The Family Economy, Work, and Educational Participation in the United States, 1890-1940

Abstract

Previous studies have found that rural areas experienced substantial growth in public school enrollments around the turn of the century. Is this finding based on a narrow definition of schooling patterns? The analysis of state-level patterns for 1890-1940 shows that urban industrialism, religion, and race had varying effects across different dimensions of schooling, including public enrollment and attendance rates, and enrollments in private versus public schools and for younger versus older children. In contrast to prior interpretations, this article argues that the diversity of effects can be explained in terms of subpopulation differences in the need for children's labor contributions in the family economy, the availability of "work" (both paid and unpaid), and its compatibility (on a part-year or part-day basis) with schooling.