Numbers in square brackets i.e. [ 2 ]
indicate source listed in Citation Key
MONEY IN AMERICAN HISTORY
a chronological casebook about cash
compiled from various sources and edited
by Peter Erik Wessen
The first U.S. bank was built when Philadelphia was the nation’s capitol. Alexander Hamilton created the bank to handle the debt from the Revolutionary War, and to create a standardize currency, for at that time coins and bills issued by state banks served as the currency. The First bank was charted in 1791 by Congress and signed by President Washington. In 1811, Congress voted to abandon the bank and its charter. The bank was housed in Carpenters’ Hall from 1791 to 1795. The neo-classical design of the bank was intended to recall the democracy and splendor of ancient Greece. Crowning the two story portico is an eagle. At the time of the bank’s creation the eagle had been the national symbol for only 14 years. It is the oldest bank building in America and is considered the oldest building in America with a classical façade. The bank charter was in effect for only 20 years and cost $110,168.05 to build.
1643
In America the rudimentary notion of taxing a person’s income, or his earning “faculty” (as it then was called), is found as early as 1643, when the colony of New Plymouth taxed persons “according to their estates or faculties”; three years later the colony passed a tax on the “returns and gains” of tradesmen and craftsmen. Other colonies followed. The “faculty” tax was actually rooted in the Middle ages. It was not an income tax in the modern sense, for it did not allow taxpayers to balance losses against gains, and it was levied only on certain kinds of income. Sums received from this kind of tax remained small. Not until the mid-nineteenth century did anything substantially like a modern income tax appear. Between 1840 and 1850, six states introduced some kind of income tax. A Virginia law of 1843, for example, imposed a tax of 1 percent of salaries and professional incomes over $400 a year, and 2½ on interest received. [28 pg 206]
1774
First physician in Greenfield (Mass) was Dr. Zecheriah Converse, who came from Killingly, Conn. in 1774 and lived on West Main Street. He was much beloved and died of apoplexy Oct. 30, 1790. [32]
-Philadelphia, 14th August, 1794.-
DEAR SIR,
By captain H—-, of the Betsy, who will deliver this letter, I have sent
you specimens of the federal coinage.
When that government was formed, a mint was established, and a coinage
issued on a new plan. This was much wanted, as scarcely three of the
states agreed as to the value currency of a dollar. Here it was seven
shillings and sixpence, in South Carolina four shillings and eight pence,
at New York eight shillings, and in the New England states six shillings.
According to the new regulations, all _nominal_ coins are exploded,
and the silver dollar, weighing 17 dwts. 6 grs. [Footnote: This is the
exact weight of the spanish milled dollar, which, as well as the
divisions, are allowed to pass current; they consist of the half, quarter,
eighth, and sixteenth, also the pistreen, or fifth, and the half pistreen,
or tenth.], is fixed as the standard, divided into one hundred decimal
parts; these are of copper, and called cents. All taxes, duties and
imposts, that extend to the whole Union_, are levied in these coins
_only_. The other federal coins, like the english guineas and crowns,
never appear on the public accounts.
Those of _gold_ are eagles, half eagles, and quarter eagles, value ten,
five, and two and a half, dollars: of _silver_, the half, quarter, tenth,
and twentieth of the standard dollar; or fifty, twenty-five, ten, and five
cents: of _copper_, the half cent, or two hundredth part of a dollar. The
principle on which this coinage is formed is so very simple, that the
proportion they bear to each other, and the standard dollar may be found
with the utmost facility. Indeed little else is wanted than the adding or
cutting off figures or ciphers: for instance, the public accounts being
kept in two columns, dollars, and cents; suppose in adding up the latter,
you find they amount to 27,621, you have only to cut off the two right hand
figures, and their value stands thus; 276 dollars, 21 cents. To reduce
eagles to dollars, add a cipher, and vice versa. To reduce half, and
quarter eagles to dollars, you have only to divide by 2 or 4 previous to
adding the cipher.
But though the federal government has succeeded in establishing it’s
coinage, the _people_ cannot be persuaded (the wholesale merchants, and a
few enlightened citizens excepted,) to come into this scheme; _they_
obstinately insist on buying, selling, and keeping their accounts in the
_good old way of their fathers!_ that is to say, in _currency_, by pounds,
shillings, and pence; and nothing can be more complex, as they have not a
single _coin_ in circulation of the _real_ or _nominal_ value of any of
them. If you are to pay the sum of three shillings and fourpence
halfpenny, (without having recourse to the federal scheme) you must
provide yourself with three silver divisions of the Spanish dollar, viz.
the fourth, eighth, and sixteenth, three english halfpence, two of George
the Second, and one of his present majesty[Footnote: Owing to the quantity
of counterfeit english halfpence of the present reign now in circulation
in these states, those of king George the Third, whether counterfeit or
not, are depreciated to the 360th part of a dollar.]; the nominal value of
which, added together, make that sum within a very trifling fraction.
I am informed the federal government means to fix the weights and measures
by a standard, which, like the coinage, will admit of the same _even_
division by decimals. I am often asked why the English, after having
proved the great utility of this scheme in their chain of one hundred
links for land measuring, do not extend it to their coin, &c.? If you can
think of a good solution to this question, pray let me have it in your
next to
Yours sincerely, &c. [35]
Feb. 5th .–Arrived at Baltimore, and hired a caravan with four
horses, which is here called a stage: the same afternoon we arrived at the
Susquana. This noble river, which is here about a mile and a quarter wide,
was frozen hard. Our -advanced guard- crossed the day before, in a
ferry boat: this circumstance will give you some idea of the severity of
the cold in this climate. A negro slave, belonging to the ferry, undertook
to drive our stage over the river for two dollars, which his _master put
into his pocket_, and ordered -Sambo- to proceed; the fellow drove
boldly, and was across in a few minutes, the ice cracking most horribly
all the way. I suppose I need not inform you, we were _not_ in the
carriage.
Philadelphia is the first port in the Union. The total value of it’s
exports in the year 1793, was 69,5736 dollars; the total of flower shipped
in the year 1792 was 42,0000 barrels, and in the spring only of 1793 it
exceeded 200,000 barrels.
The total of inward entries at Philadelphia, in 1793, was 1414 vessels of
different sizes, of which 477 were ships or brigs. [35]
The inhabitants are in general very fond of theatrical representations;
their new theatre is an elegant building, from a design the subscribers
obtained from London, where the principal scenes were painted by
Richardson and Rooker. The receipts of the house have exceeded one
thousand six hundred dollars. [35]
Aug. 31st_.–Arrived at Lancaster, a prettily situate town, of about
nine hundred houses. It is reckoned the largest inland town south of New
England, and indeed the only large town without some kind of navigation;
to remedy this inconvenience as much as possible, a turnpike road (very
superiour to any thing of the kind in America, and which will cost three
thousand dollars per mile,) is forming from Philadelphia, through
Lancaster, to the Susquana. I before told you this river, owing to the
rocks and falls, was not navigable; but I forgot to inform you, that the
inhabitants of the back country contrive to waft the produce of their
plantations down the river on floats, during the floods, in spring and
fall; which will be conveyed by means of this new road to Philadelphia,
whence it will be exported to the west indian or european markets. [35]
Lancaster was originally a german settlement; the inhabitants were so
desirous of perpetuating their language, that they established german
schools for the education of the rising generation; but their descendants,
finding the inconvenience of being without a knowledge of English, now
send their children first to the german, and afterward to the english
schools; by which means they acquire a tolerable idea of both languages.
They still retain many characteristics of their ancestors; such as
frugality, plainness in dress, &c. At our first concert, three
clownish-looking fellows came into the room, and, after sitting a few
minutes, (the weather being -warm-, not to say -hot-) very composedly took
off their coats: they were in the usual summer dress of farmers servants
in this part of the country; that is to say, without either stockings or
breeches, a loose pair of trowsers being the only succedaneum. As we fixed
our admission at a dollar each, (here seven shillings and sixpence,) we
expected this circumstance would be sufficient to exclude such
characters; but on inquiry, I found (to my very great surprise!) our three
sans culottes were german ‘gentlemen’ of considerable property in the
neighbourhood! [35]
An irish family often arrives, and purchases a plantation; which for some
years brings them good crops, but for want of manure will in time be worn
out (a very common case in America.) When in this situation they offer it
for sale, the adjacent German families club a sum of money, purchase the
land, plough it well, and let it remain in this state for three or four
years: they then place an emigrant family from their _own country_
upon the farm, who, by indefatigable industry and manure, soon bring the
land round, pay for the estate by installments, and live very comfortably.
Some of the best plantations in Pennsylvania were originally left in this
manner. The irish family go two or three hundred miles up the country,
where they can purchase as much land as they please, from sixpence to a
dollar per acre: here they literally break fresh ground, and begin
the world again. To some timorous people, their new situation would be
thought dangerous, as they are liable to a visit from the Indians, and
perishing by the scalping knife and tomahawk.–See a former letter on back
settlers. [35]
Since writing the above, the general assembly has ordered fifty thousand
dollars be raised by lottery, which are laid out in paving the town, and
clearing the Basin. Two enormous machines have been constructed on the
dutch plan, to work with oxen, which make such progress in clearing the
channel, that it is expected in a few years it will be sufficiently deep,
to admit the largest merchantmen to come up to the wharfs of the town. And
since my landing in England, my brother informs me, Baltimore is at last
incorporated; a vigorous police established; and improvements are going on
with spirit. [35]
Philadelphia, February 21st 1795.
DEAR SIR,
You know one motive for my coming to this country was, that I might have
an unlimited range in my two favourite amusements, shooting, and fishing,
and in both I have had tolerable sport. But as few except emigrants,
follow the european method of shooting, I cannot purchase a pointer for
any sum: pray send me one by an early fall ship, and if possible smuggle
me half a dozen pounds of Battel powder; for since you have begun to cut
one another’s throats in Europe, I find it impossible to procure any but
dutch, and that unglazed, at the moderate price of two dollars a
pound. [35]
-Philadelphia, February 12th, 1796.-
DEAR FRIEND,
Were I to characterise the United States, it should be by the
appellation of the land of speculation.
Such has been the rapid rise of every article of American produce, of
house-rent, and land (to say nothing of mercantile speculation, great part
of the carrying trade of Europe being now in the hands of the Americans),
that surely there never was a country where that passion was so universal,
or had such unbounded scope.
The last great purchase of land from the Indians, on the confines of
Georgia, was at the rate of a cent per acre; one hundred acres for a
dollar!
Before the American war, flour, was sold at two dollars, per barrel; it
is now selling at fourteen.
But perhaps the most tempting speculation is that of the mines. Our
friend, Parsons, who is here looked upon as an agent to some english
speculators, has lately received the enclosed, which I begged a copy of,
for your perusal but should first inform you, the cheapest fuel you can
burn in some parts of America, is english coal from Liverpool! [35]
For some time before I left Baltimore, our papers were full of a shocking
transaction, which took place on board an irish passenger ship, containing
upwards of three hundred. It is said, that, owing to the cruel usage they
received from the captain, such as being put on a very scanty allowance
of water[Footnote: By a law of the United States, the quantity of water
and provision every vessel is obliged to take (in proportion to the length
of the passage and persons on board) is clearly defined. A master of a
vessel violating this law forfeits five hundred dollars.] and provision, a
contagious disorder broke out on board, which carried off great numbers;
and, to add to their distress, when they arrived in the Delaware, they
were obliged to perform quarantine, which, for some days, was equally
fatal.
The disorder was finally got under by the physicians belonging to the
Health Office. We had several of the survivors on board, who confirmed all
I had heard: indeed their emaciated appearance was a sufficient testimony
of what they had suffered. They assured me, the captain sold the ship’s
water by the pint; and informed me of a number of shocking circumstances,
which I will not wound your feelings by relating.
It is difficult to conceive how a multitude of witnesses can militate
against a fact; but more so, how three hundred passengers could
tamely submit to such cruelties, from a bashaw of a captain. [35]
Ran away this morning, an irish servant, named Michael Day, by trade a
tailor, about five feet eight inches high, fair complexion, has a down
look when spoken to, light bushy hair, speaks much in the irish dialect,
&c.:–Whoever secures the above described, in any gaol, shall receive
thirty dollars reward, and all reasonable charges paid.–_N.B._. All
masters of vessels are forbid harbouring, or carrying off the said servant
at their peril.”
CHARLES TOWN settled 1628.
———— burnt 1775.
———— rebuilt 1776.
-P. S.- I was yesterday introduced to Cox, the celebrated
bridge-architect: he is famous for throwing a bridge over waters, where,
from the _depth_ or _strength_ of the current, this operation was thought
impracticable. He always constructs his bridges of wood, and endeavours to
give as little resistance to the water as possible: his supporters are
numerous, but slender; and there is an interval between each. He tells me
this idea first struck him from reading Aesop’s fable of the Reed and the
Oak: the reed, by _yielding_, was unhurt by a tempest, which tore up the
sturdy oak by the roots.
