief
Mhassun and his
tried friend 6 -
Mouseh
Mahummud Julbee,
son to an Ameer of 6 -
Cairo
The Farmer’s Wife 6 -
The Artful Wife 6 -
The Cauzee’s Wife 6 -
Story of the
Merchant, his
6 6
Daughter, and the
Prince of Eerauk
The Two Orphans 6 -
Story of another
6 -
Farmer’s Wife
Story of the Son who
attempted his 6 -
Father’s Wives
The Two Wits of
6 -
Cairo and Syria
Ibrahim and Mouseh 6 -
The Viziers Ahmed
6, 7 -
and Mahummud
The Son addicted to
7 -
Theft
Adventures of the
Cauzee, his Wife, 6 7 6
&c.
a. The Sultan’s
Story of 6 7 6
Himself
Story of Shaykh
Nukheet the
Fisherman, who 7 -
became favourite
to a Sultan
a. Story of the King
7 -
of Andalusia
Story of Teilone,
7 -
Sultan of Egypt
Story of the Retired
Man and his 7 -
Servant
The Merchant’s 7 -
Daughter who
 married the
Emperor of China
New Adventures of
the Caliph Harun 8 7
Al-Rashid
The Physician and
the young
8
Purveyor of
Bagdad
The Wise Heycar 8 7
Attaf the Generous 9 7
Prince Habib and
9 7
Dorrat-al-Gawas
The Forty Wazirs 1
*a. Story of Shaykh
1
Shahabeddin
*b. Story of the
Gardener, his
1
Son, and the
Ass
*c. The Sultan
Mahmoud and 1
his Wazir
*d. Story of the
Brahman
Padmanaba 1
and the young
Fyquai
*e. Story of Sultan
1
Akshid
*f. Story of the
Husband, the
1
Lover and the
Thief
*g. Story of the
Prince of
Carisme and 1
the Princess of
Georgia
*h. The Cobbler and
the King’s 1
Daughter
*i. The Woodcutter
and the 1
Genius
*j. The Royal Parrot 1
Story of the King and
6
Queen of Abyssinia
Story of Princess
7
Amina
*a. Story of the
Princess of 7
Tartary
*b. Story told by the
Old Mans’ 7
Wife
Story of Ali Johari 7
Story of the two
Princes of Cochin 7
Chin
Story of the Two
7
Husbands
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