|
View the H-DC Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in H-DC's October 2009 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] View the Next Message in H-DC's October 2009 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] Visit the H-DC home page.
This is a difficult question to answer. Figures for employment by industry are readily available, published by the census and other government bodies. Private employment numbers don't seem to be readily available, these published in 1955 in the Washington Post are the first I've found. Federal Government employment has dominated, as below for 1955, it is 35%. Add 4+% for local government. And interestingly is the estimate of 42,000 people self-emplyed or working as domestics, 8% of the workforce. The top 31 private employers, also listed below account for 11% of total employment. Private employers, WP Oct 9, 1955 Names Employees 1 C&P 6,420 2 Hecht Co. 4,512 3 Capital Transit 3,728 4 Woodward and Lothrop 3,573 5 Potomac Electric & Power Co. 3,029 6 Peoples 2,586 7 Washington Gas Light 2,059 8 Government Services Inc 1,994 9 Washington Post 1,870 10 Evening Star 1,805 11 Sears, Roebuck 1,705 12 Safeway Stores 1,692 13 Lansburgh's 1,677 14 Julius Garfinckel & Co 1,362 15 Mayflower 1,226 16 Western Electric 1,112 17 S. Kann & Sons 1,087 18 Hot Shoppes 1,082 19 Chestnut-Farms-Chevy Chase Dairy 1,071 20 Shoreham Hotel Corp 1,069 21 International Business Machines 987 22 Acacia Mutual Life Insurance 929 23 Frank L. Jelleff 920 24 Statler Hotel 846 25 Giant Food Shopping Center 817 26 Riggs National Bank 797 27 American Security Trust 792 28 Judd & Detweiler 755 29 GC Murphy 754 30 Willard Hotel Operating Co. 736 31 Government Employees Insurance Co. 730 53,722 total One might be able to backtrack from these companies. And: Employment by Industry Group, June 1955 Federal government 175,000 retail trade 69,300 Military service 22,000 Construction 18,200 Professional services and organizations 33,600 state and local government 21,700 transportation 17,300 manufacturing 15,900 wholesale trade 19,600 business, repair and recreational services 15,400 real estate 11,800 personal services 10,050 communications 7,350 hotels and lodging 8,150 finance 5,900 insurance 6,600 agriculture, horticulture 50 public utilities 4,900 misc. 100 self-employed; domestics 42,000 504,900 total source: Board of Trade It may be worth investigating the archives of the Board of Trade--their membership would be amongst the largest employers; it is more likely a trade group would track individual companies, rather than industry groups. What seems to be missing are the universities and hospitals, major employers today, perhaps not to the same extent then. Matthew Gilmore H-DC list co-editor, web editor dc-edit@mail.h-net.msu.edu http://www.h-net.org/~dclist/ [list website] http://www.h-net.org/lists/subscribe.cgi?list=H-DC [subscribe to H-DC] Remember to check http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=lm&list=H-DC for past list messages. On Sun, 25 Oct 2009, Matthew Gilmore wrote: > From: David Krugler <kruglerd@uwplatt.edu> > > > Can anyone recommend a source for identifying Washington, D.C.'s five largest > employers (not including the federal government) for the 1940s and 1950s? In > searching the H-DC logs, I found a similar query from March 2004 but could > not find any responses. > > Thanks and regards, David Krugler > > > > > Matthew Gilmore > H-DC > list co-editor, web editor > dc-edit@mail.h-net.msu.edu > http://www.h-net.org/~dclist/ [list website] > http://www.h-net.org/lists/subscribe.cgi?list=H-DC [subscribe to > H-DC] > > Remember to check > http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=lm&list=H-DC > for past list messages. >
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
|