Cox served his apprenticeship to a carpenter; and it was late in life
before he attempted bridge-building. He proved his new theory on a
small bridge in the country, which answering beyond his most sanguine
expectations, he delivered proposals for connecting Boston to the
continent, at Charleston, by means of a draw-bridge. His plan was by some
supposed to proceed from a _distempered brain_. It is usual for the
_ignorant_ to call a projector _insane_, when his schemes exceed
the bounds of _their shallow comprehensions_.
After some time, a subscription was raised; and, to the confusion of his
enemies, he erected a bridge 1500 feet long, by 42 wide, where there was,
at the _lowest ebb_, 28 feet of water, and the flow of the tide was
from 12 to 16 feet _more_. But what is the most surprising, this
bridge has stood the shock of prodigious bodies of ice, sometimes three or
four feet in thickness; which are, every thaw violently forced against it
with a powerful current. He was rewarded with the sum of two hundred
dollars above his contract. He then went to Ireland, where he built seven
bridges; the largest was at Londonderry, 1860 feet long, by 40 wide; the
depth of water 37 feet, and the flow of the tide from 14 to 18 feet more.
He compleated this bridge so much to the satisfaction of the gentlemen who
employed him, that he was presented with a gold medal and one hundred
pounds above his contract. [35]
Their sawing-mills are numerous, and well constructed; this circumstance,
and the great quantity of timber, mast, spars, &c., with which this
country abounds, enable them to build vessels considerably under what you
can afford in England, though the wages of a shipwright are now two
dollars and a quarter per day. Theirs ships, in point of model and
sailing, if not superiour, are at least equal to the best european-built
vessels, and when constructed of _live oak_, and _red cedar_, are equally
durable. Vessels of this description are scarce. Live oak is rarely met
with north of the Carolinas: that used in the Boston ship-yards is brought
from Georgia; a distance of more than a thousand miles, [35]
1777
recruiting poster issued by the Continental congress to lure a crew for [John Paul] Jones voyage on the Ranger somewhat oversold the “agreeable” aspects resulting n later discontent.
“Great encouragement for seamen.
All gentlemen seamen and able bodied landsmen who have a mind to distinguish themselves in the glorious cause of the country, and make their Fortunes, an opportunity now offer on board the ship Ranger, of Twenty Guns, (for France) no laying in Portsmouth, in the State of New Hampshire, commanded by John Paul Jones Esq. Let them repair to the ship’s rendevous in Portsmouth, or at the sign of Commodore Manley, in Salem, where they will be kindly entertained and receive the greatest encouragement. The ship Ranger, in the opinion of every person who has seen her is looked upon to be one of the best cruisers in America. She will be always able to fight her guns under a most excellent cover; and no vessel yet built was ever calculated for sailing faster and making good weather.
Any gentlemen volunteers who have a mind to take an agreable voyage in the pleasant season of the year, may, by entering on board the above ship Ranger, meet with every Civility they can possibly expect, and for a further encouragement depend on the fist opportunity being embraced to reward each one to his merit.
` In congress, March 29, 1777
Resolved: that the marine committee be authorized to advance to every able seaman, the enters into the continental service, any sum not exceeding Forty dollars and to every ordinary seaman or landsman, any sum not exceeding Twenty dollars, to be deducted from their future prize money. [spelling modernized] [15 pg 10]
1787
Although the Federal constitution in 1787 had given the congress the power “to establish Post Offices and Post Roads,” not until the era of the civil War did the outlines of the modern system appear. [28 pg 130]
1791
Alexander Hamilton had noted in his Report on Manufactures (1791) that four fifths of the American people’s clothing were made in their own households for themselves. Only the rich could afford to employ tailors. At first these tailors traveled the countryside working on material supplied by the customer, and eventually they settled down in the cities. [28]
1792
By act of Congress, passed on April 21, 1792, the Ohio Land Company, for example, received 100,000 acres, and in the same year it bought 892,900 acres for $642,856.66. But this sum was not paid in money. The bankers and traders composing the company had purchased, at a heavy discount, certificates of public debt and army land warrants, and were allowed to tender these as payment. [Footnote: U. S. Senate Executive Documents, Second Session, Nineteenth Congress, Doc. No. 63.] The company then leisurely disposed of its land to settlers at an enormous profit. Nearly all of the land companies had banking adjuncts. The poor settler, in order to settle on land that a short time previously had been national property, was first compelled to pay the land company an extortionate price, and then was forced to borrow the money from the banking adjuncts, and give a heavy mortgage, bearing heavy interest, on the land. [Footnote: U. S. Senate Documents, First Session, Twenty-fourth Congress, 1835-36, Doc. No. 216: 16.] The land companies always took care to select the very best lands. The Government documents of the time are full of remonstrances from legislatures and individuals complaining of these seizures, under form of law, of the most valuable areas. The tracts thus appropriated comprised timber and mineral, as well as agricultural, land. [57]
1796
VAST TRACTS SECURED BY BRIBERY.
One of the most scandalous land-company transactions was that involving a group of Southern and Boston capitalists. In January, 1795, the Georgia Legislature, by special act, sold millions of acres in different parts of the State of Georgia to four land companies. The people of the State were convinced that this purchase had been obtained by bribery. It was made an election issue, and a Legislature, comprising almost wholly new members, was elected. In February, 1796, this Legislature passed a rescinding act, declaring the act of the preceding year void, on the ground of its having been obtained by “improper influence.” In 1803 the tracts in question were transferred by the Georgia Legislature to the United States Government.
The Georgia Mississippi Land Company was one of the four companies. In the meantime, this company had sold its tract, for ten cents an acre, to the New England Mississippi Land Company. Although committee after committee of Congress reported that the New England Mississippi Land Company had paid little or no actual part of the purchase price, yet that company, headed by some of the foremost Boston capitalists,
lobbied in Congress for eleven years for an act giving it a large indemnity. Finally, in 1814, Congress passed an indemnification act, under which the eminent Bostonians, after ten years more lobbying, succeeded in getting an award from the United States Treasury of $1,077,561.73. The total amount appropriated by Congress on the
pretense of settling the claims of the various capitalists in the “Yazoo Claims” was $1,500,000. [Footnote: Senate Documents, Eighteenth Congress, Second Session, 1824-25, Vol. ii, Doc. No. 14, and Senate Documents, Twenty-fourth Congress, 1836-37, Vol. ii, No. 212. After the grants were secured, the companies attempted to swindle the State of Georgia by making payments in depreciated currency. Georgia refused to accept it. When the grant was rescinded, both houses of the Georgia Legislature marched in solemn state to the Capitol front and burned the deed.] The ground upon which this appropriation was made by Congress was that the Supreme Court of the United States had decided that, irrespective of the methods used to obtain the grant from the Georgia Legislature, the grant, once made, was in the nature of a contract which could not be revoked or impaired by subsequent legislation. This was the first of a long line of court decisions validating grants and franchises of all kinds secured by bribery and fraud. [57]
1800
The report of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society of 1801 shows that there had been an increasing interest in Negro education. For this purpose the society had raised funds to the amount of $530.50 per annum for three years. In 1803 certain other friends of the cause left for this purpose two liberal benefactions, one amounting to one thousand dollars, and the other to one thousand pounds.[3] With these contributions the Quakers and Abolitionists erected in 1809 a handsome building valued at four thousand dollars. They named it Clarkson Hall in honor of the great friend of the Negro race. In 1807 the Quakers met the needs of the increasing population of the city by founding an additional institution of learning known as the Adelphi School. [51]
1807
“-June 18, 1807.- Last week I went to Mr. Beers and saw a set of Montaigne’s ‘Essays’ in French in eight volumes, duodecimo, handsomely bound in calf and gilt, for two dollars. The reason they are so cheap is because they are wicked and bad books for me or anybody else to read. I got them because they were cheap, and have exchanged them for a handsome English edition of ‘Gil Blas’; price, $4.50.” [36]
In the fall of 1807 Finley Morse returned to college accompanied by his
next younger brother, Sidney Edwards. In a letter of March 6, 1808, he
says: “Edwards and myself are very well and I believe we are doing well,
but you will learn more of that from our instructors.”
In this same letter he says:–
“I find it impossible to live in college without spending money. At one
time a letter is to be paid for, then comes up a great tax from the class
or society, which keeps me constantly running after money. When I have
money in my hand I feel as though I had stolen it, and it is with the
greatest pain that I part with it. I think every minute I shall receive a
letter from home blaming me for not being more economical, and thus I am
kept in distress all the time.
“The amount of my expenses for the last term was fifteen dollars,
expended in the following manner:–
Dols. Cts.
Postage $2.05
Oil .50
Taxes, fines, etc. 3.00
Oysters .50
Washbowl .37-1/2
Skillet .33
Axe $1.33 Catalogues .12 1.45
Powder and shot 1.12-1/2
Cakes, etc. etc. etc. 1.75
Wine, Thanks. day .20
Toll on bridge .15
Grinding axe .08
Museum .25
Poor man .14
Carriage for trunk 1.00
Pitcher .41 14.75-1/2
Sharpening skates .37-1/2 Paid for
Circ. Library .25 cutting wood .25
Post papers .57
Lent never to be returned .25
$14.75-1/2 15.00-1/2
“In my expenses I do not include my wood, tuition bills, board or washing
bills.”
How characteristic of all boys of all times the “etc., etc., etc.,”
tacked on to the “cakes” item, and how many boys of the present day would
bewail the extravagance of fifteen dollars spent in one term on extras?
In a postscript in this same letter he says: “The students are very fond
of raising balloons at present. I will (with your leave) when I return
home make one. They are pleasant sights.”[36]
1810
Ironically enough, a temporary change in farm economy added materially to the exodus from New England and the Middle Atlantic state. This was the Merino sheep mania which began in a small way as early as 1810 when a Yankee, who had been abroad, imported a band of this celebrated breed from Spain and began raising sheep on a large scale. They flourished in the Vermont hills. Their fleece fetched amazing prices, as high as $1.50 a pound; and it wasn’t long before farmers in New England, New York, and New Jersey were paying fancy prices for Merino stock. [7 pg 2]
June 25, 1810.
MY DEAR PARENTS,–I received yours of the 23d this day and receive with
humility your reproof. I am extremely sorry it should have occasioned so
many disagreeable feelings. I felt it my duty to tell you of my debts,
and, indeed, I could not feel easy without. The amount of my buttery bill
is forty-two or forty-three dollars. …
Mr. Nettleton is butler and is willing I should take his likeness as part
pay. I shall take it on ivory, and he has engaged to allow me seven
dollars for it. My price is five dollars for a miniature on ivory, and. I
have engaged three or four at that price. My price for profiles is one
dollar, and everybody is ready to engage me at that price…. Though I
have been much to blame in the present case, yet I think it but just that
Mr. Twining should bear his part. …
I had begun with a determination to pay for everything as I got it, but
was stopped in this in the very beginning, for, in going to Mr. T. to get
money, I have five times out of six found him absent, sometimes for the
whole day, sometimes for a week or two weeks, and once he was absent six
weeks and made no sort of provision for us. Mrs. T. is never trusted with
money for us. Now in such case I am obliged by necessity to get a thing
charged, and I have found by sad experience that a bill increases faster
than I had in the least imagined. … [36]
After his graduation from Yale College in the fall of 1810, Finley Morse
returned to his home in Charlestown, Mass., and cheerfully submitted
himself to his parents’ wishes by entering the bookshop of a certain Mr.
Mallory.
