Photographed in about 1867, Mary, whose last name is unknown, was probably employed by the household of Nathaniel Lamson, one of the owners of the Lamson & Goodnow Manufacturing Company of Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. Economic opportunities for African Americans were limited in New England and remained so in the decades following the Civil War (1861-1865.) Employers preferred to hire native-born Whites and immigrants for higher paying industrial jobs. To make matters worse, most trade unions forming at that time excluded African Americans, effectively shutting them out of the labor movement. These economic and social conditions limited employment opportunities for African American men to the most taxing, dangerous, and menial positions. Opportunities for Black women were still more restricted, confined mainly to domestic service in White households. For several decades from the 1860s to the 1890s, members of the Lamson family were sole employers of African-Americans, including Mary, in Shelburne Falls. Census records reveal they were almost exclusively young women born in the South and employed as domestic servants.