The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1886-09-24
FIFTY YEARS AGO.
The Value of Work and Building Mate
rails in the Years 1921 and 1922.

The Value of Work and Building Mate
rails in the Years 1921 and 1922.
Turning over some old papers the
other day we came upon two or three
bills for carpenter work and plastering,
dating back to 1921 and 1922, which
have certain interest, as showing the
value of work and materials at that
time compared with the prices now
current. One thing which surprised
lis, and will perhaps be equally surpris-
ing to our readers, is that the cost of
lumber, keeping in view the compare
tive purchasing power of money, was
at that time far greater than it is now.
Sixty-fiVe years ago a large part Of the
United States which is now cleared
was an unbroken forest, and every
township in the Eastern States must
have contained good deal of timber
of the original growth, yet we find ''re-
fuse boards charged in 1921 at 81 a
thousand feet, which would be high
price now, while painters work, which
is the only labor we find charged in
the bills just now before us, is put
down on the bill, which would natural
ly include profit, at Is and ed, or 81. %
per day. The inference is that it
would have taken painter or carpen-
ter in those good old days at least
twice as long to earn money enough
to pay for boards to cover his house as
it does now, notwithstanding the fact
that the timber is brought ten times
farther to market now than it was then,
and that the supply is, according to all
the other items we find laths
charged at seven shillings, or
SLY per thousand, and clap
boards at "25 cents for ten," or
$25 per thousand This would be a
low price for pine clapboards now in
Massachusetts, but it was high price
then compared with the value of labor.
Contrary to the general impression,
spruce and hemlock seem to have been
very generally used, and we find items
of hemlock boards at 81 thousand
feet, and spruce at @14 or SIS. Clear
pine plank, which many people
imagine to be much scarcer material
now than in the days when second
growth timber was unknown, is
charged in the bills at $50 thousand
feet, which would be tolerably high
price in the same locality to-day, and
correspondent then to about twice the
value, in the form of labor and cost of
living, that it could be exchanged for
now. Of some materials the cost seems
to have been even greater then than at
the present. In a bill for painters
work, dated 1927, we find oil charged
at % cents quart, which, even allow
ing for profit, is a higher price than
most architects would now approve in
days work bill, and yarnish is put
down at the rate of 81 gallon, a
charge which would just about pass an
architects criticism in these days. One
of the items is for ''green paint for
chairs" so that if any of our readers
are of an archaeological turn of mind
they may make note here that the
fashion of covering furniture with this
ugly and adhesive coating, which has
not died out even in our own college
days, dates back at least fifty-nine
years. The credits on this bill, which
amount to about $40, include items of
thirty-tiye bushels of potatoes at 80
cents a bushel, and two barrels of
cider, differing apparently either in
size or quality, as one is credited at 80
and the other at eight shillings, Massa-
chusetts currency, or 81. 33.-Anaerican
Archstect.