Pre-war occupation classes

Results

See the regimental statistics for the most recent evidence.

Background and method

The company descriptive books frequently list occupations for enlisted men. Unfortunately, they don't list occupations for commissioned officers, but in a few cases I have been able to add them. Of the 1063 men who served in Field and Staff or companies A through E, I have occupations for 678 (63%).

For occupation classes, I have used Nathaniel T Wilcox, "63. A note on the occupational distribution of the urban United States in 1860", in Robert W Fogel, Ralph A Galantine, and Richard L Manning, editors, WIthout consent or contract: the rise and fall of American slavery: Evidence and Methods (New York: W W Norton, 1992). His classifications follow and extend S Thornstrom, The other Bostonians: Poverty and progress in the American metropolis, 1880-1970 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), pages 289-302.

Wilcox describes the five occupation classes in these ways (Wilcox pp.458-459):

Professionals and proprietors I

"high-ranking professionals, and proprietors of fairly large establishments", including "merchants", "manufacturers", and proprietors selling expensive or durable merchandise

Professionals and proprietors II

lower-ranking professionals, and proprietors of smaller establishments, including "dealers"

Artisans

skilled workers, including all building trades, most metal- and foundry-workers, "makers" unless they were making something that was "clearly a very simple part of something else", and food and beverage producers ("[o]n the edge of this class's usual definition")

Service, semi-skilled, and operative

people "who clearly performed a low-skill job, were not necessarily owners of any capital they may have worked with, and ... were paid for something more than simply their muscle-power", including "a hodgepodge of semi-skilled workers, servants, common service providers, municipal service employees, and those performing what appear to be simple repetitive manufacturing tasks"

Manual

people who were "paid primarily for [their] muscle power" with "work [that] require[s] little or no specific skill or knowledge"

Some questions

Besides my uncertainty about how to classify some of the occupations not on Wilcox's list (see the table below for a list--I would appreciate any help you can give me!), I also worry about using people's own descriptions of their occupations. For example, how many farm laborers described themselves as farmers? And how many stationary engineers (that is, boiler attendants) described themselves simply as engineers? And how many house painters described themselves simply as painters? And musicians seem to have been described as drummers or fifers by occupation, even when they were young enough that this seems very implausible--see, for example, George Getz (G), who was 14 when he enlisted.

The occupations

Wilcox's list gives the occupation names as they appear in the "Moen sample" of 10,001 people in the 1860 census from towns with at least 3,000 people. My list gives the occupation names as they appear in my database of men in the regiment.