He writes under date of October 31, 1810, to his brothers who are still
at college: “I am in an excellent situation and on excellent terms. I
have four hundred dollars per year, but this you must not mention out. I
have the choice of my hours; they are from nine till one-half past
twelve, and from three till sunset.” [36]
But he still clings to the idea of becoming a painter, for he adds: “My
evenings I employ in painting. I have every convenience; the room over
the kitchen is fitted up for me; I have a fire there every evening, and
can spend it alone or otherwise as I please. I have bought me one of the
new patent lamps, those with glass chimneys, which gives an excellent
light. It cost me about six dollars. Send on as soon as possible anything
and everything which pertains to my painting apparatus.” [36]
As in most discussions, political or otherwise, neither party seems to
have been convinced by the arguments of the other, for the parents
continue to urge him to leave politics alone; indeed, they insist on his
doing so. They also urge him to make every effort to support himself, if
he should decide to spend another year abroad, for they fear that they
will be unable to send him any more money. However, the father, when he
became convinced that it was really to his son’s interest to spend
another year abroad, contrived to send him another thousand dollars. This
was done at the cost of great self-sacrifice on the part of himself and
his family, and was all the more praiseworthy on that account. [36]
On December 19, 1814, his mother writes:–
“I was not a little astonished to hear you say, in one of your letters
from Bristol, that you had earned money enough there to pay off your
debts. I cannot help asking what debts you could have to discharge with
your own earnings after receiving one thousand dollars a year from us,
which we are very sure must have afforded you, even by your own account
of your expenses, ample means for the payment of all just, fair, and
honorable debts, and I hope you contract no others. We are informed by
others that they made six hundred dollars a year not only pay all their
expenses of clothing, board, travelling, learning the French language,
etc., etc., but they were able out of it to purchase books to send home,
and actually sent a large trunk full of elegant books. Now the person who
told us that he did this has a father who is said to be worth a hundred
and fifty thousand dollars; therefore the young man was not pinched for
means, but was thus economical out of consideration to his parents, and
to show his gratitude to them, as I suppose. Now think, my dear son, how
much more your poor parents are doing for you, how good your dear
brothers are to be satisfied with so little done for them in comparison
with what we are doing for you, and let the thought stimulate you to more
economy and industry. I greatly fear you have been falling off in both
these since the eclat you received for your first performances. It has
always been a failing of yours, as soon as you found you could excel in
what you undertook, to be tired of it and not trouble yourself any
further about it. I was in hopes that you had got over this fickleness
ere this…
“You must not expect to paint anything in this country, for which you
will receive any money to support you, but portraits; therefore do
everything in your power to qualify you for painting and taking them in
the best style. That is all your hope here, and to be very obliging and
condescending to those who are disposed to employ you…. [36]
1814
25 cent ticket admits bearer to Peal’s Museum of Curiosities. [2. Pg 7]
Visitors [to Peal’s museum]could have their silhouette made for eight cents a profile. [2. Pg 9]
1815
May 3, 1815
“The moment I (S.F.B. Morse) get home I wish to begin work, so that I should like to
have some portraits bespoken in season. I shall charge forty dollars less
than Stuart for my portraits, so that, if any of my good friends are
ready, I will begin the moment I have said ‘how do ye do’ to them.
“I wish to do as much as possible in the year I am with you. If I could
get a commission or two for some large pictures for a church or public
hall, to the amount of two or three thousand dollars, I should feel much
gratified. I do not despair of such an event, for, through your influence
with the clergy and their influence with their people, I think some
commission for a scripture subject for a church might be obtained; a
crucifixion, for instance.
“It may, perhaps, be said that the country is not rich enough to purchase
large pictures; yes, but two or three thousand dollars can be paid for an
entertainment which is gone in a day, and whose effects are to demoralize
and debilitate, whilst the same sum expended on a fine picture would be
adding an ornament to the country which would be lasting. It would tend
to elevate and refine the public feeling by turning their thoughts from
sensuality and luxury to intellectual pleasures, and it would encourage
and support a class of citizens who have always been reckoned among the
brightest stars in the constellation of American worthies, and who are,
to this day, compelled to exile themselves from their country and all
that is dear to them, in order to obtain a bare subsistence. [36]
1816
Before we follow him on that tour, however, I shall quote from a letter
written by him to his friend Washington Allston:–
Boston, April 10, 1816.
MY DEAR SIR,–I have but one moment to write you by a vessel which sails
to-morrow morning. I wrote Leslie by New Packet some months since and am
hourly expecting an answer.
I congratulate you, my dear sir, on the sale of your picture of the “Dead
Man.” I suppose you will have received notice, before this reaches you,
that the Philadelphia Academy of Arts have purchased it for the sum of
thirty-five hundred dollars. Bravo for our country!
CONCORD, August 16, 1816.
I am still here and am passing my time very agreeably. I have painted
five portraits at fifteen dollars each and have two more engaged and many
more talked of. I think I shall get along well. I believe I could make an
independent fortune in a few years if I devoted myself exclusively to
portraits, so great is the desire for good portraits in the different
country towns. [36]
CONCORD, September 2, 1816.
MY DEAR PARENTS,–I have just received yours of August 29. I leave town
to-morrow morning, probably for Hanover, as there is no conveyance direct
to Walpole.
I have had no more portraits since I wrote you, so that I have received
just one hundred dollars in Concord. The last I took for ten dollars, as
the person I painted obtained four of my sitters for me…. [36]
WINDSOR, VERMONT, September 28, 1816.
I am doing pretty well in this place, better than I expected; I have one
more portrait to do before I leave it…. I should have business, I
presume, to last me some weeks if I could stay, but I long to get home
-through Concord- ….
Mama’s scheme of painting a large landscape and selling it to General
Bradley for two hundred dollars, must give place to another which has
just come into my head: that of sending to you for my great canvas and
painting the quarrel at Dartmouth College, as large as life, with all the
portraits of the trustees, overseers, officers of college, and students;
and, if I finish it next week, to ask five thousand dollars for it and
then come home in a coach and six and put Ned to the blush with his
nineteen subscribers a day. Only think, $5000 a week is $260,000 a year,
and, if I live ten years, I shall be worth $2,600,000; a very pretty
fortune for this time of day. Is it not a grand scheme? [36]
Continuing his modestly successful progress, he writes next from Hanover,
on October 3, 1816:–
“I arrived in this place on Tuesday evening and am painting away with all
my might. I am painting Judge Woodward and lady, and think I shall have
many more engaged than I can do. I painted seven portraits at Windsor,
one for my board and lodging at the inn, and one for ten dollars, very
small, to be sent in a letter to a great distance; so that in all I
received eighty-five dollars in money. I have five more engaged at
Windsor for next summer. So you see I have not been idle.
“I _must_ spend a fortnight at Concord, so that I shall not probably be
at home till early in November.
“I think, with proper management, that I have but little to fear as to
this world. I think I can, with industry, average from two to three
thousand dollars a year, which is a tolerable income, though _not equal
to_ $2,600,000!” [36]
“I have just received your favor of the 30th ultimo, and thank you very
cordially for your goodness in consenting to take my daughter’s
full-length likeness in the manner I described, say twenty-four inches in
length. I will pay you most willingly the two hundred dollars you require
for it, and will consider myself a gainer by the bargain. I shall expect
you to decorate this picture with the most superb landscape you are
capable of designing, and that you will produce a masterpiece of
painting. I agree to your taking it with you to the northward to finish
it. Be pleased to represent my daughter in the finest attitude you can
conceive.”
Mr. Alston was a generous patron and paid the young artist liberally for
the portraits of his children. In recognition of this Morse presented him
with his most ambitious painting, “The Judgment of Jupiter.” Mr. Alston
prized this picture highly during his lifetime, but after his death it
was sold and for many years was lost sight of. It was purchased long
afterwards in England by an American gentleman, who, not knowing who the
painter was, gave it to a niece of Morse’s, Mrs. Parmalee, and it is
still, I believe, in the possession of the family. [36]
1818
FRIDAY MORNING, 20th, 1818 AT UNCLE FINLEY’S.
We are safely housed under the hospitable roof of Uncle Finley, where
they received us, as you might expect, with open arms. He has provided
lodgings for us at ten dollars per week. I have not yet seen them; shall
go directly. [36]
On January 27, 1818, he arrived in that beautiful Southern city and thus
announced his arrival to his parents: “I find myself in a new climate,
the weather warm as our May. I have been introduced to a number of
friends. I think my prospects are favorable.”
At first, however, the promised success did not materialize, and it was
not until after many weeks of waiting that the tide turned. But it did
turn, for an excellent portrait of Dr. Finley, one of the best ever
painted by Morse, aroused the enthusiasm of the Charlestonians, and
orders began to pour in, so that in a few weeks he was engaged to paint
one hundred and fifty portraits at sixty dollars each. Quite an advance
over the meagre fifteen dollars he had received in New England. But for
some of his more elaborate productions he received even more, as the
following extract from a letter of Mr. John A. Alston, dated April 7,
1818, will prove:– [36]
1819
On March 1, 1819, the Common Council of Charleston passed the following
resolution:–
“Resolved unanimously that His Honor the Intendant be requested to
solicit James Monroe, President of the United States, to permit a
full-length likeness to be taken for the City of Charleston, and that Mr.
Morse be requested to take all necessary measures for executing the said
likeness on the visit of the President to this city.
“Resolved unanimously that the sum of seven hundred and fifty dollars be
appropriated for this purpose. [36]
1820
Great fortune attended his [John James Fougere Audubon] choice of a wife. She not only encouraged him in his ambitions, but took a position as governess in order to support herself and the two sons. Later, she started a school and was so successful that she soon was receiving an income of $3,000 a year…. [9 pg 157]
1821
In the course of time, however, these philanthropists met with some discouragement. In 1821 certain masters were sending their slaves to a Sunday-school opened by Levi Coffin and his son Vestal. Before the slaves had learned more than to spell words of two or three syllables other masters became unduly alarmed, thinking that such instruction would make the slaves discontented.[1] The timorous element threatened
the teachers with the terrors of the law, induced the benevolent slaveholders to prohibit the attendance of their Negroes, and had the school closed.[2] Moreover, it became more difficult to obtain aid for this cause. Between 1815 and 1825 the North Carolina Manumission Societies were redoubling their efforts to raise funds for this
purpose. By 1819 they had collected $47.00 but had not increased this amount more than $2.62 two years later. [52]
1825
In the beginning, postal charges were paid by the recipient, and charges varied with the distance carried. The, in 1825 congress permitted local postmasters to give letters to mail carriers for home delivery, but these carriers received no government salary and for their whole compensation depended on what they were paid by the recipients of individual letters. This meant, of course, that the carrier would not leave letters in mailboxes, but had to find each recipient in person or lose his fee. People who did not want to pay these fees could instruct the postmaster to keep their mail at the post office. This system lasted for about forty years, down to the very era of the civil war. [28 pg 130]
1826
James Clyman …sold his last year’s catch of beaver skins for $1,251, wealth enough to buy a substantial farm. [4 pg 53
1828
In Rhode Island, where the black population was proportionately larger than in some other New England States, special schools for persons of color continued. These efforts met with success at Newport. In the year 1828 a separate school for colored children was established at Providence and placed in charge of a teacher receiving a salary of
$400 per annum.[1] A decade later another such school was opened on Pond Street in the same city. About this time the school law of Rhode Island was modified so as to make it a little more favorable to the people of color. The State temporarily adopted a rule by which the school fund was thereafter not distributed, as formerly, according
to the number of inhabitants below the age of sixteen. It was to be apportioned, thereafter, according to the number of white persons under the age of ten years, “together with five-fourteenths of the said [colored] population between the ages of ten and twenty-four years.” This law remained in force between the years 1832 and 1845.
Under the new system these schools seemingly made progress. In 1841 they were no longer giving the mere essentials of reading and writing, but combined the instruction of both the grammar and the primary grades. [52]
1829
Bishop Capers was the leading spirit in the movement instituted in that commonwealth about 1829 to establish missions to the slaves. So generally did he arouse the people to the performance of this duty that they not only allowed preachers access to their Negroes but requested that missionaries be sent to their plantations. Such
petitions came from C.C. Pinckney, Charles Boring, and Lewis Morris.[1] Two stations were established in 1829 and two additional ones in 1833. Thereafter the Church founded one or two others every year until 1847 when there were seventeen missions conducted by
twenty-five preachers. At the death of Bishop Capers in 1855 the Methodists of South Carolina had twenty-six such establishments, which employed thirty-two preachers, ministering to 11,546 communicants of color. The missionary revenue raised by the local conference had increased from $300 to $25,000 a year. [52]
1830s
Until the 1830’s the common newspaper practice was to sell to advertisers the right to insert a daily advertisement at a flat fee for the whole year. For about $32 an advertisement would appear every day in a big city newspaper, and the advertiser was not closely restricted in space or linage. This practice, together with the cheapening of paper by the Fourdrinier paper making machine in the 1820’s encouraged the printing of larger and larger papers. By the 1830’s the New York Journal of Commerce stretched across eleven columns of a sheet 35 inches wide and 58 inches high. This unmanageable expanse, nearly six feet wide when opened, came to be called the “blanket sheet.” The inconvenience of such a paper explained the special appeal of the new tabloid format, and when the New York Sun first appeared in 1833, it was only 9 inches by 12 inches. A paper shortage in the mid 1830’s was another incentive for smaller-size sheets. [28 pg 142]
1831
In Virginia where the prohibition did not then extend to freedmen, there was enacted in 1831 a law providing that any meeting of free Negroes or mulattoes for teaching them reading or writing should be considered an unlawful assembly. To break up assemblies for this purpose any judge or justice of the peace could issue a warrant to apprehend such persons and inflict corporal punishment not exceeding twenty lashes. White persons convicted of teaching Negroes to read or write were to be fined fifty dollars and might be imprisoned two months. For imparting such information to a slave the offender was subject to a fine of not less than ten nor more than one hundred dollars. [52]
1832
Alabama had some difficulty in getting a satisfactory law. In 1832 this commonwealth enacted a law imposing a fine of from $250 to $500 on persons who should attempt to educate any Negro whatsoever. The act also prohibited the usual unlawful assemblies and the preaching or exhorting of Negroes except in the presence of five “respectable slaveholders” or unless the officiating minister was licensed by some regular church of which the persons thus exhorted were members.[1] It soon developed that the State had gone too far. It had infringed upon the rights and privileges of certain creoles, who, being residents of the Louisiana Territory when it was purchased in 1803, had been
guaranteed the rights of citizens of the United States. Accordingly in
1833 the Mayor and the Aldermen of Mobile were authorized by law to grant licenses to such persons as they might deem suitable to instruct for limited periods, in that city and the counties of Mobile and Baldwin, the free colored children, who were descendants of colored creoles residing in the district in 1803. [52]
1834
(Walter Hunt makes the first working sewing machine.) He was pure inventor, so obsessed by inventing and so bored by the prosaic tasks of exploiting his novelties that his very genius was destined to deny him a place in the history books. His inventions included a flax spinning machine, a knife sharpener, a yarn twister, a stove (some say the first) to burn hard coal, a nail making machine, ice plows, velocipedes, a revolver, a repeating rifle, metallic cartridges, conical bullets, paraffin candles, a street sweeping machine, a student lamp, and paper collars. According to his draftsman friend who had been making drawings to accompany Hunt’s numerous patent applications, Hunt designed a patentable safety pin quickly in order to get the money to pay him a debt of $15. Within three hours Hunt worked out the idea, made a model from an old piece of wire, and sold the patent rights for $400. [28 pg 92]
In a letter to Mr. Clarke, of June 30, 1834, he (Samuel F.B. Morse)says:–
“The picture of the Louvre was intended originally for an exhibition
picture, and I painted it in the expectation of disposing of it to some
person for that purpose who could amply remunerate himself from the
receipts of a well-managed exhibition. The time occupied upon this
picture was fourteen months, and at much expense and inconvenience, so
that that sum [$2500] for it, if sold under such circumstances, would not
be more than a fair compensation.
