Women’s Work: Mapping Female Domestic Servants in 1880 Manhattan with Microdata

Celia Arsen, Barnard College

In 1880 Manhattan was evolving rapidly—from 1870 to 1880 New York City experienced a 28 percent population increase. As city life expanded, the dynamics of the home also changed drastically, particularly for women. The most important occupation for American women in 1880 was, by far, domestic service. For this reason, the lives of female domestic servants are a crucial component of understanding the changing gender and labor dynamics of the rapidly industrializing city in the Gilded Age. I use the 1880 Census to map the density of female domestic servants on the block level in Manhattan. I find a higher concentration of female domestic servants in wealthy, upper middle-class neighborhoods, not because the workers themselves were wealthy, but because they lived in the homes of their upper middle-class employers. I also find that the ratio of women to men is significantly higher in these neighborhoods, likely due to the disproportionate presence of female domestic servants. Finally, I begin to explore how these patterns vary depending on the race of the domestic servants.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 105. Emerging Methods: Historical Cartography