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Some Evidence on English and American Wage Rates, 1790–1830

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Donald R. Adams Jr.
Donald R. Adams Jr.
Affiliation:
Southern Illinois University
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Extract

It is a widely held belief that significant wage rate differentials existed between Britain and the United States during the period 1790–1830. Indeed, the existence of such differentials is a pivotal factor in at least one theory of the nature and rate of growth of American and British technology and in the explanation of relative factor combinations in the two countries during the nineteenth century.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , September 1970 , pp. 499 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1970

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References

1 See Habakkuk, H. J., American and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962)Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., p. 21.

3 Ibid., p. 21.

4 Rosenberg, Nathan, “Anglo-American Wage Differences in the 1820's,” The Joubnal of Economic History, XXVII (June 1967), 221–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Professor Rosenberg indicated the need for such a study when he stated that “In view of the importance of these wage differentials to the path of each country's development, high priority ought therefore to be attached to future research which will provide more reliable information on the nature of these differentials—not only by country but by region, by more precisely defined skill category, and over time.” Ibid., p. 29.

6 Gilboy, E., Wages in Eighteenth Century England (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934)Google Scholar; Bowley, A. L., Wages in the United Kingdom in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: University Press, 1900)Google Scholar; Porter, G. R., The Progress of Nations, II (1838)Google Scholar, quoted in English Historical Documents, Aspinall, A. and Smith, E. A. (eds.), (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1959)Google Scholar.

7 Lebergott, Stanley, Manpower in Economic Growth: The American Record Since 1800 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964)Google Scholar; Adams, D. R., “Wage Rates in the Early National Period: Philadelphia, 1785–1830,” The Journal of Economic History, XXVII (Sept. 1968), 404–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Daily Wage Rates in Massachusetts,” Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin, No. 499, p. 58; University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, Agricultural Experimental Station, Burlington, Vermont, Bulletin 507, February 1944Google Scholar.

8 Deane, P. and Cole, W. A., British Economic Growth 1688–1959 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), p. 24Google Scholar.

9 Carey, H. C., Essay on the Rate of Wages (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1965), p. 91Google Scholar.

10 Gilboy, Wages in Eighteenth Century England, p. 39.

11 Carey, Essay on the Rate of Wages, p. 91.

12 An average of Philadelphia and Vermont wage rates yields the following pattern:

13 Habakkuk, American and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century, p. 21.