“I was aware that but few, if any, gentlemen in our country would be
willing to expend so large a sum on a single picture, although in fact
they would, in this case, purchase seven-and-thirty in one.
“I have lately changed my plans in relation to this picture and to my art
generally, and consequently I am able to dispose of it at a much less
price. I have need of funds to prosecute my new plans, and, if this
picture could now realize the sum of twelve hundred dollars it would at
this moment be to me equivalent in value to the sum first set upon it.” [36]
The land frauds were great and incessant. In a long report, the United States Senate Committee on Public Lands, reporting on June 20, 1834, declared that the evidence it had taken established the fact that in Ohio and elsewhere, combinations of capitalist speculators, at the public sales of lands, had united for the purpose of driving
other purchasers out of the market and in deterring poor men from bidding. The committee detailed how these companies and individuals had fraudulently bought large tracts of land at $1.25 an acre, and sold the land later at exorbitant prices. It showed how, in order to accomplish these frauds, they had bought up United States Land Office Registers and Receivers. [Footnote 8: U. S. Senate Documents, First Session, Twenty-third Congress, 1833-34, Vol. vi, Doc. No. 461:1-91.] [57]
1835
As an instructor in the University he(Samuel F.B. Morse not only received a small salary which relieved him, in a measure, from the grinding necessity of painting pot-boilers, but he had assigned to him spacious rooms in the building on Washington Square, which he could utilize not only as studio and living apartments, but as a workshop. For these rooms, however, he paid a rent, at first of $325 a year, afterwards
of $400. [36]
Connecticut State Prison. — From the annual report of the Directors of the Connecticut State Prison, it appears that the number of convicts in the prison at this time, is two hundred and seven — of whom fifty are blacks, and nineteen are females. They are employed in various branches of labor, viz : — twenty- three in the carpenter’s shop, twenty-one in the smith’s shop, forty-five in the chair shop, forty-three in the cane seating shop, seventeen in the shoe shop, twenty-two in the Britanni -ware shop, seven as waiters and nurses, and ten are invalids. The females are employed partly in the kitchen, and partly in making cigars. About half the contracts are let out by the day oa[sic] contracts. The income the last year, from the labor of the convicts, including the receipts from visiters, amounted to seventeen thousand three hundred and eighty-four dollars, making an average of ninety-one dollars and fifty cents for each. The whole amount of expenses for the year. including the support of prisoners and the expenses of the guard, was twelve thousand one hundred and sixteen dollars, or an average of sixty- three dollars and seventy-seven cents for each. The prison has therefore made a profit, from the labor of the prisoners, of
five thousand two hundred and sixty-eight dollars. The Directors propose that a
separate block of cells, fifteen or twenty in number, should be built, to be paid for
out of the income of the prison. The prison is represented as well calculated for the safe keeping of the prisoners — ~no one having ever made his escape.
[58]
Methodist Missionary Society. — The annual meeting of this association was held in the city of New-York, on the eleventh ult. During the past year, forty- one new missions have been established, and more than four thousand members have been added to the church. In 1820, the receipts amounted to eight hundred and twenty-three dollars ; they have now risen to forty thousand; but, owing to the extent of its operations, the association is indebted to the amount of about one thousand seven hundred dollars. Between three and four thousand dollars were subscribed and collected at the meeting.
[58]
1836
Medicine in 1836 was, of course, primitive. Whatever the cause of the eye affliction, there was not much a doctor could do. The typical physician’s bag contained a syringe for enemas, and a lancet, a scarificator, and a cupping glass, for bleeding the patient. There was a pitifully small number of drugs: laudanum for pain, calomel for purging, sarsaparilla to indue sweating, and various compounds containing alcohol that were given as tonics to combat fever. Other than that, doctors, could only prescribe rest and fresh air. In the early 1800s, there was a fad for hydrotherapy, and the treatment that was recommended for Olmsted’s malady was seawater bathing (hence, presumably, his summers in Saybrook). Since modern remedies for conjunctivitis include washing the eves with a weak saline solution, this may, in fact have helped reduce the inflammation.
1837
At twenty one [Joseph Stephen] Wright had made a personal fortune of $200,000, then lost every dollar of it in the panic of 1837. He didn’t mind. Money wasn’t wealth, anyway. The real wealth was the land. Wright went headlong into public service to incorporate the Union Agricultural society. Next, he founded the Prairie Farmer, which began its long distinguished life by campaigning for public schools in farm communities and for better was in regard to fences. These and other movement took fire like prairie grass. Editor Wright went on to demands for a state normal school and an agricultural college and, always, for more and better fences. [7 pg 44-45]
John Olmsted noted only that on June 14, 1837, he “went to NYC with Fred by river returned Monday 19th via New Haven” and that Dr. Wallace charged four dollars to examine the boy’s eyes. [26 pg 37]
1840’s
…around eighty four of every one hundred Americans lived and worked in rural areas. [7 pg 7]
What was a farm like in the mid-forties- a farm, say in the State of Illinois, which its boomers declared to be a veritable Garden of Eden? It might run to 2,000 acres, though the average was nearer to the 160 acres of the later homesteading era. The home was likely to be a cabin of squared logs, chinked with moss and mud. It was perhaps 14 by 20 feet. It had one room. The attic was reached by a vertical ladder. It had one room. Another ladder might lead through a trapdoor to the cellar. The barns of the place and period seemed to fit no pattern. TheY ranged from what a sharp observer a superior article to little more than a hovel. Transportation was by farm wagon or buggy, and in winter by a homemade sleigh called a jumper, made of slant,[sic] and provided with the necessary box and seats. [7 pg 7]
The important matter of fencing was handled in a variety of ways. In timbered country you girdled trees until they died, then felled and split them into rails and posts; and here and there was a small sawmill with a picket making machine, turning out pickets for about seventy five cents a rod. A rod (16 ½ feet) was still the measure favored by husbandman. [7 pg 8]
A good cow cost $9. A pair of horses could be had for about $40.
…Fields yielding seventy bushels of corn to the acre failed any longer to excite farmers who had to sell it for ten cents or less. For this reason many prairie settlers caught the si8l culture mania which had already swept desperate New England and hand petered out as suddenly as it had begun. (See 1841) [7 pg 8]
(Dates??) Benjamin Talbot Babbitt, soap manufacture and prolific inventor. Born in Oneida county, New York, Babbitt agreed at the age of eighteen to pay his father $500 a year as recompense for leaving the family farm. [24 pg 104]
In America it was far more difficult than in England to tell a man’s social class by what he wore. The British consul in Boston in the early 1840’s, Thomas college Grattan, complained of American equality; he found servant girls “strongly infected with the national bad taste for being over dressed, they are, when walking the streets, scarcely to be distinguished from their employers.” [28 pg 91]
Elias Howe, born in 1819, was the son of a Massachusetts farmer. At the age of twenty, when he was working as a journeyman machinist for a Boston scientific instrument maker, his interest was awakened by a customer’s effort to perfect a knitting machine, some years later, under pressure to support a wife and three children and desperately casting about for some way to add to his salary of $9 a week, he decided to try to make his fortune from a sewing machine. [28 pg 93]
Large areas of land bought from the Indian tribes by the Government, almost at once became the property of canal or railroad corporations by the process of Government grants. A Congressional document in 1840 (Senate Document No. 616) made public the fact that from the establishment of the Federal Government to 1839, the Indian tribes
had ceded to the Government a total of 442,866,370 acres. The Indian tribes were paid either by grants of land elsewhere, or in money and merchandise. For those 442,866,370 acres they received exchange land valued at $53,757,400, and money and merchandise amounting to $31,331,403. [57]
The great scandal caused in Pennsylvania in 1840 by the revelations of the persistent bribery carried on by the United States Bank for many years, was only one of many such scandals throughout the United States. One of the most characteristic phases of the
reports of the various legislative investigating committees was the ironical astonishment that they almost invariably expressed at the “superior class” being responsible for the continuous bribery. Thus, in reporting in 1840, that $130,000 had been used in bribery in Pennsylvania by the United States Bank, an investigating committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives commented: “It is hard to come to the conclusion that men of refined education, and high and honorable character, would wink at such things, yet the conclusion is unavoidable.” [Pa. House Journal, 1842, Vol. ii, Appendix, 172-531.] [57]
1841
…the State (Illinois) was paying a bounty of $1 on every ten pounds of cocoons raised. [7 pg 8]
Case bought six ground hogs on credit. He compared the cost of travel by the Erie Canal, and so across Lake Michigan by boat to Chicago, and the all lake route by way of the Welland Canal and lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan, He chose the latter because it was much cheaper, if longer, and he must be thrifty if for no other reason than the freight charge of $60 for his ground hogs. [7 pg 24]
The New York Tribune sprang into existence on April 10, 1841, on $2,000 capital – $1,000 of it borrowed. [16 pg 98]
In its initial week, the Tribune took in $92 but paid out $525. It continued to lose money at the rate of between $200 and $300 a week until, three months after the paper first came out, Greeley was able to persuade Thomas McElrath, an attorney with publishing experience, to invest $2,000 for a partnership. [16 pg 99]
James Fenimore Cooper had won a $200 verdict against the Tribune in its first year. [16 pg 101]
1843
{Olmsted] going to sea at least gave the appearance of pursuing a career, and he was half serious. …He had no intention of going as a gentleman “with his gloves on,” as Dana put it – he would sail “before the mast,” as a common seaman. Or at least, an apprentice seaman. Merchant ships regularly took on two or three “green boys,” in addition to their regular complement. Olmsted was no longer a boy (he was almost twenty one), but he was certainly green in seafaring. …
He met the captain an affable man named Warren Fox. The following day, Captain Fox informed him that he was accepted. Regular seamen were paid about twelve dollars a month; as a green hand, Olmsted would receive considerably less. … He left on the Ronaldson from New York harbor on April 23, 1843. In his first letter home, from Sumatra, he wrote: “It grieves me very much to tell you (the voyage) has likewise been in many respects a disagreeable & unpleasant one.”…Like many novices, Olmsted was seasick. At first he tried to work, but eventually he was unable to leave his bunk. The four “green boys” were housed in a foul smelling small space in steerage, deep below decks. He managed to get moved to the forecastle, where most of the crew lived, and shared a bunk with Goodwin, who took care of him… It was weeks before he could eat solid food, and a full month before he recovered. But he was so weakened that he could not do his regular duties and was put to cleaning the rust from the cutlasses and pistols in the armory. This light work did not last long. Olmsted was an apprentice sailor, not a cabin boy. He was expected to perform the same tasks as the other men. These included the morning washing of the decks, as well as regular rounds of scrubbing, scraping, and painting. Bilge water has to be pumped out daily. The rigging had to be regularly tarred. He took his turn at watch and learned to go aloft to set sails. He was soon scrambling up the ratlines, as much as a hundred feet above the deck. Here, where the swaying motion of the ship was exaggerated many fold, he would join his mates in gingerly edging out on the yards to furl or unfurl the huge flapping canvas sails. The exhausting work made for blistered hands, cracked knuckles, and aching joints….{Cape of Good Hope] The Ronaldson encountered terrible seas, rains, finally a snowstorm. A squall blew away the main topsail. Going aloft and handling the wet, icy lines became more dangerous than ever. He suffered a bad fall, although not as bad as Braisted, who survived a drop from the fore-topgallant yard, a distance of fifty feet or more…One morning Olmsted awoke to find that he couldn’t move his right arm. He had another month of light duties until the paralysis wore off and he regained his strength. He was discovering the truth of Dana’s observation that “a sailor‘s life is at best but a mixture of a little good with much evil, and a little pleasure with much pain.”
