Winner of the Allan Sharlin Book Award of the Social Science History Association and the Richard A. Lester Award of the Industrial Relations Section, Princeton University

"Goes a long way toward the reintegration of labor history into labor economics....Clearly demonstrates the importance of history in understanding the evolution and operation of labor markets...a primer on much of modern labor economics."--Journal of Economic History

"An excellent historical overview of women in the labor force. A very challenging but manageable text for undergraduates with a limited economics background."--Hilarie Lieb, Northwestern University

"An insightful analysis not available in traditional studies of the U.S. economy."--J. M. Skaggs, Wichita State University

"Outstanding....Goldin has painstakingly assembled a long and rich set of consistent data, much of it rescued from dusty archives where it had long languished....Uses fresh, often innovative applications of economic theory and econometric methodology to wrest explanations of puzzling phenomena....Rewarding."--Women Historians of the Midwest Newsletter

"A remarkable work of scholarship: it integrates economic theory, econometrics, a vast historical literature, and a deep understanding of institutions and attitudes....A tour de force. Its lucky readers will not only be glad they read it; they will wish they had written it."--Industrial and Labor Relations Review

"Remarkably thorough history and analysis of U.S. women in the workplace....Provides a useful framework to understand the difference in pay and aruges from the data that much--but not all--of the gap is due to wage discrimination."--Population Today

"A piece of outstanding scholarship based on exhaustive primary research and a high level of economic reasoning which has the courage to attack head-on the three most difficult questions in women's economic history."--Business History

"Thorough, detalied and impeccably researched, yet accessible to the undergraduate. A fine effort."--Michael Haupert, University of Wisconsin, Lacrosse

"Pathbreaking....Claudia Goldin combines the quantitative skills of an economist with the investigative skills of a historian in her reinterpretation and adjustment of earlier published data as well as her creative use of previously unanalyzed data from the National Archives."--Population and Development Review

"Goldin's multifaced exploration of the female labor force over the past two centuries sheds light on the direction for future research."--Journal of Interdisciplinary History