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Wholesale and Retail Prices in the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Ethel D. Hoover
Ethel D. Hoover
Affiliation:
Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S. Department of Labor
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Extract

Today's best-known price indexes for Wholesale Price and Consumer Price Indexesthe Unitedof theStates are the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Indexes of Prices Received and Paid by Farmers, issued by the Department of Agriculture. These indexes, however, are comparatively new. The “Wholesale Price Index” dates from 1902 with indexes covering the years 1890-1901. The “Consumer Price Index” is of even more recent origin. Retail food price indexes were established on a regular basis in 1901, again with data back to 1890. Other goods and services were not added until after World War I, with estimates back to 1913 based on special studies in shipbuilding cities. The “Index of Prices Received by Farmers” was issued by the Department of Agriculture in 1924 and “Prices Paid by Farmers” in 1928. Botfi of these series were extended back to 1910.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , September 1958 , pp. 298 - 316
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1958

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References

1 U.S. Department of Labor, Course of Wholesale Prices, 1890 to 1901, Bull. No. 39 (Washington, D.C., 03. 1902)Google Scholar.

2 The term “wholesale” is used in the sense of prices charged for sales in large lots, usually at the first commercial transaction or in major trading centers, not prices charged by wholesalers or similar distributors.

3 Joint meeting held with the Economic History Association at Williams College, Sept. 4–7, 1957.

4 Many references, particularly for the colonial period, are cited in the History of Wages in the United States from Colonial Times to 1928, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bull. No. 499 (Washington, D.C., 1929)Google Scholar.

5 Blodgett, Samuel Jr, Economica: A Statistical Manual for the United States of America (Washington, D.C., 1806), pp. 141–43Google Scholar.

6 Davidson, J. B., McCuen, G. W., and Blasingame, R. W., Report of an Inquiry into Changes in Quality Values of Farm Machines Between 1910–14 and 1932 (American Society of Agricultural Engineers, St. Joseph, Mich., 06 1933)Google Scholar.

7 Adams, T. S., Prices Paid by Vermont Farmers for Goods and Services and Received by Them for Farm Products, 1790-1940; Wages of Vermont Farm Labor, 1780-1940 (Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station, Bull. No. 507, 02. 1944)Google Scholar.

8 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, 1789-1945 (Washington, D.C., 1949)Google Scholar.

9 38th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Executive Document, 1863. pp. 314 ffGoogle Scholar.

10 Annual Report of the Director of the Mint to the Secretary of the Treasury for the Fiscal year Ended June 30. 1881 (Washington, D.C., 1881), pp. 48 ffGoogle Scholar.

11 ibid., P. 26.

12 Retail Prices and Wages, 52nd Congress, 1st Session, Senate Report 986, 3 Parts (Washington, D.C., 1892)Google Scholar; Wholesale Prices, Wages, and Transportation, 52nd Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Report 1394, 4 Parts (Washington, D.C., 1893)Google Scholar.

13 Retail Prices, Part I, p. i.

14 Ibid., Part I, p. ii.

15 Later price information for most of these articles is included in Department of Labor Bull. No. 27 (Mar. 1900) and No. 39 (Mar. 1902); and in the Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance of the United Slates, 06 1902 (57th Congress, 2nd Session, Document No. 15, Part I), p. 207.

16 Wholesale Prices, Part I, pp. 63-4.

17 The Aldrich Reports contain the results of an expenditure study for 1890-91 which has been used extensively for weights to estimate changes in the cost of living. Details are given in Retail Prices, Part III, pp. 2040-96; and a summary in Part I, pp. xlii-xliii.

18 Census, Tenth, Vol. XX, Department of Interior, Census Office (Washington, D.C., 1886)Google Scholar.

19 Ibid., p. 1.

20 Ibid., p. 2.

21 Quarterly Publications of the American Statistical Association, XIV (12. 1915), 804–12;Google ScholarWholesale Prices, 1890 to 1923, BLS Bull. No. 367 (Washington, D.C., 01. 1925), pp. 235–48Google Scholar.

22 American Economic Review, XV (03. 1925), 27–42; XV (June 1925), 294Google Scholar.

23 The study of prices in Boston was limited to the eighteenth century since data for Boston from 1795 on had already been studied by Walter B. Smith and Arthur H. Cole. The results of their studies are represented in Fluctuations in American Business History, 1790–1860 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1935)Google Scholar.

24 Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938.

25 Cole's summary includes New York commodity prices up to 1861. The full series were presented by the authors in Wholesale Prices for 213 Years, 1720 to 1932 (Memoir 142, Agricultural Experiment Station, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 11. 1932). Indexes prior to 1797 were compiled by Herman M. Stoker and described in the same publication. Indexes from 1890 on were those of the Bureau of Labor Statistics converted to the 1910–14 baseGoogle Scholar.

26 Ibid., p. 163.

27 The history of commodity prices in Philadelphia by Anne Bezanson and her associates has been published by the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce in its series of Industrial Research Studies. The volumes include Prices in Colonial Pennsylvania (XXVI, 1935); Wholesale Prices in Philadelphia, 1784-1861 (Part I, XXIX, 1936; Part II, Series of Relative Monthly Prices, XXX, 1937); Prices and Inflation During the American Revolution, Philadelphia, 1770–1790 (XXXV, 1951); and Wholesale Prices in Philadelphia, 1852–1896, Series of Relative Monthly Prices (XXXVI, 1954).

28 Analyses of price movements and a detailed description of sources and methods were given by Taylor, George in “Wholesale Commodity Prices at Charleston, South Carolina, 1732-1791” in Journal of Economic and Business History, IV (02. 1932), 356 ff.Google Scholar; and “Wholesale Commodity Prices in Charleston, South Carolina, 1796-1861” in J. Ec. & Bus. Hist., IV (08. 1932), 848 ffGoogle Scholar.

29 A portion of the early price history is included in , Taylor's discussion “Prices in the Mississippi Valley Preceding the War of 1812” in J. Ec. & Bus. Hist., III (11. 1930), 148 ffGoogle Scholar.

30 The significance of commodity price movements in the Cincinnati area in the westward movement has been discussed by , Berry in Western Prices Before 1861: A Study of the Cincinnati Market (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1943)Google Scholar.

31 Mitchell, Wesley C., Gold, Prices, and Wages Under the Greenback. Standard, (University of California Publications in Economics, Vol. I [Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 03. 1908])Google Scholar.

32 Ibid., p. 91.

33 Russell Sage Foundation, New York City, 1920.

34 Douglas, Paul H., Real Wages in the United States, 1890-1926 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1930)Google Scholar.

35 Index of Estimated Cost of Living in the United States (03. 1953), mimeographedGoogle Scholar.

36 See “Historical Review of Wages and Prices, 1752-1860” in Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor (Public Document No. 15, Boston, Mass., 08. 1885), pp. 159ffGoogle Scholar.

37 See “Graded Prices: Massachusetts, Other United States, and Foreign Countries, 1816-1891” in Thirty First Annual Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor (Public Document No. 15, Boston, Mass., 1901), pp. 249 ffGoogle Scholar.

38 U.S. Treasury Department (Washington, D.C., 1876)