The Family Economy and the Market: Wages and Residence of Pennsylvania Women in the 1890s

Abstract

Based on a 1894 government survey of 2,925 Pennsylvanian working women, this article analyzes the differences between daughters who remained at home and thus contributed to their family wage economy and those who boarded away. Choice of board location is explained in terms of wages, hours, location, and national origin. Data on boarding costs and wages are used to make inferences about the patterns of bargaining between parents and daughters within the family economy and their relationship to boarding costs in the market. This article suggests that the boarding behavior of working women was a complex balance of responsiveness to familial values and calculation of individual economic objectives.