House/Work: Reflecting on Gendered Employment from the 19th-Century through the Mid-20th Century

In the late 1800s, there was a boom in clerical jobs in D.C. due to expanding federal agencies and businesses. Employers often preferred hiring single women for these jobs, in part because they could pay them lower wages than men.

A few people connected to the Heurich House provide a glimpse into these gendered distinctions in the workplace.

Amelia Heurich’s story is intertwined with this period of expanded opportunity for women in administrative work. She worked as a secretary for the Treasury Department, but once engaged, she left her job. On January 22, 1899, she wrote in her diary: “Christian brought me right to his home 1307 N.H. Ave. and turned the entire house over to me.”

Amelia’s experience was part of a larger trend, as married women made up only about 6% of the female workforce in 1900. Amelia’s work shifted from outside the home to managing the domestic realm, from physically doing household chores to managing staff, which would no longer be traced as employment in the Census.

Amelia’s experience as a white, wealthy, American-born woman differed from that of immigrants and Black women in D.C. in the late 19th century, who often pursued domestic service work.

In my research on craftspeople, there are glaring gaps: I have not found any women or Black men specifically connected to building and designing the Heurich house and its interiors. Both women and Black men did not have access to apprenticeship programs and trades considered “formalized” or “legitimate,” like carpentry or ironwork.

In 1900, only 1.4% of women workers were listed as craftspeople in the Census. Not finding their stories does not mean that they did not exist. Census records largely exclude women in textile work, who were labeled as “operatives” rather than craftspeople.

Work like sewing was gendered, as it was part of a woman’s training in the home. The purpose of this work typically varied based on class. Wealthy women usually took up sewing and knitting as a hobby, hiring women like dressmakers to complete the bulk of the work. For middle-class women, sewing became a way for them to shape their identities as “respectable” in society. Working-class women used sewing as a way to earn income for themselves and their families.

Using the records we have, I can begin to rebuild the network of people connected with one another, which helps us explore gendered occupations. In these two cases, women were employed in the framework of “commercialized household work,” while their husbands held roles typically deemed “male” at the time.

Born in Germany in 1882, Mary Seidel Dex immigrated to the U.S. in 1909 and worked as a cook for the Heurich family around 1919-1920. Unlike Amelia, Mary worked even though she was married. Her husband, Max Dex, was a painter, which would have been considered a male-dominated trade at the time.

Max Dex signature, Heurich house formal parlor

Similarly, Marie Miles, a Black woman born in D.C. in 1889, was married while working for the Heurich family as a chambermaid. Based on Census records, her husband Walter worked as a “laborer” over the years. Their marriage reflects gendered conventions of the time, with Walter’s job considered “men’s work” since it was physically demanding. His work was also categorized as “unskilled.” “Skilled” trades were typically connected to apprenticeships and required specialized training, like masonry and bricklaying. Black people were excluded from these trades and even when they had real skill and experience, bias in the Census changed how their work was categorized.

Marie Miles in Heurich house garden.

In 1918, Walter specifically worked with wholesale lumber on Water Street SW, a major shipping port. Walter’s work is central to the story of craft: he would have been involved in receiving, moving, and stacking rough materials that were eventually used by carpenters and cabinetmakers. In 1950, while Marie worked for the Heurichs, she and Walter lived at 73 H Street SW, Apartment #10, in a densely populated, working-class neighborhood.

Though there has been progress, there are still jobs that are more commonly filled by women, like services and caregiving. The wage gap still exists with women earning less than men on average. In the skilled trades, women face barriers, including harassment and childcare needs, which limit participation in apprenticeship programs. The Women’s Bureau in the Department of Labor has provided grants for women through its Women in Apprenticeship & Nontraditional Occupations program. To read more, check out: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/wb/grants/wanto

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Sources:

• Adamson, Glenn. Craft: An American History. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.
• Montgomery, David. The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865–1925. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
• U.S. Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970. Part 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1975/compendia/hist_stats_colonial-1970/hist_stats_colonial-1970p1-chD.pdf.