"Women Rivet Heaters and Passers on" Puget Sound Navy Yard, Washington, May 29, 1919,
Photographer unknown, National Archives and Records Administration
Women in Federal Employment 1795-1945
(2)
by John G. M. Sharp
"Women Rivet Heaters and Passers on" Puget Sound Navy Yard, Washington, May 29, 1919,
Photographer unknown, National Archives and Records Administration
The federal government generally did not employ women prior to the Civil War.1 Most women in early America worked with their household and community economies but the material rewards of their labor were bound by cultural beliefs, social practices and laws that subordinated women to men. Despite this some women did work for wages, but even those who did such as unmarried women and widows were clustered in low paying occupations and earned lower wages then men.2 These early female employees typically worked in government buildings, cleaning, cooking and sewing. These were until the 1850’s typically low paying jobs. For the first five decades the federal civilian workforce was small, by 1802, a little over ten years after its creation; the national government employed just 3,905 people. By 1826, that number had more than doubled to 10,415.
1. Ziparo, Jessica, This Grand Experiment When Women Entered the Federal Workforce in the Civil War – Era Washington , D.C. (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2017), p. 1.
2. The Oxford Companion to United States History, editor Paul S. Boyer (Oxford University Press, New York, 2001), p. 834.
Throughout the pre-Civil War era, most federal employees reported to five federal departments (State, Treasury, War, Navy and the Post Office). The early federal government's small size is reflected in 1824, at headquarters of the War and Navy Departments employed 32 and 21 people respectively. The Treasury Department that year employed the largest central office, with 152 personnel.3
3. Kastor, Paul, The Early Federal Workforce Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/the-early-federal-workforce-by-p-kastor.pdf?utm_campaign=Brookings%20Executive%20Education
From the beginning entry into what federal jobs were largely depended on a mix of politics and patronage. These factors became a fixture in the national political life during the administration of President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) and continued until the passage of the 1883 Pendleton Act. The first comprehensive merit-based civil service system was put in place by the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, which created the United States Civil Service Commission. The Act ended the Spoils System by specifying that merit (qualifications measured by testing) is the basis of hiring decisions. For the first time, appointments were open to all citizens, made based on merit, and were given to the best qualified applicants. The Act also protected incumbents from being thrown out of office simply because of a change in the Presidency.4
4. History of Civil Service in the United States, https://burbank.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=1689&meta_id=89402
Prior to that, there was no requirement for federal jobs to be either publicly announced or filled through a competitive process. As Jessica Ziparo has written "politics and patronage generally trumped intellect and ability in hiring decisions for both sexes." 5
5. Ziparo, p. 41
All national and many local parties, indeed many individual politicians, acted as patrons securing jobs for their constituents. Political patronage was often the key to securing and retaining sought after employment in a pre-merit era. Typically, the political party in power used its influence to provide government jobs for loyal supporters.
"Lady Clerks Leaving the Treasury Department at Washington D.C." Alfred Waud, 1865
The United States Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing were both part of the Department of the Treasury, and in 1795 became the first federal agency to employ women.
The newly established Philadelphia Mint in 1795 hired Sarah Waldrake and Rachael Summers as adjusters at 50 cent a day wage. At the mint these newly hired adjusters weighed gold coins and adjusted them for correct weight by filing and carefully conserving any excess gold. In the Adjusting Room they sat at long tables and each had an assay scale and a file. The women often wore short sleeves to minimize brushing metal dust onto the floor and a leather apron attached to the table to catch any metal that did fall. Their work in the Adjusting Room was separated from the noise involved in the rest of the coin production process. The room was poorly ventilated with all doors and windows tightly shut, as any air current affected the accuracy of the scales. Because this made for very uncomfortable work conditions, adjusters took breaks throughout the day to open windows..66. Women at Work: Meet the Mint’s Female Trailblazers. Department of the Treasury, United States Mint, https://www.usmint.gov/learn/history/women-at-work
United States Mint Philadelphia Adjusting Room,
Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion, 1852At the Mint gender differences in pay were present from the outset. Though assigned the same work as men, women were paid less. For example, junior adjuster Henry Voight, made 88 cents per day and the office boy, John Bay, was hired at 66 cents.7 The Philadelphia Mint in 1798 increased staff and hired two more women as adjusters. Descriptions of the San Francisco and Philadelphia Adjusting Rooms from 1856 and 1861 noted that all adjusters were women. Their wages had been raised to 75 cents a day. Male adjusters received $1.20 for the same work.8 All Treasury Department employees worked the same hours, from 5 o’clock in the morning until 4 o’clock in the afternoon, except Saturday, when the Mint closed at 2 o’clock. Like other federal workers, Mint employees were granted Christmas and the 4th of July off with pay.9
7. Evans, George Greenleaf, Illustrated History of the United States Mint (George G. Evans, Philadelphia, 1887), p. 12.
8. Women at Work: Meet the Mint’s Female Trailblazers Department of the Treasury, United States Mint, https://www.usmint.gov/learn/history/women-at-work
9. Evans, pp 14 -16, A Register of All Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval in the Service of the United States, on the 13th of September 1859, (William A. Harris, Washington, D.C.1859), p. 101.
