Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922 / 2008-06-30 00:00:00
In the
forties, Thomas Mooney, an observant Irish traveler who had spent
several years in the United States wrote as follows*:
"The average value of a common uneducated labourer is eighty
cents a day. Of educated or mechanical labour, one hundred
twenty-five and two hundred cents a day; of female labour forty
cents a day. Against meat, flour, vegetables, and groceries at
one-third less than they rate in Great Britain and Ireland;
against clothing, house rent and fuel at about equal; against
public taxes at about three-fourths less; and a certainty of
employment, and a facility of acquiring homes and lands, and
education for children, a hundred to one greater. The further you
penetrate into the country, Patrick, the higher in general will
you find the value of labour, and the cheaper the price of all
kinds of living.... The food of the American farmer, mechanic or
labourer is the best I believe enjoyed by any similar classes in
the whole world. At every meal there is meat or fish or both;
indeed I think the women, children, and sedentary classes eat too
much meat for their own good health."
* "Nine Years in America" (1850). p. 22.
This highly optimistic picture, written by a sanguine observer
from the land of greatest agrarian oppression, must be shaded by
contrasting details. The truck system of payment, prevalent in
mining regions and many factory towns, reduced the actual wage by
almost one-half. In the cities, unskilled immigrants had so
overcrowded the common labor market that competition had reduced
them to a pitiable state.
Read more
Parts:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11