The Entrepreneurial Family Economy: Family Strategies and Self-Employment in Detroit, 1880

Abstract

Using data from the 1880 manuscript census, city directories, and R. G. Dun and Company credit reports for Detroit, Michigan, this study examines the family economy of entrepreneurial households. Two family work strategies are examined for a sample of 1,881 male self-employed and wage-earning household heads: family enterprise, and the joint labor force participation of family members. The family organization of business is related to high occupational status and wealth among the self-employed. The joint labor force participation of multiple family members is most characteristic of unskilled wage earners in comparison to other occupational strata. Modes of entrepreneurial family economy reflect the middle-class status of the self-employed and their social and economic homogeneity relative to wage earners.

Family Enterprise in an Industrial City: Strategies for the Family Organization of Business in Detroit, 1880

“…Studies of the industrial family economy have focused on patterns of labor force participation among working-class families; these studies have established that among wage earners, occupational status and economic wealth were negatively related to the labor force participation of wives and children (Bose 1984;Goldin 1981;Haines 1981;Hareven 1982Hareven , 1987; Keil and Usui 1988). In Detroit, unskilled wage earners were significantly more likely than all other occupational groups to have engaged in income pooling through the joint labor force participation of family members (Archer 1990).…”

“…Elsewhere I have shown that family enterprise is related to high occupational status within self-employment and to the likelihood of wealth among Detroit's entrepreneurs (Archer 1990). For example, while about one-third of all self-employed household heads operated family enterprises in 1880, more than one-half of elite merchants and industrialists did so, compared to less than one-fourth of petty merchants and proprietors.…”

“…Two modes of family economy characterized entrepreneurial households in Detroit: family enterprise and the participation of multiple family members in the labor force (Archer 1990). So far we have examined only family enterprise, and the individual family business strategies it encompassed, as a type of entrepreneurial family economy.…”

“…management, or operation. Family capitalism was dominant in that the family organization of business was especially characteristic of the city's largest industrial and business enterprises (Archer 1990).…”