Department of the Interior, Government Hospital for the Insane [St. Elizabeth’s Hospital]
The hospital opened in 1855 under the name "Government Hospital for the Insane" and was known as "St. Elizabeth’s Hospital." This was the first federally operated psychiatric hospital in the United States.10 A Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military and Naval in the Service of the United States, on the 13th September 1859 lists eleven female names.11 The new government hospital aspired to create an institution that would be a leader in patient care and an example the states could follow in the operation of their public hospitals. Dr. Charles H. Nichols, a 32-year-old assistant physician at the Bloomingdale Asylum in New York, was selected as the first superintendent at the suggestion of Dorothea Dix, a prominent American advocate for the poor and mentally ill.
10. Otto, Thomas, St, Elizabeth’s Hospital A History, PDF, (General Services Administration, Washington D.C. 2013) http://dcpreservation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/0-COMPLETE-St.-Elizabeths-Hospital-A-History.pdf
11. A Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval in the Service of the United States, on the 13th September 1859. pp 101.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hxpgpt&seq=143&q1=laundressThe 1860 U.S. Census for Free Inhabitants in the District of Columbia, 4th Ward, as enumerated on of 31 July 1860, also included the ages of some of the women which I have added.12 The 1860 Census reflected the growth of the hospital to forty employees. The 1860 Census for the hospital also provides a glimpse of the sole African American female enumerated as working at the hospital. She was sixteen year- old Charlotte Webster, born in Virginia, and her occupation "servant".13
12. Eighth Census of the United States, 1860 (National Archives Microfilm
Publication M653, roll 103) 4th Ward, second division, pages 49.13. Ziparo, p.31, …"supervisors typically did not indicate the race of female employees in the Federal Register for the Government Hospital for the Insane which has obscured the presence of African American civil servants." For example, Charlotte Webster is not listed in the Register but was enumerated in the 1860 U.S. Census, for the District of Columbia, Ward 4, Government Hospital for the Insane with employees p.49, line 21.
The growth the hospital staff coincided with the newly built facilities. Starting in 1860, the hospital housed patients primarily in single rooms with sitting and dining rooms on most wards. African Americans suffering from mental illnesses were admitted but segregated. The new West Lodge for African American men and the East Lodge for African American women were modest structures designed to house fewer than 50 patients each.14
14. McMillen, Frances M. and Kane, James S. Institutional Memory the Records of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital at the National Archives, Prologue Magazine, summer 2010, Vol 42, No. 2.
When enumerators took the Federal census for the District of Columbia in 1860, they recorded information about who was living at institutions in the District as well as the District’s full time residents. The enumerations included the staff and patients at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. The hospital appears in 1860 as the Government Hospital for the Insane.15 The relatively low wages for the hospital staff were offset to some degree by meals and residence on the grounds.
15. Patients and Staff at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital (The Government Hospital for the Insane) in the Federal Census, 1860–1940
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/district-of-columbia/st-elizabeths-census.pdfDepartment of the Interior, Government Hospital for the Insane [St. Elizabeth’s Hospital]
Department of the Treasury 1862 Francis E. Spinner, Treasurer of the United States, requested from Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase the authority to hire women. His reason was economy: "A woman can use scissors better than a man, and she will do it cheaper. I want to employ women to cut the Treasury notes". The first woman hired to perform that job was Miss Jennie Douglas. Her workload that year was lightened by the employment of 70 more women. Spinner, the first government official to employ substantial numbers of women, paid them $600 a year ($50 a month), one-half to one-third that of the salary of male clerks.
Sophia Brown Holmes
Sketch by Edith Noble, 1892Sophia Brown Holmes (1830 -1900), the first black woman hired by the U.S. Government, was employed by the Treasury Department. Mrs. Holmes was employed as a "charwoman" (cleaning Treasury Department offices) at $15 a month. While engaged at her regular tasks, she noticed a great number of Treasury notes still in sheets in a waste basket. She saved the Department $200,000 that had been mistakenly thrown away as trash. As an award, General Francis Spinner promoted her to messenger at $600 a year salary. Mrs. Holmes served in that position for 38 years. She died in 1900 at 79; the Secretary of the Treasury attended her funeral.16
16. "Sophia Holmes Dead, A Faithful Employee of the Government Passes Away" 11 October 1900, The Times (Washington, District of Columbia)
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