Mail order catalogs show only the price being offered by a certain retailer -- not an industry or nationwide average. Though the items below are not government publications we include them here for the researcher's convenience.
Check out the table of contents to navigate through this source on Women's wages from the 1870s to 1920. You will find that women's work tended to cluster in certain industries and that the types of work, and thus wages, available to women depended on other factors such as race and ethnicity, and immigration and marital status.
Women in Occupations divided by
Proportion of Women Employed
Occupation by Age and Marital Status
Native Born White Women of Native Parents
Native Born White Women of Immigrant Parents
GENERAL SOURCES (all occupations and worker types)
WAGES BY OCCUPATION / INDUSTRY