Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1883-11-08
How We Lived Forty Years Ago.

10 60 back forty years, fully as useful
a contrast and as instructive 4 compar-
lson may be made as to bring the early
settler from England, Holland, and
France in opposition to their descend
ants of two hundred years later. In 1913
and for some period thence onward,
money, as currency, was scarce. Pos
sibly general business suffered for want
of the medium of exchange. Money,
in bills or coin, had q value that would
be looked upon now as almost Worship
ing of a fetch. Zone dollar a day.
was "a good days pay" and so it was
considered even for fairly skillful labor
Several men, for instance, were employ
ed in squaring, by chalk line and broad
AK, the round timbers to form the franz
ing of a dam. Others bored the holes
for mOrtises and chiseled them out
Others did the ''scribing," the saving,
and dressing of the lemons. Few of
them got over one and a quarter dollars
per day from sunup to shutdown. :"
The man who could SCRIBE" and who
laid out the job, got perhaps one dollar
and fifty cents. The machinist got
from one dollar and fifty to two dollars
per day; and he who got the two dollars
was a fortunate man; and for that time
he was q competent man. Laborers
had fifty cents per day, and in haying
time, when several days ordinary work
must be crowded into twelve, fourteen
or possibly sixteen hours, they got sew
enty-fve cents. Special workman, apt
at any jobs, one dollar.
Now this is fair showing of the value
of labor forty years ago. What was the
relative value of housing, fuel, food,
and clothing? Rents were low. A
good house for the times cost from S25
to $40 per year. Fuel-wood-was
somewhat less than it can be furnished,
as coal now, at any place remote from
the mines; say for an ordinary family
six cords of hickory, 1924; now four tons
of coal 1.-TWO fires), about equal. Food
cost less forty years ago than now; but
it was not the same food. Fresh meat
once, or at most twice, a week, and
rarely that except in ''the killing
season." fish caught at the stream or
pond, or hawked about at four cents q
pound dressed. Vegetables from the
garden, or from the market st twenty
five cents bushel for potatoes and less
prices for turnips. Onions almost as
dear as now, and cabbages no cheaper.
Clothing can be bought cheaper now
than it could forty years ago, and it is
cheaper in more than one sense. Per-
haps it would be better for the country
at large if better clothing at higher
prices should be the rule.
1t is scarcely necessary to add to
chow we lived forty years ago. any
statement of how we live or how we
might live now. 1t is enough to the
present Garner of his bread by labor to
know of the annoyances and lack of OPP
portunities of his predecessor. A glance
over the condition of forty years ago
and the present condition will convince
any unprecedented mind that an improve
ment has been made in the condition
OF our workers, and that the worker of
of to-day gets a better return for his
labor than he did forty years ago. And
this statement applies as nearly to the
unskilled worker as to the adept me-
chanic. Only that the advantage now,
as ever before, holds with the intelligent,
skilled experienced mechanic.