This thesis is an attempt to evaluate and correct the sanguine view of the U.S. labor market prior to the twentieth century as a 'spot' market. The spot-market characterization permits economists to produce clean predictions of market behavior, based on one dimension of market adjustments, i.e....

Chapter I investigates how the fertility, marriage and labor supply decisions of American women changed between 1870 and 1930. The proposed explanation for the historical trends in marriage and labor market behavior is based on the premise that gradual improvements in technology drew single...

The unprecedented integration of women into U.S. labor markets was one of the most significant economic and social changes of the Twentieth Century. Indeed, the transformation of legal and economic opportunities for women led The Economist to label the past one hundred years as the "female...