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Prices and Wages in Maryland, 1750–1850

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Donald R. Adams Jr
Donald R. Adams Jr
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506.
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Abstract

This article presents an analysis of empirical research on the course of agricultural prices and wages in Maryland over the century 1750 to 1850. An attempt has been made to present the data in a form comparable to other studies for other regions. In addition to the long-term movement of price and wage series the paper focuses on the use of these data to draw inferences on changes in the standard of living and productivity growth.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , September 1986 , pp. 625 - 645
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1986

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References

1 Recent work by Kenneth Sokoloff indicates that the proportion of the labor force employed in agriculture differed substantially by region. For example, by 1850 the proportion in the Northeast was 36 percent, in the South 80 percent, in the North Central region 60 percent and in the United States as a whole 59 percent. Sokoloff, Kenneth L., “Industrialization and the Growth of the Manufacturing Sector in the Northeast, 1820 to 1850” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1982), p. 2.Google Scholar

2 According to Klingaman, David “the tobacco colonies were a major surplus food region at a time when their population was expanding rapidly and when the bulk of their resources were committed to tobacco.”Google ScholarKlingaman, David, “The Significance of Grain in the Development of the Tobacco Colonies,” this JOURNAL, 29 (06 1969), p. 277.Google Scholar

3 An extended discussion of items not included in the Appendix Table is available from the author on request.Google Scholar

4 The combined meat and grain index (1753 = 100) can be seen in Table 2. Meat and grain prices are equally weighted.Google Scholar

5 Prices during the Revolutionary War period must be viewed with caution because of the severe currency problems experienced in Maryland as well as other colonies. The conversion from Maryland currency to dollars was made at the rate of 7 shillings 6 pence equals one dollar. This rate appeared to have been relatively stable in the years prior to the inflation which accompanied the Revolutionary War. The Account Book of Richard Boarman of St. Mary's County indicated that $1.00 was equivalent to 7/6 Maryland currency or 182 pounds of tobacco in 1759. The same source notes that $1.00 = 7/6, and one pound Maryland currency equalled $2.66 in 1767. Thus, the Maryland shilling was valued at $0.133. During December 1780 the Patuxent Iron Works Journal lists the rate of exchange between Continental currency and Maryland currency as 2: 1 with the dollar valued at 7/6 Maryland currency. By August 1781 this rate had risen to over 39: 1 for an implied rate of exchange between specie and Continental currency of 1: 117. Maryland currency did not depreciate as rapidly as Continental. In May 1781 Maryland currency exchanged for specie at a rate of 6.47:1, and by July the rate had fallen to 3:1.

6 The wage rate series represents an unweighted average of daily and monthly wage rates without board or other forms of nonmonetary remuneration. Some short-run variation may be the result of geographic variation. Payment for specialized tasks and harvest wages are not included in the series.Google Scholar

7 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, D.C., 1960), p. 771.Google Scholar

8 As early as 1765 one source cites rent at $20 per year. See Journal, Elk Ridge, Maryland Hall of Records, 1496, 5–42–5 (1765).Google Scholar For later rental rates in nearby Delaware see Adams, Donald R. Jr, “The Standard of Living During American Industrialization: Evidence from the Brandywine Region, 1800–1860,” this JOURNAL, 42 (12 1982), p. 915.Google Scholar

9 For additional examples see Account Book of Richard Brooke, Maryland Hall of Records D566, folder 28, Montgomery County and Robert Archer Ledger G, Maryland Hall of Records G162 (954).Google Scholar

10 This value is quite close to the average value for two later nineteenth-century studies for Massachusetts and for nine basic industries between 1874 and 1891, which indicate expenditures on food averaged 49.5 percent of total expenditures. Historical Statistics of the United States, p. 181.Google Scholar

11 Adams, “The Standard of Living,” p. 908.Google Scholar

12 Wright, C. D., “Historical Review of Wages and Prices, 1752–1860,” Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Sixteenth Annual Report, Part IV, Public Document No. 15 (1885), pp. 201–311.Google Scholar

13 Adams, T. M., University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, Vermont Agricultural Experimental Station, Bulletin 597, (February 1944), pp. 87–88.Google Scholar

14 Historical Statistics of the United States, pp. 13, 756.Google Scholar

15 ibid, p.756; and U.S. Bureau of the Census, Eighth Census of the United States, Population (Washington, D. C., 1864), pp. 594–603.Google Scholar

16 Williamson, Jeffrey G., “Antebellum Urbanization in the American Northeast,” this JOURNAL, 25 (12 1965), p. 600.Google Scholar

17 Adams, “The Standard of Living,” p. 913.Google Scholar

18 Adams, Donald R. Jr, “Earnings and Savings in the Early 19th Century,” Explorations in Economic History, 17 (04 1980), pp. 118–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Ball, Duane E. and Walton, Gary M., “Agricultural Productivity Change in Eighteenth Century Pennsylvania,” this JOURNAL, 36 (03 1976), pp. 109–11.Google Scholar

20 Gailman, Robert, “The Agricultural Sector and the Pace of Economic Growth: U.S. Experience in the Nineteenth Century,” in Klingaman, David C. and Vedder, Richard K., eds., Essays in Nineteenth Century Economic History (Athens, 1975), pp. 47–48.Google Scholar