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On the Alleged Antebellum Surge in Wage Differentials: A Critique of Williamson and Lindert

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Scott D. Grosse
Scott D. Grosse
Affiliation:
Graduate student in economics at the University of Michigan and is also affiliated with the Population Studies Center, 1225 South University Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109.
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Abstract

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Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , June 1982 , pp. 413 - 418
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1982

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References

1 Williamson, Jeffrey G. and Lindert, Peter H., American Inequality: A Macroeconomic History (New York, 1980).Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 68.

3 Massachusetts, , Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor (Boston, 1885), pp. 434–35.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., p. 433.

5 Ibid., p. 320.

6 Ibid., pp. 319–25. Lindert, and Williamson, directed my attention to United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, History of Wages in the United States from Colonial Times to 1928 (Washington, D.C., 1929), p. 58, with a table reprinting the relevant data for 1800–1838.Google Scholar

7 Zabler, Jeffrey F., “Further Evidence on American Wage Differentials, 1800–1830,” Explorations in Economic History, 10 (Fall 1972), 109–17.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., pp. 112–13.

9 Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 6th ed., Cannan, E., ed. (London, 1950), pp. 71–72.Google Scholar

10 U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, History of Wages, p. 53.Google Scholar

11 Adams, Donald R., “Wages Rates in the Early National Period: Philadelphia, 1785–1830,” this JOURNAL, 28 (09 1968), 404–26.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 411.

13 Zabler, “Further Evidence,” p. 115.Google Scholar

14 Williamson and Lindert, American Inequality, p. 70.Google Scholar

15 U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, History of Wages, p. 70.Google Scholar

16 Burgess, W. R., Trends in School Costs (New York, 1920), cited in Williamson and Lindert, American Inequality, p. 305.Google Scholar

17 Katz, Michael B., The Irony of Early School Reform (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1968), p. 224;Google ScholarKaestle, Carl F. and Vinovskis, Mans A., Education and Social Change in Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts (New York, 1980), p. 284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 “… what compensation do teachers receive? Not half so much as is ordinarily given to headmen and master-workmen in the handicrafts and trades; not one-third, often not one-fourth part so much as is paid to cashiers of banks, or secretaries of insurance companies, or overseers in factories, or engineers on rail-roads.” Massachusetts, , Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Education (Boston, 1846), p. 31.Google Scholar “In 1837, only a few of the public schools in the State were kept during the whole year. The average compensation given to teachers—especially to female teachers—was disreputably low. At once to increase the length of the schools and to add to the compensation of teachers, it became necessary to enlarge the annual appropriations.” Massachusetts, , Ninth Annual Report of the Board of Education (Boston, 1847), p. 68.Google Scholar

19 Wright, Carroll D., Comparative Wages, Prices, and Cost of Living (Boston, 1889), pp. 22, 54, 55, and 185.Google Scholar

20 Williamson and Lindert, American Inequality, p. 71.Google Scholar

21 Massachusetts, Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, pp. 325–26.Google Scholar

22 Coelho, Philip R. P. and Shepherd, James F., “Regional Differences in Real Wages: The United States, 1851–1880,” Explorations in Economic History, 13 (04 1976), 203–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Ibid., p. 228.

24 Williamson and Lindert, American Inequality, pp. 69, 306. Data are from Burgess, Trends in School Costs.Google Scholar

25 Williamson and Lindert, American Inequality, p. 68.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., p. 70.

27 Aldrich, Mark, “Earnings of American Civil Engineers, 1820–1859,” this JOURNAL, 31 (06 1971), 407–19.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., pp. 415–16.

29 Ibid., pp. 409–10; Smith, Walter B., “Wage Rates on the Erie Canal, 1828–1881,” this JOURNAL, 23 (09 1963), 298–311.Google Scholar

30 Nickless, Pamela J., “A New Look at Productivity in the New England Cotton Textile Industry,” this JOURNAL, 39 (12 1979), 889–910.Google Scholar

31 Smith, “Wage Rates,” pp. 303–04.Google Scholar

32 The Smith data and the Adams data are reprinted in the U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1976).Google Scholar

33 Williamson and Lindert, American Inequality, p. 70.Google Scholar The source is Layer, Robert G., Earnings of Cotton Mill Earnings, 1825–1914 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1955), p. 52.Google Scholar

34 Ibid.

35 Nickless, “A New Look,” p. 909.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., pp. 907–08.