Sickness, accidents, debilitating work, and bad weather were coupled with cramped and uncomfortable living conditions. The food was monotonous: salt beef and biscuits daily, interrupted on sundays by duff, a clammy pudding of boiled flour and molasses. As a special treat the cook would make lobscouse, a stew of crushed biscuits, potatoes, and codfish or more of the salt beef.
The Whampoa anchorage was particularly unhealthy, and like many of the crew, Olmsted contracted typhoid. [26 pg 50-51]
1844
Solomon and Harriet Louisa Young made their start on a farm known as the Parrish Place, not far from the Missouri River and well withing the projected outlines of Kansas City. Then, shortly afterward, in 1844, possibly because of the flood, they made a first claim to public land on high ground back from the Blue Rive approximately sixteen miles south of Independence, near the settlement of Hickman’s Mills, on what was called Blue ridge, It was high, fertile, well-drained ground, ideal grazing country, good for corn and wheat, as high and fine as any land in the county, with distant views miles into Kansas Territory.
This first Blue ridge claim comprised just 80 acres, the minimum purchase required by the Land Act, and Solomon Young paid $1.25 an acre, the minimum price for public land. To gain title he was also obliged to occupy the land for a time, and consequently stories were passed down of how he and Harriet Louisa came there with “a gun and an axe and two babies and a blanket.” [14 pg 23]
A founder and the first president [Horace Greeley] of the New York Printers’ Union (Later Typographical Union Number Six), he paid Tribune printers thirty two cents for each 1,000 ems set in type when other papers were paying twenty three; in 1844, the editor led the battle for a higher city wide scale for printers, and won. The victory was celebrated by the firing of a cannon in front of the Tribune office. …Although he frequently quarreled with his printers – once hiring strikebreakers – Greeley remained, generally, on good terms with them. In 1862 just a year after they had refused to accept a ten per cent pay cut announced by the editor, Tribune printers chipped in to purchase Greeley a $400 gold watch. [16 pg 98]
Extracts from the Financial Report to the Association. (of Brook Farm)
“The Direction of Finance respectfully submit their annual report for
the year ending Oct. 31, 1844:–
The income of the Association during the year from
all sources whatever has been . . . . . . .$11,854.41
and its expenditures for all purposes,
including interest, losses by bad debts,
and damage of buildings, tools and
furniture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,409.14
leaving a balance of . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,445.27
from which deducting the amount of
doubtful debts contracted this year . . . . 284.43
——–
we have . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,160.84
which is to be divided according to the Constitution.
“By the last yearly report of this Direction it appears that the
Association has been a loser up to November 1, 1843, to the amount of
$2,748.83. In this amount was included sundry debts against associates
amounting to $924.38 which should not have been included. There were
also some small discrepancies which were afterwards discovered, so that
on settling the books, the entire deficit appeared to be $1,837.00.
“To this amount should be added the proportion of the damage done to
the tools, furniture and general fixtures and depreciation in the live
stock, by the use of the two years which the Association has been in
operation previous to that time. The whole damage of this property by
the use of these years has been ascertained by inventory to be $365.54,
according to the estimates and statements prepared by Messrs. Ryckman
and Hastings, which are herewith submitted.
“Of this sum, $365.54, we have charged one third, $121.85, to the
account of the current year, and two thirds, $243.69, to the account of
the two preceding years. To the same amount should also be added sundry
debts which have since proved to be bad, amounting in all to $678.08,
and also an error in favor of I. Morton amounting to $17.74, which has
since been discovered in his account, so that the total deficit of the
preceding years will appear to be as follows:–
Deficit on settling the books….. $1,837.00
Damage on furniture and fixtures….. 243.69
Bad debts, including debts of
associates considered doubtful……. 678.08
I. Morton………………………. 17.74
Total………………………… $2,776.51
“From this amount is to be deducted the value of the farm produce
consisting of hay, roots, manures, etc., on hand November 1, 1843,
which was not taken into the amount of last year, but which has been
ascertained to be $762.50, as well as the value, $49.13, of the family
stores which were on hand at the same time, but were also omitted from
the amount.
“Deducting these two amounts ($762.50+$49.13= $811.63) from the deficit
as above stated we have:
Deficit………. $2,776.51
Farm produce and
family stores……. 811.63
Real deficit for
1842 and 1843…. $1,964.88
“It was the opinion of a majority at least of this Board that this sum must be chargeable upon the future industry of the Association, and that no dividend could be declared until it had been made up.
Accordingly the quarterly statement for the quarter ending August 1, 1844, was based upon this opinion, and a deficit of $526.78 declared to exist at that time. It is but justice to say that that statement was made up in the absence of one of the members of the Direction, Mr. Ryckman, who on seeing it objected entirely to the principle which it embodied. Subsequent consideration has convinced the Direction that the statement was in that respect erroneous, and that the transactions of previous years ought not to affect the operations of this, in the way proposed in the statement. It should be borne in mind that the deficit before spoken of is not a debt in itself, but is the difference between the amount of our debts and our joint stock, and the nominal value of our assets. The Association is not bound to pay the sum or to make it
good in any way. It pays interest upon it, but can never be called on to pay the principal. The sum total of the actual liabilities of the Association, that is, of debts and obligations which it is bound at some time or other to pay, is much exceeded by the cost value of its property. Its joint stock, which it is not bound to pay, much exceeds the deficit we are speaking of, so that clearly the deficit is not to be paid, but only the interest upon it, that is, five per cent per annum forever. So that it is evident that the principal is by no means chargeable upon the industry of the present or of future years, but only the interest. And even if the said deficit were a debt to be paid it would still, as we conceive, be perfectly just and legitimate to issue stock for its amount to those members by whose labors it was made up. Because in that case we should merely, in consideration of such labor, bind the Association to the yearly payment of the interest aforesaid according to the terms of our joint stock compact.
“This is, as we are persuaded, the only way whereby labor can receive justice. If a hundred dollars in money is invested in our stock, we issue certificates for that amount, and why must we not do the same with an investment of a hundred dollars’ worth of labor? The claim in the latter case seems to us even more imperative than in the former. The dividend of each year ought, as we are convinced, to be made with
reference solely to the difference between its gains on the one hand, and its expenditures and losses on the other. “As soon as the Phalanstery shall be completed it will become necessary to establish different rates of room rent. It is a matter of doubt whether such an arrangement is not already desirable. In our present crowded condition, indeed, the general inconveniences are distributed with tolerable equality, but still it is impossible to avoid some exceptions, and it might contribute to the harmony of the Association “The earlier losses of the establishment must be regarded as the price of much valuable experience, and as inevitable in starting such an
institution. Almost every business fails to pay its expenses at the commencement–it always costs something to set the wheels in operation; this is not, however, to be regarded as absolute loss. This is the view which is to be taken of the condition of the Association at the beginning of the present year.
“The true value of any property is precisely the sum on which, in the use for which it was designed or which it may be put to, it pays the requisite interest. The price of railroad stock, for example, is not regulated, either by its original cost or by the present intrinsic worth of the property it represents, but by the dividend it pays and by the condition and durability of the railroad. For any other use than as
a railroad the property of the road is of course comparatively worthless, but that consideration has no effect upon its value.
“The case is entirely the same with the property of this Association. As long as it is able, in the use and under the management of the Association, to pay the stipulated interest–five per cent per annum– upon the stock shares by which it is represented, so long those stock shares will be worth par, whatever may be the nominal cost of the
property, or its value for any other purposes than those of the
Association.
“In accordance with these views and for other considerations which we
shall hereafter allude to, this Direction is altogether of opinion that the results of this year’s industry ought to be divided irrespective of the results of former years, and certificates of stock issued to those persons who are entitled to such dividends.
“To some persons it may perhaps seem remarkable that a dividend should be declared when the Association is so much in want of ready money as at present, but a little reflection will show anyone that it is a perfectly legitimate proceeding. A very large part of our industry has been engaged in the production of permanent property such as the shop, the Phalanstery and the improvements upon the farm. These are of even more value to the Association than so much money, and a dividend may as justly be based upon them as upon cash in the treasury. If a just graduation of rates for different apartments should now be established. As far as possible no member should be the recipient of peculiar favors, but when all are charged at an equal rate for unequal accommodations, this is unavoidable. For the same reason a difference should be made between the price of board at the Graham tables, and those which are furnished with a different kind of food. It is only by this means that justice can be done and differences prevented.
The first thought that will arrest the attention of some in reading this report is the smallness of the figures. It does not appear to-day that the corporation was much of a financial affair, for there are thousands of persons in our land now who could easily sustain such an institution and pocket its yearly losses; but we must bear in mind that the intervening years have changed the value of money, and its relation to property. A fair price for a mechanic’s labor then was a dollar for a day of ten to twelve hours; the same persons would now receive three to four times as much for less hours. We should remember also that the colossal fortunes of to-day were not in existence then. The means at the command of the Association were very small, and the wonder is that with so little money capital the enterprise should have attracted the
wide notice it did.
In this report was an allusion to the Graham table. In the dining room
there was always, at the time of which I write, one table of vegetarians–those who used no flesh meats, and generally no tea or coffee. They passed under the name of “Grahamities,” from the founder of the vegetarian system in America, Dr. Sylvester Graham, whose name is still connected with bread made of unbolted wheat because it was by him considered the very perfection of human food. These persons were of
both sexes, different ages and occupations. They worked on the farms, in the schools, the houses and the shops. They had the diet of the place, minus the meat and sometimes the tea and coffee. Little attention was paid at first to this departure from common habits, but by degrees the numbers increased until they began to be a power. Their
constancy, their earnest belief, soon swept away all ridicule, and the proof that they could do their share of daily work was not wanting. Among the number were many very devoted and cheerful persons.
“C. A. D.” [40]
It is on record that Morse offered, in 1844, after the experimental line between Washington and Baltimore had demonstrated that the telegraph was a success, to sell all the rights in his invention to the Government for $100,000, and would have considered himself amply remunerated. [36]
Above ad from the 1844 City Directory of Chicago
1845
A fire forced Greeley to return the Tribune to Ann street to share the plant facilities of the World (it is one of the wonders of nineteenth century journalism that papers brawling and feuding in their columns would, in emergencies, make every effort to assist each other), but the Tribune soon returned to its new site in a squat, five story building that was purchased from Price in 1858 for $163,000. [16 pg 100]
(excerpt of letter seeking entrance to the Brook Farm experiment)
I have not a large fortune, but sufficient to live comfortable anywhere. A large part of it is now invested in houses and lands in Georgia. Such is the low price of cotton that real estate cannot be sold at this time without a serious sacrifice. Most of my Georgia property rents for more than the interest of its cost at 8 per cent. I have also houses and land in this state, but cannot for the above named reason find a
purchaser. Therefore, if I go into Association I shall be obliged to leave some of my possessions unsold, and be content to receive the rent until I can effect a sale.
I have no negroes–thank God. Now if you are not full at Brook Farm,
and do not object to myself, wife and two daughters, one four years and the other six months old, presenting ourselves as candidates for admission, and $2500 or $3000 will be sufficient for an initiation fee, I shall, as soon as I can arrange my affairs, be with you.
I will thank you to write to me, informing me with how much ready cash, with an income of $500 or $600 per year, I can be received. Mrs. Clarke and myself will wish to engage daily in labor. We both labored in our youth–we wish to resume it again.
Very respectfully,
John Clarke. [40]
(excerpt of Mr. Ripleys reply to J. Clarke.
In regard to the connection of a family with us, our arrangements are liberal and comprehensive. We are not bound by fixed rules which apply to all cases. The general principle we are obliged to adhere to rigidly is not to receive any persons who would increase the expenses more than the revenue of the establishment. Within the limits of this principle we can make any arrangement which shall suit particular cases.
A family with resources sufficient for self-support, independent of the
exertion of its members, would find a favorable situation with us for the education of its children, and for social enjoyment. An annual payment of $1000 would probably cover the expenses of board and instruction, supposing that no services were rendered to diminish the expense. An investment of $5000 would more than meet the original
outlay required for a family of eight persons; but in that case an additional appropriation would be needed, either of productive labor or cash, to meet the current expenditures. I forward you herewith a copy of our Prospectus, from which you will perceive that the whole expense of a pupil, without including board in vacations, is $250 per annum; but in case of one or more pupils remaining with us for a term of
years, and assisting in the labor of the establishment, a deduction of $1 or $2 per week would be made, according to the services rendered, until such time as their education being so far completed, they might defray all their expenses by their labor.
