Off to work we go

Celery farming was a major occupation in frontier Florida.
This postcard is owned by the Sanford Museum and displayed
on the Central Florida Memory website.

Part 1 of 2

Each September, we observe Labor Day. A lot of interesting facts about how Floridians labored in the late 19th century are in the 1890s U.S. Census records. Some highlights:

• A huge chunk - 76.4% - of the farms in Florida were cultivated by owners in 1890.  In 1880, the percentage had been 69.1%
• Manufacturing and other industry more than tripled over the same decade.  In Florida, products had a gross value of $18.2 million, compared to $5.5 million in 1880. 
• 13,927 Floridians were employed in manufacturing and industry in 1890, compared to 5,504 in 1880. 

Women predominated within certain fields, primarily in the needle trades. On the national level, women made up:

• 81.4% of the workforce making corsets
• 78.8% of the employees making shirts
• 73.4% of the employees producing millinery and lace goods

Nationally, men made up more than 95% of the workforce in each of the following industries: agricultural implements, brick and tile, cooperage, cutlery and edge tools, flouring and grist mill products, foundry and machine shop products,  leather, painting and paper hanging, and saddlery and harness.

Depressingly, 13.7% of tobacco-industry employees were children, as was 10.6% of the cotton-goods workforce. I was somewhat heartened to see that children made up only 2.7% of the workforce, overall, in 1890, compared to 5.6% in 1880.

Also depressing was the wage disparity between men and women. The following Florida examples are illustrative of how workers fared in other parts of the nation. Per job classification, average annual earnings in 1890 in Florida were:

• Officers, firm members, clerks: men, $762; women, $443 ($11,200 in 2014 dollars)
• Operatives, skilled and unskilled: men, $419; women, $304; children, $114
• Pieceworkers: men, $626; women, $347; children, $120

Women did earn more than men in a few industries. These examples are from a national perspective. Women earned $720 a year in the "safes and vaults" industry, while men got only $566. And a job called "oilcloth, enameled," paid women $643 a year, and men $536. By the way, the $720 was the highest pay I saw for a woman, and it equates to about $18,200 in modern dollars.

Neither of those jobs appears to have been a mainstay in Florida in 1890. Of women 10 and older in Florida who listed jobs in the 1890 census:

• 47.3% were in domestic and personal service
• 37.0% worked in agriculture, fishing, and mining
• 4.5% were in professional service
• 1.5% were in trade and transportation

Of working men ages 10 and older in Florida in 1890:

• 51.1% worked in agriculture, fishing, and mining
• 17.0% were in domestic or personal service
• 13.2% were in trade and transportation
• 13.2% were in manufacturing and mechanical industries
• 3.8% were in professional service

In Part 2, we'll take a look at some of the specific jobs that occupied Floridians in 1890, and at the number of people who worked at them. Then, as now, construction industries boomed, but there were some niche fields. For example, 11 people reported jobs as piano and organ makers and tuners.

Looking for hidden histories

Aunt Lizzie - no other name given- was a cook at
DeBary Hall. This photo is on page 104 of the book
 Saga of Baron Frederick de Bary & de Bary Hall

There is a hashtag going around in Twitter that says #BlackHistoryYouDidntLearnInSchool. I think there ought to be another one that says "black history you didn't learn enough about." To me, that includes recollections about daily and community life in pioneer black communities as told via personal journals, histories, letters, books, and interviews.

I'm not talking about famous Blacks and highly documented communities such as Zora Neale Hurston's Eatonville. I mean the everyday people who come and go through life, contributing much to the wider cultural fabric and then fading from history.

Much of what I've turned up about everyday 19th century Black life in Florida is filtered through the histories of the dominant culture. We may learn that such-and-such a person worked for so-and-so, but we don't know what that person did when they went home. 

For example, the 1968 Saga of Baron Frederick de Bary & de Bary Hall, Florida (Convention Press) includes photos of " 'Aunt Lizzie,' who cooked the 4:30 a.m. breakfasts" (104); Bryson, who was Baron DeBary's valet; and Anthony, "who used to walk four miles to and from DeBary Hall each day" (105).

Couldn't someone at DeBary Hall have provided Anthony with a mule or horse and cart? What was Lizzie's last name? Did she also walk to work, likely in the middle of the night? Who cooked for her family? Were any of these employees residents of the nearby community of Garfield, settled by the formerly enslaved? How much did they earn? Silence echoes where there should be answers. These pioneers are deprived of even their full names.

I give Saga author Edith G. Brooks credit for including photos of these early Florida residents in her book. And for at least sharing a glimpse of what life was like for them as employees. 

In a word: hard. 

During hunting season, Lizzie was always at her post when most people were asleep. She turned out breakfasts of grits, broiled game or birds such as quail, and griddle cakes, and had them ready by 4:30 in the morning for the hunters. 

In a side note, Edith writes that the children loved Lizzie, who would tell them "endless and fascinating stories" (30) while smoking her pipe. How I wish we knew some of those stories.

Joseph Branham, born in the 1870s, was interviewed when
 he was 92.  This photo is on page 113 of Saga.

Anthony cleaned guns, polished boots, skinned game, and always arrived at work with a lantern. That's because he wouldn't go home "until all the family were in bed" (31). Yet he'd be back on the job in time to light the fires for those early-morning breakfasts.

If Anthony walked four miles daily, that means he lived about two miles from DeBary Hall. He must have been home each night just long enough to grab a few hours of sleep. 

We learn a little bit more about a worker named Joseph Branham, because Edith interviewed him in 1967 when he was 92. That means he was born about 1875. 

Joseph talked of how much he enjoyed "tending the high-stepping horses owned by both Frederick and Adolphe" (65). Frederick was the "Baron" who built DeBary Hall, and Adolphe was his son. Joseph primarily drove Adolphe's mule cart. 

Equally interesting to me is that we find out what Joseph did after decades of work at DeBary Hall: He retired to a small farm, where he "grew fruits and vegetables and sold them at his roadside stand" (65).

Florida was segregated during all of Joseph's working years. His older predecessors worked at DeBary Hall during Reconstruction and the subsequent era of increasingly discriminatory regulations. Life wasn't easy for any Florida pioneer. For some, the burdens were even heavier.

DeBary Hall Historic Site is open to visitors.