Historically women have engaged in three types of work: non-wage (work in the household for family use), market work in the home (e.g., home sewing and the selling of home-processed and -cooked foods), and wage work. As the border states industrialized and developed economically, non-wage labor intensified, production at home for the market increased, and larger numbers of women entered the wage labor market. Of the three types of labor, non-wage labor is the most difficult to describe. Studies tend to concentrate on a single ethnic group and to make comments only in passing without much analysis. Studies available on women's production for the market at home are not much better. Nothing is known of how married women working in their homes produced goods and services or how many did so. Wage labor, the most visible and easiest to document, has been described in an increasing number of articles. Emphasizing the American experience, this paper analyzes the status of historical research on women's work in the border states between Mexico and the United States, identifies changes in the three types of work, and examines women's work from the Anglo, Black, Hispanic, and Native American perspectives. (Author/NQA)