American Accountants in 1880

Thomas Lee

Accounting History Review, 2007, vol. 17, issue 3, 333-354

Abstract: Although much has been written about the foundation and maturation of the early US public accountancy profession, little is known about the community of American accountants that existed prior to the main foundational events of the 1880s and 1890s. Using data extracted from the 1880 US Census, this study provides a contextualised review of American accountants in that year. Contextual factors include the population and manufacturing economy of the US in 1880, and other accounting service providers such as auditors and bookkeepers. The study reveals a very small community of accountants relative to the US population and manufacturing economy, occupational and economic distinctions between accountants, auditors and bookkeepers, little evidence of public accountancy as a significant occupation, the presence of a small female subset of the accountant community, and a significant proportion of accountants associated with lower socio-economic classifications and immigration. The evidence of the study is consistent with contemporary comments recorded by British public accountants and American bookkeepers.

Keywords: Accountant; auditor; bookkeeper; clerk; occupation; profession; public accountancy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09585200701609554 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:acbsfi:v:17:y:2007:i:3:p:333-354

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rabf21

DOI: 10.1080/09585200701609554

Access Statistics for this article

Accounting History Review is currently edited by Stephen Walker

More articles in Accounting History Review from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().