In the case of your son fifteen years of age, it would be necessary for him to reside with us for three months at least, and if at the end of that time his services should be found useful, he might continue by paying $150 or $200 per annum, according to the value of his labor, and if he should prove to have a gift for active industry, in process of time, he might defray his whole expenses, complete his education and be
fitted for practical life. [40]
Still earlier, on March 18, 1845, in one of his reports to the Postmaster-General, Cave Johnson, he adds: “In regard to the salary of the ‘one clerk at Washington–$1200,’ Mr. Vail, who would from the necessity of the case take that post, is my right-hand man in the whole enterprise. He has been with me from the year 1837, and is as familiar with all the mechanism and scientific arrangements of the Telegraph as I
am myself…. His time and talent are more essential to the success of the Telegraph than [those of] any two persons that could be named.” [36]
At first Kendall had great difficulty in inducing capitalists to subscribe to what was still looked upon as a very risky venture. Mr. Corcoran, of Washington, was the first man wise in his generation, and others then followed his lead, so that a cash capital of $15,000 was raised. Mr. Reid says: “It was provided, in this original subscription, that the payment of $50 should entitle the subscriber to two shares of $50 each. A payment of $15,000, therefore, required an issue of $30,000 stock. To the patentees were issued an additional $30,000 stock, or half of the capital, as the consideration of the patent. The capital was thus $60,000 for the first link. W.W. Corcoran and B.B. French were made trustees to hold the patent rights and property until organization was
effected. Meanwhile an act of incorporation was granted by the legislature of the State of Maryland, the first telegraphic charter issued in the United States.”
The company was called “The Magnetic Telegraph Company,” and was the first telegraph company in the United States. [36]
1846
Exactly when Solomon went west on the first of his wagon train expedition, leaving Harriet Louisa in charge of everything, it not clear. It is known only that he went several times prior to the Civil War, beginning perhaps as early as 1846, the momentous year of the Mexican War and the trek of the Mormons out of Illinois to the Great Salt Lake (not to mention the year of Anderson Truman’s arrival in Independence). Such undertakings were epic in scale, in any event. The customary overland train was made up of forty to eighty giant canvas covered freight wagons, each requiring six yoke of oxen or mules and two drivers. A single wagon and team stretched 90 to 100 feet. And since the practice under way was to keep the wagons about 100 feet apart, some trains would be strung across the prairie for as far as three miles. To keep his bearings, Solomon carried a brass telescope, like a sea captain.
The goods hauled could be worth a fortune, $30,000 or more, and the profits, if all went as planned, could be correspondingly large. Solomon, who at census time now listed himself as a freighter, appears to have done quite well. In 1850, his recorded wealth was $5,000. He is said to have owned as much as 5,000 acres, fancy, blooded horses, and there was real silver on the table.
Once, he started for California with a herd of fifteen hundred cattle. It took hin a year and he lost five hundred cattle on the way, but he made it, through every kind of weather and hardship, across half the continent. At Sacramento he traded the surviving herd for a ranch of 40,000 acres. But this as the story goes, he was forced to sell to cover the debts of a partner. A man made good on his debts, a man stood by his friends. And a world beating talker had a tale to tell his children, and they theirs. [14 pg 25]
By April 1845 He (Howe) was actually sewing a seam on his machine. In 1846 he received a patent.
To persuade the public that his machine would really work, Howe took it to the Quincy Hall clothing Manufactory in boston, seated himself before it and offered to sew up any seam that anyone would bring. For two weeks he astonished all comers by doing 250 stitches a minute, about seven times the speed by hand. He then challenged five of the speediest seamstresses to race his machine.
Even these demonstrations did not persuade people to buy Howe’s machines. Some objected that it was still imperfect, because it did not make a whole garment; others feared it would put tailors and seamstresses out of work. All were discouraged by the cost of a machine, at that time about $300. Howe determined to try the English market. When his brother, Amasa, took the machine to London, he awakened the interest of a shrewd corset manufacture who bought the English rights for a song, and then persuaded Elias Howe to come to London to adapt the machine to the needs of corset making. By working hard for eight months, Howe accomplished the difficult assignment, whereupon his employer (who proved to be a Dickensian villain) fired him. Suffering from the tragedy of his wife’s death (he had to borrow a suit to attend her funeral!) And the loss of all his household goods in a shipwreck off cape cod, in 1849 Howe returned penniless to New York. [28 pg 94]
It was characteristic of (S.F.B.) Morse that the first money which he received from the actual sale of his patent rights ($45 for the right to use his patent on a short line from the Post-Office to the National Observatory in Washington) was devoted by him to a religious purpose. From a letter of October 20, 1846, we learn that, adding $5 to this sum, he presented $25 to a Sunday School, and $25 to the fund for repairs. [36]
1847
On April 24, [John Chafin age 73] sold the 134 acre family farm to his son [John Emerson Chaffin, yeoman age twenty two, both of Holden Mass] for $3,000. Later in the same day, curiously enough, yet another deed was executed, in which father John paid $1,500 to buy back half of the same farm, but this time with a lengthy proviso attached. Young Chaffin now owned $1,500 and half a farm; he was to earn the rest, to wit: by providing for ‘my honored father and mother during their natural lives in the following manner: to provide them with good and suitable meats, drinks and vegetables and groceries with any and all things necessary to furnish a good and suitable table for their board and sustenance; to cook and furnish them with good and suitable board, or to pay for their board where either or both may wish to live… to provide them with good and suitable clothing of all kinds which they shall wish for their convenience and comfort; to provide them with all the wood they want of a good quality fitted for stoves or fireplaces as they shall direct… to provide and keep a suitable horse, carriage, and harness for their use when ordered by them; to have the use of one half the house they now occupy; to provide them with suitable help and attendants in sickness and in health subject to their order; to pay their doctoring, nursing, and funeral charges…
They system worked without a hitch, and young Chaffin did his duty for the remaining thirteen years of his parents’ lives. [??]
“Shall have a better crop than my neighbors,” [Olmsted] informed Fred Kingsbury. “I shall send a parcel of them to New York at 37½ cents.” [26 pg 74]
In 1847 the Post Office Department adopted the idea of a postage stamp, which of course simplified the payment for postal service but caused grumbling by those who did not like to prepay. In Philadelphia, for example, with a population of 150,000, people still had to go to the post office to get their mail. The confusion and congestion of individual citizens looking for their letters was itself enough to discourage use of the mail. Besides, the stamp covered only delivery to some post office and did not include carrying to a private address. It is no wonder that during the years of these cumbersome arrangements private letter carrying and express business developed, some delivering a letter anywhere in the city for a penny. Although their activities were semilegal, the thrived, and actually advertised that between Boston and Philadelphia there were a half day speedier that the government mail. The government postal service lost volume to private competition, and was not able to handle efficiently even the business it had. [28 pg 130]
POUGHKEEPSIE, NORTH RIVER,
July 30, 1847.
In my last I wrote you that I (S.F.B. Morse) had been looking out for a farm in this region, and gave you a diagram of a place which I fancied. Since then I was informed of a place for sale south of this village 2 miles, on the bank of the river, part of the old Livingston Manor, and far superior. _I have this day concluded a bargain for it._ There are about one hundred acres. I pay for it $17,500. [36]
Probably the best example of this class was Harrison Ellis of Alabama. At the age of thirty-five he had acquired a liberal education by his own exertions. Upon examination he proved himself a good Latin and Hebrew scholar and showed still greater proficiency in Greek. His attainments in theology were highly satisfactory. _The Eufaula
Shield_, a newspaper of that State, praised him as a man courteous in manners, polite in conversation, and manly in demeanor. Knowing how useful Ellis would be in a free country, the Presbyterian Synod of Alabama purchased him and his family in 1847 at a cost of $2500 that he might use his talents in elevating his own people in Liberia. [52]
The “credit” system was gradually abandoned by the Government, but the auction system was retained for decades. In 1847, the Government was still selling large tracts at $1.25 an acre, nominally to settlers, actually to capitalist speculators or investors. More than two million acres had been sold every year for a long period. The
House Committee on Public Lands, reporting in 1847, disclosed how most of the lands were bought up by capitalists. It cited the case of the Milwaukee district where, although 6,441 land entries had been made, there were only forty actual settlers up to 1847. “This clearly shows,” the committee stated, “that those who claimed the land as
settlers, are either the tools of speculators, to sequester the best lands for them… or the claim is made on speculation to sell out.”
[Footnote: Reports of Committees, First Session, Thirtieth Congress, 1847-48, Vol. iii, Report No. 732:6.] [57]
1848
Wall hangers were then a favorite method of selling goods, especially goods to farmers; and for the next several decades wall hangers were virtually the only decoration to be found in the kitchens, and occasionally the parlors, of Western farm hones. Case’s first hanger dated 1848, announced that the Racine threshing Machine Works, J.I. chase, Proprietor, was open for business in its new and enlarged establishment. [7 pg 32]
Unlike much advertising of the period, Case’s was not blatant. It was modest, through completely assured. It was also personal. In a chatty aside he remarks that in the past he had been forced to buy his castings from outside ships, with the result that sometimes he got good castings, sometimes bad ones. Now, however, he has his won foundry; hence his castings will be universally good. [7 pg 33]
The cost of a Case threshing machine complete with horse power varied from $290 to $325, at the shop. That is what later was to be described as “f.o.b. factory.”
You had to come and take them away, or pay the cost of delivery. Nothing is said about an all cash deal – farmers did not trade that way – but if some odd farmer wanted to make a larger down payment than the sum asked, he was to be allowed a 10 per cent deduction on anything over $50. Fifty dollars was the standard down payment, to be followed by $75 on the next November 1st, $100 on January 1st, and the balance on the first day of October following – all with interest. [7 pg 34]
Virtually destitute, In July of 1848, Trist and his wife moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania. During his stay there several writers came to him in search of information about the great men he had known: Henry S. Randal, for his biography of Jefferson; James Barton, for his biography of Jackson; Thomas Hart Benton, for assistance on his Thirty Years’ View. [12 pg 89]
Thirteen year old Andrew Carnegie finds first employment as a bobbin boy in a textile mill at $1.20 a week. [13 pg58]
1849
Industrialist Case must have been pressed for time, but in 1849 he found occasion to do some courting, and soon married small, vivacious Lydia Ann Bull, of Massachusetts stock. The couple set up housekeeping in a house rented for five dollars a month. He was never a man to live beyond his means. Apparently he did not believe that his means yet permitted him to have his own horse and buggy to take him forth on his constant tours to sell machines – and to make collections. For at least two years after his marriage, Case did his traveling by stage, boat, and on foot. [7 pg 36]
“To term an American farmer dilatory in regard to the payment of his bills,” said one of J.I. Case’s early bookkeepers, “is arrant flattery.”
Here is salesman and collector Case himself in Monroe, Wisconsin, writing home one October night in 1849: he had driven ten miles since dark, taken care of his hired team, eaten supper, and is prepared to call it a ‘middling day for collecting.” In this case “middling” meant “money to pay my expenses home providing I cozen pretty well.” He have been careful to keep expenses at a minimum, only to discover that, if only for peace of mind and the safety of his pocketbook, he must buy “a gimlet to fasten my door at night.” This protection set him back a dime; and because there were no road signs and everybody had his won notion of how far it was to the next place, and how best to get there, Case had to blow thirty five cents for a pocket map.
Collections weren’t very good wither. From somewhere in the wilds “nine miles east of Madison, Wis.,” he moans that though he has presented notes to the amount of $2,500, he has received only $50. “I tell you,” he wrote to his wife, “these are hard old times to collect money.” [7 pg 36]
Archambault of Philadelphia started building engines and mounting them on wagon wheels in 1849. The machines came high, the four horse power costing $625 and the ten horse power $2,300. [7 pg 55]
Influenced somewhat by his Associationist leanings, he (Greeley) turned the paper (The Tribune) into a joint stock venture, issuing 100 shares of stock, each valued at $1,000. But apparently the teachings of Associationism had not found favor among the members of the Tribune staff, for only six employees came forward at the first offering with the courage – and the $1,000 – to invest in the Tribune. Of the other 94 shares, 10 were reserved for Dana, 31½ for Greeley, and 52½ for McElrath. Greeley, who was assured by the Tribune Association bylaws of an annual salary of $2,500, had thus surrendered nominal control of the paper, but until the last days of his life, even at times when he himself possessed only six shares, he never lost the decisive voice. [16 pg 101]
When Mr. Ripley left Brook Farm he was poor. The experiment had cost
him money, years of toil and made debts for which he felt responsible.
He determined to pay them. As yet the way was not open. The
_Harbinger_ was changed in form and lived less than two years in
its new location, and during a temporary illness of the editor its
publication was suspended. Mr. Ripley and wife taught school at
Flatbush, L.I.
A t the termination of the -Harbinger- he immediately commenced
writing for the New York -Tribune-. Its pay roll indicates what he
received May 5, 1849; it was $5 for the previous week’s work. In July,
same year, he was paid $10 per week; April 6, 1850, $15; Sept. 21,
1851, $25 per week. He wrote articles on all the living topics of the
day, from the arrival of the last new singer to the death of the last
criminal. Things trivial and non-important, grave and gay, of lasting
import and the most ephemeral, all came under his pen.
