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V28 2025 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 28, Number 25, 2025, Article 8

Jerry Nashorn did some research and submitted this article on longtime Treasury Department employee Sophia Holmes, believed to be the first black woman employee of the U.S. government. Thank you! -Editor

c1892 sketch of Sophia Holms by Edith Ainslie Noble

In response to Wayne's request about Sophia Holmes, I've found some additional information not included in the Brandimore article and at odds with it on key points concerning her employment history.

According to the article, in 1862. Mrs Holmes, a janitor working evenings at the Treasury Department, was rewarded by being made a messenger, a higher level job that paid more, when she turned in a large sum of money she had discovered to the Treasurer of the United States, General Francis Spinner. The article implies that she spent the next 30 plus years in that position before retiring in the late 1890s. This is not correct.

As will be shown below, after her encounter with Spinner, Mrs. Holmes was given a higher paid permanent job but as a laborer doing janitorial work. In 1866 or 1867, she was promoted to messenger. However, she was only in that position for several years before once again being classified and paid as a laborer, the position she held for the remainder of her career.

The basic printed source containing information on 19th century Federal employees is a US Government publication called the Official Register of the United States. In the late 19th century, when Mrs. Holmes worked for the government, the Official Register was published biennially in even numbered years and contained data on the Federal work force as of the summer or fall of the previous odd numbered year. It is readily available online on both the Internet Archive and Google Books, with the latter being the easiest to search.

The earliest Official Register reference to Mrs. Holmes is in the volume covering 1863. A Mrs. S. Holmes is listed as a "female temporarily employed" in the Treasury Department and earning $216 a year. She possibly was in this position when she had her encounter with Spinner but if she was indeed still a temporary employee in 1863, it could mean the episode took place that year rather than in 1862 . It also is possible that the position listed in the 1863 volume was the better paid job she got as a reward for her honesty but for some reason, the Official Register entry described the position as temporary.

In the 1865 volume, Sophia Holmes is identified as a laborer in the Office of the Treasurer. Her salary was $24 a month. However in 1867 she is described as a messenger in the Register's Office earning $720 a year. Most laborers in the office earned $432 per year.

In 1869 and 1871, Mrs. Holmes' job title and salary remained the same. In 1873, however, her job title was assistant messenger but her salary was still $720. Three employees were listed as messengers in the Register's Office and they received $840.

In 1875, the year in which General Spinner left the Department, Mrs. Holmes is once again listed as a laborer. Her salary and that of the other laborers was $720. Messengers made $840. The Official Register gives no indication of why she was downgraded. Perhaps there were performance issues and of course racial prejudice may have played a role. However, it is also quite possible that she suffered as a result of her association with General Spinner. According to his Wikipedia biography, Spinner left his position at Treasury because of a dispute with the Secretary, who insisted on having the final say when it came to departmental appointments.

Entries in the Official Register for the remainder of Mrs. Holmes long career list her as a laborer, earning $660 a year. The last reference to her is in the volume that shows agency staffing as of 1895. Thus, she spent the vast bulk of her Federal career as a laborer who did janitorial work. I've attached scans of selected pages from the Official Register at the end of this article.

Additional information about Mrs. Holmes is available in entries for her on Wikipedia and Wikitree. Taken together they provide a great deal of data about her whole life, particularly the years prior to her becoming a Federal employee when she and the Mayor of Washington worked together to emancipate her enslaved husband. He ultimately joined the Union Army and died a hero at Bull Run. His death came to the attention of several major political figures whose efforts led to Sophia's first job at Treasury as a temporary, part time janitor.

These articles include useful data drawn from Census records. For example Mrs. Holmes could neither read nor write, which of course greatly limited her employment possibilities in the civil service. More importantly they provide links to 19th century sources particularly several newspaper articles written in the 1890s based on interviews with Holmes.

These articles are remarkably similar and include quotations attributed to Mrs. Holmes herself. Some were in fairly obscure local papers but others appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

The L.A. Times article is titled "Sophia, The Janitress of the United States Treasury Building" and appeared on June 11, 1893. According to the article she was first employed as a "scrub woman" at Treasury working every other day. She and the other women who held similar positions were called "Uncle Sammy's Scrub Brigade." The article recounts her meeting with Spinner and how shortly thereafter she was made a permanent employee. The article makes no reference to her ever being a messenger.

The Wikitree article itself does note Holmes' being made a messenger but incorrectly dates the appointment to 1869 when her title went from messenger to assistant messenger. It also implies incorrectly that she was an assistant messenger for the rest of her long career. Mrs. Holmes' biography on Wikipedia essentially repeats these errors.

There is possibly an even better source of information on Holmes than those discussed above. When someone applied for a government job in the late 19th century an application file was opened. According to historian Cindy Aron who used these records as the basic source for a book, if a person was hired the application file essentially became a personnel file documenting the employee's career. Aron specifically used files accumulated in the Treasury Department's Division of Appointments that are now held at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. If this body of records includes a file on Holmes it would be the most accurate account of her career. The entry in the Archives catalog that pertains to these records may be accessed at archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/056.html#56.3.

Another possible source may be available in Civil War era congressional files at the National Archives in Washington at the National Archives in Washington and/or in records of the Treasury Department which are stored at the Archives facility in College Park.

In checking the Washington Post for articles on Mrs. Holmes, I found one published in 1954 that was written by a Francis de Sales Ryan, a retired Treasury Department employee. The article titled "1862 Theft Led to Stringent Security Rules," provides an exact date, October 10, 1862, for Mrs. Holmes meeting with Spinner as well as her initial salary, $15 a month. It also specifies the room number where the money was found. According to Ryan, after the episode there was a major congressional investigation which Ryan presumably was able to access. The article notes that this story would be included in a forthcoming book but I have not been able to verify that this book was ever published.

To see the full articles and documents Jerry provided, see this Flickr album:
Sophia Holmes (https://www.flickr.com/photos/coinbooks/albums/72177720327054173)

Remarkable life story! -Editor