I am trying to obtain annual (or monthly), data regarding the labor share by demographic in the US textile industry (i.e. % of labor employed in textile industry that is black/white/hispanic) from ideally 1840 onwards (pre 1860 hopefully). Where should I look in the IPUMS database? If not IPUMS does anyone have any other suggestions on where to look?
Thanks all for the help 
I am not aware of a widely available annual source of this information, and am uncertain of the level of demographic detail available in some of the existing sources. However, you might try the following:
- U.S. decennial census data for 1850 and 1860 via IPUMS USA will give you both demographics and occupation/industry information (note that the 1840 data were at the household rather than the person-level and will not provide enough specificity to explore the textile industry – see the list of variables for the 1840 decennial)
- Manufacturing censuses from ICPSR will also only be decennial (1850-1870, 1880), but may be of interest. You might also look into papers from the authors affiliated with these data to see if they have some of these statistics readily available.
- You might explore this Davis 2004 paper for ideas of other data sources.