He also wrote, either occasionally or regularly, for a dozen other
periodicals. He was an early contributor to -Putnam’s- and from
its commencement wrote for -Harper’s New Monthly-. As editor
associated with Mr. C.A. Dana he gave his time and best thought to the
New American Cyclopedia, and the first two or three volumes of the
series were edited solely by them. In 1871 his salary was raised to $75
per week. When the Cyclopedia was revised he was paid $250 per month
for extra work on it. More than a million four hundred and sixty
thousand volumes of the two editions have been sold, and a small
royalty secured to the editors on each volume. [40]
1850s
[or earlier] Raymond, who was making $1,000 a year as assistant in the departments of literary criticism, fine arts, and general intelligence, soon defected and went over to feud with Greeley as managing editor of the Courier and Enquirer. A few years later, in 1851, her started a paper of his won and called it the New York Times.) At the Tribune he was eventually succeeded by Charles A. Dana, who was to make something of a name for himself in journalist, too, It was Dana who too the initiative in building up the Tribune staff, hiring and assigning correspondents, including a man in London named Karl Marx, who wrote dispatches to the Tribune at one pound apiece for more than ten years. 16 pg 100]
1850
At Galena, one day in November, 1850, Case learned to his horror that six threshing machines he had shipped to Iowa, for the harvest just then finished, had not arrived until the last shock of grain had been threshed. He had expected to collect $1,000 on these machines. Instead, he had to ante up $40 freight charges on each machine and trust to luck in selling them for the next harvest season. [7 pg 38]
In 1850, at the age of twenty two, he (Henry Miller) set out from New York for the city whose golden name was then on everybody’s lips – San Francisco. When, after a perilous journey across the Isthmus of Panama, he landed in the city by the Golden Gate, he had only six dollars to his name, actually, not even the name was his own. He had been born Heinrich Alfred Kreiser, and that was what he had been called until he went on board his ship at New York. He had bought his ticket at the bargain rate of $350 from a shoe salesman who at the last minute had decided not to make the trip. As the young man was boarding the ship, he looked at the pasteboard in his hand and to his dismay saw on it the words “”Not Transferable.” At the head of the gangplank stood the purser, checking the passenger list. “Name please?” the purser asked.
The young man gulped, then looked down at his ticket and read off the words there – “Henry Miller.” Unwilling to admit the small fraud, he continued to use the salesman’s name. Eight years after his arrival in San Francisco, the state legislature passed a special bill legalizing the change. [17 pg 20]
He has thought of practical matter: how much cheaper for him to visit England now, he points out sagely, than when he will be married and with a family. He claims that he is better than John at managing money matters, and he is sure that he can keep his expenses down to less than $140 or $160 (in fact, he would spend about $300). The trip is to be mainly an inexpensive waling tour since Brace’s family has little money, and Olmsted reminds his father that he has had much more practice in roughing it than either of the other two. Wouldn’t it be a good idea, in any case, to be away from Staten Island during the cholera season? [26 pg 85]
Louis Prang, a sixteen year old refugee from the German revolutions, came to New York in 1850, acquired a reputation as a lithographer, and pioneered in making colored lithographs of famous works of art (he christened them “cromos” and the name stuck) which he sold for $6 apiece. In 1875 he applied his techniques to producing colorful cards for Christmas, and these came to be esteemed as works of art.. Prang’s eight color chromos of the Nativity, of children, young women, flowers, birds, and butterflies (a few, too, of Santa Clause) gave a certain tone to the practice of sending greeting cards at Christmas and dominated the market until about 1890. [28 pg 162]
The policy of granting enormous tracts of land to corporations was revived for the benefit of canal and railroad companies. The first railroad company to get a land grant from Congress was the Illinois Central, in 1850. It received as a gift 2,595,053 acres of land in Illinois. Actual settlers had to pay the company from $5 to $15 an
acre. [57]
1851
The Prairie Farmer welcomed each new improvement in agricultural machinery, including those of Cyrus McCormick, Obed Hussey, and Jerome I. Case. Then, in 1851, Editor [John Stephen] Wright himself entered the field with a revolutionary device, the Atkins Automaton, this was the work of another Yankee, Jearum Atkins, a native of Vermont who migrated to the Midwest as a millwright. A fall from a wagon put him into bed for twenty four years during which he devised and perfected his Automation. This was one of the first self-rakers for use with reapers. It imitated the motion of human arms and was so wondrous in action as to awe the crowds that came to see it on trial. Forty of the machines were sold in 1853; three hundred a year later. By 1856 /Wrights’ firm was making fine thousand Automatons – and selling them as fast as made. Agricultural groups showered medals and resolutions of merit on the invention. It was common talk Cyrus McCormick was much worried.
Meanwhile, too, the Prairie Farmer had been wildly successful. Its subscription list had grown to 10,000. Editor Wright changed it from a monthly to a weekly, all for the same price. Then came the swift debacle.
A subordinate in the automaton factory had, in the great rush of orders, used green wood in many of the machines; and in the hot sun of harvest time they had warped. Back they came. Either that or their owners wrote to demand that Wright take the shoddy things off their property. Wright and his men worked all hours to replace the defective machines, and he might have managed to survive the stupid accident had it not been that panic was in the air. The panic quickly developed into a financial disaster of national size. Wright lost his factory, his business, his home, and the Prarier Farmer. He tried again, this time in real estate, but he had lost his touch, and soon was to lose his brilliant mind, to die in an institution for the insane. [p7 pg45]
[Robert] Bonner, born in Ireland, had immigrated in 1839 at the age of fifteen, and began as a typesetter on the Hartford Courant, where he showed a talent for fast composing and a taste for fast horses. In 1851 he paid $900 for the Merchant’s Ledger, a dull journal of the dry goods trade. By 1855 he had discarded the drab commercial matter, had shortened the name to the New York Ledger, and his weekly now offered sentimental stories, serials, moral essays, heartwarming doggerel, and advice to the lovelorn. [28 pg 140]
1853
No wonder that the snobbish British merchant W.E. Baxter was irritated in 1853-54 to find common workmen so overdressed by English standards. “You meet men in railroad cars, and on the decks of steamboats, rigged out in super fine broadcloth and white waistcoats, as if they were on their way to a ball room, and common workmen you find attired in glossy black clothes while performing work of the dirtiest description… the farmers are the only class who wear rough garments… the people have yet to learn that apparel should be chosen for use not show, that shabby broadcloth is the most pitiful of all costume, and that it is no mark of gentility to wear a dress unsuitable to one’ means and employment.” [28 pg 92]
1854
The war in the Crimea, a place few American farmers had ever heard of, broke out in 1854 and involved Russia, Turkey, France and England. Its demand sent wheat prices on the Chicago market from 72 cents a bushel to $1.43 a bushel. [7 pg 41]
With his wife running a school for young ladies, Nicholas Trist was reduced to taking a job as a clerk for the Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad company, where he eventually worked up to paymaster at a salary of $112.50 a month. It was a bitter lot for a man who had been so close to the nation’s great and had done so much for his country. [12 pg ]
To many in western Missouri the civil War commenced not in 1861 with the attack on fort Sumter in South Carolina, but in 1854, when congress passed the fateful Kansas-Nebraska Act, leaving to the residents of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska the decision of whether to allow slavery. What compounded the problem was the disproportionate size of the slave population along Missouri’s western border – where possibly fifty thousand slaves were held which was nearly half the slaves in all Missouri. In Jackson county alone there were more than three thousand, and their owners, whatever their feeling for the Union, dreaded the prospect of free territory so close, to which a slave might escape, or from which could come armed bands of slave liberators. For the owner, his slave was very often his most valuable possession, in addition to being vital to his livelihood, and as the chances of war increased, the monetary value of every slave increased steadily, to the point where a male in good health was worth $3,000, as much as 500 acres of prime land. [14 pg 26]
Singer refused to pay Howe a royalty….after a long search, Singer and his lawyers located Walter Hunt, and some fragments of Hunt’s early machine were finally discovered in a garret. In 1854, after a costly three year trial, the court held in favor of Howe. Though Hunt had been on the right track, the court said, Hunt had never patented his invention, nor had he made a practical, salable machine. “For all the benefit conferred upon the public by the introduction of a sewing machine, the public are indebted to Mr. Howe.” Howe’s fortunes abruptly changed. He obtained $15,000 from singer, and soon was receiving a $25 royalty on every sewing machine made in the country. [28]
1855
A month later Olmsted moved from Staten Island to rented rooms on lower Broadway. It is inaccurate to say that he simply lost interest in farming. When he set out on his south travels, he must have had in mind his old mentor George Geddes, who combined farming with a large, productive farm and was a wealthy man. After eight years as a farmer, Olmsted still depended on his father’s financial support – about $1,000 a year. The farm was not paying its way. On the other hand, he had earned a total of $720 (about $20,000 in modern dollars) from the Times for his two series. This was a modest income for what amounted to fourteen months of beginners’ work, but it was evidence that perhaps his talents lay in that direction. [26 pg 134]
On June 26, 1855, Mr. Kendall forwarded a letter which he had received from a certain Milton S. Latham, member of Congress from California, making a proposition to purchase the Morse patent rights for lines in California. In this letter occur the following sentences: “For the use of Professor Morse’s patent for the State of California in perpetuity, with the reservations named in yours of the 3d March, 1855, addressed to me, they are willing to give you $30,000 in their stock. This is all they will do. It is proper I should state that the capital stock of the California State Telegraph in cash was $75,000, which they raised to $150,000, and subsequently to $300,000. The surplus stock over the cash stock was used among members of the Legislature to procure the passage of the act incorporating the company, and securing for it certain privileges.” [36]
1856
Late in 1856 came a mild warning when wheat prices dropped a little, though not enough to disturb the unlimited confidence. [7 pg 42]
In 1856 when [John Wesley Iliff’s] father offered to give him $7,500 if he would settle on a good Ohio farm, young Iliff refused, and (so the story went) asked instead for a mere $500 so he could make his start in the West. [28 pg 9]
[Howe’s bonanza from winning the court battle] did not last long. {Many manufactures of sewing machines] were suing each other.
The upshot of these and other widening disputes, which now involved another half dozen large manufactures, was the great Sewing Machine combination in 1856. The patent owners pooled all their patents on the essential features of the sewing machine into a single franchise for a single fee, and the owners of the different patents shared the franchising fees. Before signing, Howe insisted that at least twenty four manufactures be franchised. Howe himself received $5 for each machine licensed to sell in the United States and $1 for each machine exported, which eventually brought him about $2 million. [28 pg 95]
1857
The first part of 1857 [wheat prices] continued prosperous, too. The season was cool and late. Crops, however, looked good, and conditions generally were satisfactory until near the close of harvest. Then everything seemed to collapse. Several large banks in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia suddenly closed their doors. It was soon seen that the wonderful magnetic telegraph could spread bad as well as good news, and the clicking keys in the big money centers presently brought notice of an avalanche of bank closures that was almost simultaneous in Cleveland, Chicago, St. Paul, San Francisco, and Portland. [7 pg 43]
Now, during 1857-1859, a farmer who said he didn’t have any money was telling the truth. An honest man of Sparta, Wisconsin, who owed $375 on Case machinery, wrote in to say: “Dear Mr. Case, Sir, the day is dark and gloomy and unsettled like my mind as I have disappointed you so long about your money, but sir, I assure you I shall get it even if I have to give 3 per cent per month for it.” [7 pg 43]
A farmer of Farmington, Wisconsin, who had been using a Case thresher with a Case mortgage on it, wrote to say he had sold the machine anyway, then went on to report that times were so bad he was turning himself over to the county sheriff,.
Barter was about the only method left. Case appears to have been a good trader, no matter the object or commodities. Occasionally he returned to Racine from a tour during these dismal times driving two horses, leading two more, with a wagon or two, all accepted in lieu of cash for a threshing machine. At other times he accepted hogs and cattle. Now and then a few acres of land. [7 pg 44]
Richard Francis Burton is given $5,000 by the Royal Geographic to lead an expedition to discover the source of the Nile. [9 pg 187]
1858
By 1858 he [Samuel M. Kier] had sold nearly a quarter million half pints on his wonderful Rock Oil at $1 a bottle. [28 pg 42]
1859
…tea sold around $1 a pound. Hartford believed that this worked a serious hardship on the poorer classes. All the tea retailed in this country was sold through middle men, whose part in the operation kept the price up.
