Daily AncestorPainter
In most census entries a painter was a house painter who painted and decorated buildings, not an artist; enumerators were asked to say which.
Painter can mean an artist, but as a trade it usually meant a house painter, who painted and decorated buildings to improve their look and protect them from water, rot and insects.
The 1900 census instructions name house painter among the exact trades to use instead of mechanic, and they list artist separately among the professions. So a plain painter in a census is far more likely to be a tradesman than a portrait or landscape artist.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1900 census
Jno. Kessler, 37, House painter
Sources
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Painter." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/painter. Last checked 2026-10-10.