Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1886-11-25
Tho Century's Rise OF Wages.
fscientific Amencan.l

Discussing wages in one Of his lectures
before the students of the Harvard Univer.
sity, Professor Thompson gives many facts
Of curious interest. In 1872 the Schuyl-
kill and Susquehanna Canal Company
advertised for workman, Offering So per
month for the winter months, and Sc tor
summer with board and lodging The
next year there was debate in the house
OF Representatives which brought out the
fact tnat suiIicrs got but 81 mouth 4
Vermont member Discussing thc proposal
to raise il tp ~ said That men in his state
were hired tor E14 year, "a month,
with board and clothing Mr. WadS worth,
Of Pennsylvania, said: "In the state north
of Pennsylvania the wages OF the common
laborer are not upon the whole, superior
to that OF the common soldier" In 1887
Rhode Island farmer hired a good farm
hand at $3 month and IS a month was
paid TO those who got employment for the
eight busy months of the farmers year.
a strong boy could be had at that time
in Connecticut for 81 a month through
those months and he earned it by working
from daybreak until eight or nine o'clock
At night. He could buy a course cotton
shirt with the earnings Of three such
months. The farmers could pay no better,
for the price they got for produce was
wrctched. Butter sold at eight cents
per pound, and when it rose suddenly TO
ten cents several farmers wives and daugh.
tiers went out OF their mind with excite,
ment. Women picked the wool off the
bushes and briers, where the sheep had
left it, and spun and knit it into mittens
to earn 81 n wear BY this toilsome business
They hired out Tor help at % cents month
and their board.
BY hard days work at the spinning
wheel woman am girl together would
earn twelve cents. AS late as 1921 the
best farm hands could be had for 25 cents
a day. or twice as much in moving time
Matthew Carey in letters on Charities OIL
Philadelphia (ls29) gives painful picture
OF the working classes at that time. Every
avenue of employment was choked with
applicants. Men left the city to find work
on the canals at from sixty to seventy. five
cents day, and to encounter the malaria
which laid them low in numbers. The
highest wages paid to women was twenty.
five cents dav, and even the women who
made clothes for the arsenal were paid by
the government at no higher rates. When
the ladies of the city begged for an i'm
provcment of this rate, the secretary hest
tated, lest it should disarrange the relations
of capital and labor throughout the city
Poor people died of hunger and want in
the city every winter and the fact seems tc
have made no impression only on benevo
lcntly disposed persons like Mr.. Carey.
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