Archives on the Job
As the long weekend winds down and the nation returns to its routines, we’re shifting our attention to the folks who have kept the country moving for generations and putting a spotlight on Americans at work.
From the rise of industry in the 19th century to the wider range of career options of the 20th, the National Archives houses records that go beyond job titles. They tell stories of endurance and ingenuity, community and change—whether in bustling factories, family farms, or city streets.
So as the workweek resumes, we’re looking back at the many ways Americans have labored, innovated, and adapted over time. Photographs from the National Archives reveal how America's workforce has shaped and transformed work for us all.
Office workers in the Lever Brothers office building, New York, ca. 1959
National Archives, Records of the U.S. Information Agency (306-PS-59-996)
Clover Gap Mine, Lejunior, Harlan County, Kentucky, September 13, 1946
National Archives, Records of the Solid Fuels Administration for War (245-MS-2524-L)
For most of human history, people worked by hand or with simple tools, but the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s introduced new manufacturing methods that radically reshaped the nature of work. These changes allowed American workers to produce more goods at lower costs in less time, but they also moved them into factories where long hours, low wages, and repetitive tasks became the norm.
In 1887, for example, the U.S. Fish Commission’s steamer Albatross visited Tacoma, Washington, during a three-year voyage to study commercial fishing in the northeastern Pacific and Bering Sea. There, its photographer captured proud crewmen from the Oscar and Hattier showing off their fresh catch, offering a glimpse of pride and dignity in hard, physical labor.
Another major shift affected the nature of work in the U.S. in the late 19th century. Emancipation fundamentally changed the American economy because many African Americans, newly freed after the Civil War, pursued a wide range of opportunities. However, Jim Crow laws, segregation, and racism often limited their options and restricted their advancement across industries. One of the few opportunities available to Black women, for example, was domestic service, including nannying, cooking, wet nursing, and other household roles.
On the docks, African American longshoremen worked in tough, physically demanding jobs, and sometimes as strikebreakers in northern ports.
In the South, sharecropping became widespread. Because farmers worked the land in exchange for a portion of the crop, the system often led to long-term debt and instability.
The onset of wars often brought occupational changes across industries. During World War I, women like the railroad workers pictured below stepped into roles traditionally held by men. Although they were encouraged to fill the labor gap left by men joining the armed forces, most of these gains were temporary. After the war, many women returned to lower-paying jobs they had held before or returned to their homes altogether.
World War II, however, marked a different scale of mobilization. American workers, both men and women, built over 5,700 merchant ships and nearly 300,000 aircraft and made billions of bullets, contributing massively to the Allied victory. Wages soared, and real income for manufacturing workers rose significantly.
The war also gave rise to both “boomtowns” built around shipbuilding and munitions plants and “secret cities” like Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where workers like those in the photo below supported the covert development of the atomic bomb.
World War II also marked a deeper, more sustained shift in the gendered labor force. With millions of men deployed overseas, women filled essential roles in factories, shipyards, and offices. Many of them took on highly skilled industrial work and were often directly involved with the war effort through programs like the Women’s Army Corps (WAC).
Of course, advancements did not stop with World War II. As the 20th century carried on, automation and eventually computing became the norm, dominating everyday work practices as we now know them. From fishing boats to circuit boards, Americans have always found ways to get the job done.
U.S. postal workers operating sorting machines wear earphones tuned to the music of their choice to relieve the monotony and noise of their work, 1973
National Archives, Records of the U.S. Information Agency (306-PSE-73-1538)
Engineer Delores Brown tests circuits for the control system of a U.S. communication satellite, c. 1973
National Archives, Records of the U.S. Information Agency (306-N-2594)
