The purpose of this research is to produce more reliable and detailed estimates of the industrial distribution of the U.S. labor force for the nineteenth century than is currently available. The project will estimate the number of male and female workers, by age category, and by urban and rural location, engaged in the major industries within the nonfarm sector. This will be done for each state at each decennial census benchmark date in that century. Regional and national totals will be derived as the sum of the state figures. Of some importance is the fact that these figures will be consistent with the most recent estimates of the total, farm, and nonfarm labor forces for this period. The work will make extensive use of the Federal census data, supplemented, especially in the earlier years of the century, by evidence from state censuses, city directories, and the research of others on specific industries or locales. The more detailed censuses for 1850 through 1900 will provide the foundation of the detailed breakdown. Those details will be used to disaggregate the evidence available in the 1820 and 1840 censuses. In turn, that fuller set of data will be used to estimate the figures for 1800, 1810 and 1830. These detailed figures will permit more careful analysis of a number of issues important to a full understanding of the growth and evolution of the U.S. economy. These include estimation of the nation's output in the years 1800 through 1840, estimation of the regional breakdown of output, analysis of the nation's and the regions'sources of economic growth, and analysis of the rise of the service economy.
