Before we can discuss the causes of occupational segregation, we must first have an accurate understanding of what work women did. While this may seem to be a simple task, it presents some challenges to the historian. Measures of occupational distribution are less than perfect, and occupational patterns were changing rapidly during the Industrial Revolution. Census data on individuals begins only in 1841, and when it does exist it is not an accurate measure of women's employment. This leaves us without any aggregate measures of employment, so a glance at the statistical abstract will not suffice; instead, we must build a picture of women's employment from numerous incomplete sources. This chapter will examine the evidence and determine what work women did during the Industrial Revolution. Section I will discuss the limited statistical evidence available on the pattern of occupational sorting by gender, and Section II will examine the anecdotal evidence on women's occupations. Though the evidence is neither comprehensive nor perfectly reliable, it is clear that men and women tended to work in different occupations. However, it is also clear that the sorting was not perfect, and that women were frequently found in occupations not generally considered to be “women's work.”

When examining women's employment, we must keep in mind that many of women's productive contributions remain invisible to the historian. Women at all levels of the labor market assisted their husbands but received no official recognition for their productive contributions.