History

In the 1900 manuscript census, husbands/fathers, teenage sons, and daughters are listed with occupations: tailors, butchers, peddlers, clerks, sewing machine operators. The majority of mothers/wives enumerated, however, have a blank in the occupation column. This lecture explores how women’s crucial economic and cultural roles are brought to life at the Tenement Museum, and draws on memoirs, cookbooks, midwife ledgers, advertisements, and newspaper accounts to discuss forgotten women of valor who deserve to be remembered.