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Wage Rates in the Early National Period: Philadelphia, 1785–1830

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Donald R. Adams Jr
Donald R. Adams Jr
Affiliation:
Southern Illinois University
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Extract

Recent scholarly work in the economic history of the precivil War United States has produced an impressive array of statistical data. Estimates of income, output, capital stock, and population growth and distribution have been generated utilizing a variety of empirical sources and statistical techniques. But, despite these welcome advances in our knowledge and understanding of the early American economy, a number of important statistical records continue to elude scholars of the period. Information concerning immigration before 1820, the occupational distribution of the labor force, employment statistics, the cost of living, and the level and movement of retail prices and wages would, if available, prove valuable additions to our growing knowledge of the United States economy before 1860.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , September 1968 , pp. 404 - 426
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1968

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References

1 Lebergott, Stanley, Manpower in Economic Growth: The American Record Since 1800 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964)Google Scholar.

2 Because of space limitations a complete list of manuscript sources and references cannot be included in this article. The author would be pleased, however, to furnish a list of such sources on request.

3 In this connection see Gilboy, E. W., Wages in Eighteenth Century England (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934) andGoogle ScholarBowley, A. L., Wages in the United Kingdom in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, [Eng.]: The University Press, 1900)Google Scholar;also Wood, G. H., “Course of Average Wages, 1790–1860,” Economic Journal (1899) andGoogle ScholarTucker, R. S., “Real Wages of Artisans in London, 1729–1935,” Journal of the American Statistical Association XXXI (03. 1936), 73–84Google Scholar.

4 This “stickiness” of wage rates is all the more surprising when we consider the lack of effective labor organizations during the period under question.

5 See , Bezanson, , Gray, and , Hussey, Wholesale Prices in Philadelphia, 1784–1861 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1937), appendix, p. 379Google Scholar.

6 Foner, P. S., History of the Labor Movement in the United States from Colonial Times to the Founding of the American Federation of Labor (New York: Industrial Publishers, 1947), p. 66Google Scholar.

7 United States Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial times to 1957 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960), series E157–160, p. 127Google Scholar.

8 , Lebergott, Manpower in Economic Growth, p. 139Google Scholar.

9 For a recent work on the growth of urban areas during this period see Taylor, G. R., “American Urban Growth Preceding the Railway Age,” JOUHNAI. OF ECONOMIC HISTORY XXVII (09. 1967), 309–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 , Lebergott, Manpower in Economic Growth, pp. 188–89Google Scholar.