Hartford, with Gilman as associate, decided to cut costs by buying tea direct from China. With the Great American Tea company he put his plan into effect. He not only brought the price of tea down to 30 a pound but established the first link in what, in time, became a famous food chain. Thus tea again made a contribution to American history. The Boston Tea Party, historic protest against “taxation without representation,” was a prelude to the Revolutionary War. Hartford’s tea store initiated a cycle of merchandising. [6 pg 170]
{Gilman and Hartford] attracted customers by Barnumesque showmanship: premiums for lucky customers, cashiers’ cages in the shape of Chinese pagodas, a green parrot in the center of the main floor, and band music on Saturdays, they sent eight dapple gray houses pulling a great red wagon through the city and offered $20,000 to anyone who could guess the combined weight of the wagon and team. They gradually added other grocery goods – spices, coffee, soap, condensed milk, baking powder – and by 1876 had multiplied their stores to the number of sixty seven. [28 pg 110]
“Cattle Ranch!” read an advertisement in the Rocky mountain News on April 23, 1859. “Our ranch is on the Platte River about three miles below the mouth of cherry Creek, where we have built a large and secure ‘Correll’ in which the stock put in our care will be put every night. Terms $1 a Head per month.”…
If you knew the range and could organize a crew of cowboys, your expenses were low and your profits could be high. The use of the range was free, and there was you year round feed. Corrals were built from local materials that cost nothing, from adobe, or from poles found along the creeks. A few cowboys at $30 to $40 a month were all the labor required. Beef on the hoof sold by the living pound. Cattle fed on the native grasses of the range might gain one quarter of their original weight in a few months. [28 pg 10]
1862
According to Harriet Louisa’s formal claim [1902], however, it was a Colonel Burris, not Lane, who made off with 1,200 pounds of bacon in October of 1862, as well as 65 tons of hay, 500 bushels of corn, 44 head of hogs, 2 horses (one with bridle and saddle), 1 “lot of beds and bedding,” 7 wagons, and 30,000 fence rails. A general Sturgis was also responsible for taking 150 head of cattle and a captain Aline for 13,000 fence rails, 1,000 bushels of corn, and 6,000 “rations.” The total value of everything confiscated came to $21,442, the equivalent in present day money of quarter of a million dollars. [14 pg 31]
Raising an army for the Civil War was not an easy task. In order to meet its military quota in 1862, Greenfield (Mass.) voted to offer a bounty of $100 each to the 47 men needed. Apparently this was not enough, however. A few months later another $100 was offered to entice the last five men needed to volunteer to fill the quota. [30 pg A18]
During the Civil War, with no world wheat shortage, but without food control, the price of wheat increased 130 per cent over the price in 1861. [49]
1863
Yesterday L.M.M. and I appeared before the Captain commanding this camp with a statement of our cases. He listened to us respectfully and promised to refer us to the General commanding here, General Devens; and in the meantime released us from duty.
In a short time afterward he passed us in our tent, asking our names. We have not heard from him, but do not drill or stand guard; so, we suppose, his release was confirmed. At that interview a young lieutenant sneeringly told us he thought we had better throw away our scruples and fight in the service of the country; and as we told the Captain we could not accept pay, he laughed mockingly, and said he would not stay here for $13.00 per month. He gets more than a hundred, I suppose. [46]
Both he [Lincoln] and Secretary Stanton made many positive efforts to find some way of providing for the tender consciences of Friends without being unfair to the rights of others. They even requested American Friends to call a conference to consider how to find a satisfactory solution of the problem.
Such a conference was held in Baltimore, December 7th, 1863, and the Friends there assembled expressed great appreciation of “the kindness evinced at all times by the President and Secretary of War.” A delegation from this conference visited Washington and, in co‑operation with Secretary Stanton, succeeded in securing a clause in the enrolment bill, declaring Friends to be non‑combatants, assigning all drafted Friends to hospital service or work among freedmen, and further providing for the entire exemption of Friends from military service on the payment of $300 into a fund for the relief of sick and wounded. [46]
1864
[Olmsted writes to wife Mary] “things are worse here [Mariposa estate in San Francisco] than I dare say to anybody but you – and to you with a caution. There is not a mine on the estate that is honestly paying expenses.” He and martin pored over the books and discovered that the previous management had deferred repairs and maintenance in order to show an increase in profits. The richest deposits were rumored to have been held in reserve until just before the sale in order to inflate the price. The prospectus prepared by Fremont included an assayer’s optimistic prediction – “It is my conviction that the amount of gold bearing quartz that could be extracted is beyond all calculation” – and maintained that “the property is now producing from $60,000 to $100,000 per month, half of which, at least is profit.” When Olmsted arrived, he found that production had fallen precipitously to $25,00 per month. Moreover, his own careful inventory of the estate’s physical assets was 40 percent lower than the original owners’ estimate. [26 pg 231]
To decrease costs, Olmsted ordered that single men be compelled t live in the company boardinghouses, which were currently underutilized. As an encouragement, he reduced the rates for room and board from one dollar to eighty five cents a day and declared that henceforth the boardinghouses would be run at cost. This last was a conciliatory gesture, for he also put into effect another policy. He did what any conscientious manager of a troubled enterprise must also do: he trimmed labor costs.
The miners found their daily wages suddenly reduced from $3.50 to $3.15. They went on strike. …after five days the strike collapsed. Olmsted was not vindictive. He offered to pay in full any miner who wished to leave – more than two hundred accepted; many went to the Nevada Territory, where gold had been discovered. They were soon replaced – Olmsted had put advertisements in the San Francisco newspapers the day the strike broke out. He reduced the number of skilled miners and hired less expensive unskilled laborers at $2.40 a day, as well as Chinese workers, whom he paid only $1.75 a day. [26 pg 232]
Olmsted, too prospered. “I am for the present making money pretty fast for such a vagabond as I am,” he wrote his father. His annual salary was a regal $10,000 (about $300,00 in modern dollars), but since his contract specified that he be paid in gold- which was worth more than greenbacks – his real salary was as much as twice that amount. He was finally able to pay off his debts. In January 1864, only three months after his arrival, he was even able to invest $2,500 with his stockbroker in San Francisco. In April he increased this to $4,000. He was a conservative investor. He avoided the volatile mining industry, although he expected California in general – and San Francisco in particular – to prosper. He bought stock in a steamship company, the state telegraph company, and a San Francisco water company. “I look therefore to enterprises which are related to the whole of this field or large parts of it as likely ipso facto to be safe, (if will managed and free from excessive competition),” he wrote Godkin, who had asked him to make some investments on his behalf. In July Olmsted assured him: “The mining stocks here have fallen on an average more than one half since I wrote, but the stocks I recommended have not fallen on an average at all. I have made from 2 ro 3 per cent a month on all my investments.” By the end of the year, the value of his investments was $6,000. [26 pg 239]
The oil mania, sparked by Drake and other Go-Getters, created still another new species of upstart town. The map of the far northwestern corner of Pennsylvania was soon dotted with names like Oil city, Oleopolis, and Petroleum Center. These, and others, were built on oil, on the hope for oil, on the promise of oil, and in a few cases on a real oil bonanza. Oil towns, prospered on the auxiliary services, the making of oil drums, oil derricks, and oil pumps, the trade in oil leases, and on the feeding, housing, clothing, and debauching of the thousands of oil prospectors.
We can trace their meteoric careers in the short life of a town called Pithole. In the spring of 1864, a lucky “oil finder,” using a divining rod in the form of a which hazel twig, declared that a farm which spread on both sides of Pithole Creek held a fortune in oil. On January 7, 1885, the first completed well there was poring out 250 barrels of oil each day. Thousands of the hopeful -some soldiers recently discharged from the Civil War armies, some investors with inflated greenbacks to spend, and some vagrants, wanders, and adventures – flocked to Pithole. When a second well struck oil, the fever became a mania. By the end of June the four wells flowing at Pithole were producing over 2,000 barrels a day, which was a third of the total production of Pennsylvania oil. The land that six months earlier had been nothing but a remote farm became a buzzing center of commerce. Three thousand teamsters were driving wagons carrying oil barrels back and forth from the wells to the river boats and other shipping centers. A standard unit was a one sixteenth interest in a well, which commonly sold for several thousand dollars. The “Working Men’s Pithole Creek Oil association” bought interests in wells and sold $10 shares to those who could afford no more. Adapting their techniques form earlier Western hoaxers who had “salted” their diamond mines with imported diamond chips to trap the unwary some drillers avoided risk of a dry hole by “doctoring” their wells, through the simple process of poring buckets of oil into their hole at night to appeal to buyers the next morning. [28 pg 47]
1865
The Tribune did not emerge from the war either physically or fiscally unscathed. The hostilities, as the Tribune complained, occasioned “a sudden and rapid increase in the cost of our paper and other materials.” The newsstand price leaped, in two jumps, to four cents, but still the Tribune lost money. [16 pg 103]
To drive cattle through southeastern Kansas or southwestern Missouri in those days took courage. Texas drovers found their passage blocked by hardy settlers who disliked hiving their crops trampled and feared having their own cattle infected. Thieves would stampede a heard under cover of night, and then offer to hunt up the cattle and return them for $5 a head. The cattle that survived to market were so thinned from heard usage that the brought little profit. [28 pg 14]
By 1863 Rockefeller had bought into a refinery, and in 1865 (at the age of 26) he bought out one of his partners for $72,200. By the end of that year his refinery had grossed $1,200,000 (from a capacity of 505 barrels a day), more than double that of any other in the region. [28 pg 50]
1867
Since the end of the war, the editor had called for leniency for the South. “Universal Amnesty and Impartial Suffrage” was the Tribune’s editorial slogan, and Greeley proved he meant what he said when on May 13, 1867, he joined a number of others in signing the $100,000 bail bond that released Jefferson Davis from prison. The storm of abuse from vengeful elements in the North extended all the way to his club, Summoned to a special meeting of the Union League to explain his action, Greeley refused to appear. “Understand, once for all,” he said in a open letter published in the Tribune, “that I dare you and defy you… so long as any man was seeking to overthrow our Government, he was my enemy; from the hour in which he laid down his arms, he was my formerly erring countryman…” [16 pg 102]
Rowell opened an agency on Park Row, New York in 1867. Judging by the drawings of this establishment in his American Newspaper directory, he was in a prosperous way of business. That Directory, in itself, was an impressive achievement. Hitherto agencies in possession of lists of newspapers had hidden them jealously from sight. After the Civil War single copies of a list of newspapers in the Southern states were being sold for $150. In his Directory Rowell, now on the side of the advertisers, began a long battle to persuade newspaper publishers to declare honest circulation. A publisher, he conceded reluctantly, was entitled to say “objects to stating circulation,” but if figures were given they must be accurate ones. Later he offered $100 reward to anyone discovering a “lying circulation report” among his three star entries; he paid out at least twice. [24 pg 110]
[about this time in Texas] steers bought for $3 or $4 a head in Texas, sold for $35 or $40 a head up North. [28 pg 11]
On September 5, 1867, when the first shipment – twenty carloads of cattle – went out from Abilene (which two months earlier had been only a prairie village), Illinois stockmen gathered in tents specially erected for the occasion to celebrate with feast, wine, song, and expansive speeches. By the end of December, thirty-five thousand head of cattle had been shipped through Abilene, and within a few years, the number totaled tem million. In addition to the moral satisfaction he was seeking of really having done something “for posterity,” McCoy gained many sided profits. When McCoy first picked Abilene he gave $2,400 for the whole townsite (with 480 acres). The managers of the Kansas Pacific Railroad had agreed to give McCoy one eighth of the fright on each car of cattle shipped. By the end of the second year, this gave McCoy a claim against the Kansas Pacific amounting to $200,000. The company then refused to fulfill their contract because, they now said, they had never actually expected that the business would amount to anything! [28 pg 17]
1868
John Patterson…toll collector on the Miami and Erie Canal. His salary was $800 a year but he had to spend $300 for office rent and incidentals. After a few months he realized that his net yearly income of $500 was inadequate so he decided to go into the coal business on the side. He hung up a sign proclaiming “Coal and Wood” outside his office. When he received an order he bought coal from a dealer and hired some one to deliver it. His day book was a slate. When an account was settled he wiped it off. In this crude way the future magnate of the cash register began his commercial career.
Paterson had big ideas even when he had a little business. He head that a coal dealer located nearby wanted to sell out. He borrowed $250 from a local bank and bought the business. [6 pg 20]
[Andrew Carnegie has] assets of four hundred thousand dollars and an annual income of $56,110. [13 pg 58]
1869 With a booster enthusiasm worth of an upstart Western town, they anticipated greatness by adopting the name The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company in 1869. Perhaps the notion was that this chain of stores would unite the two oceans as did the Union Pacific Railroad, which had been completed that same year. [28 pg 110]
1870’s
The first [threshing] engines burned either wood or coal. A bit later the straw burner appeared. The straw burner was a sensation on the treeless prairies. Here was something to appeal to a farmer on whose place was not a tree other than the few aspens or cottonwoods for shade and windbreak round his house, and whose coal, if any, came expensively from a long way off by railroad, and perhaps a twenty mile haul in a wagon from the depot.
But here was a monster that could live off the country. One happy owner of a straw burner in Dakota Territory wrote to the makers, the Ames Iron Works, that he had threshed 30,000 bushels of wheat with one of their engines at a saving of $200 in fuel cost. [7 pg 59]
The itinerant farm laborer began to appear in the mass, the genuine hobo, too often mistakenly called a bum. A bum wouldn’t work; a tramp worked when he had to; but the hobo was a worker who moved about from city labor to logging camp to construction job and to the harvest. So, in early August Minnesota railroad towns like St. Charles and Winona, and Dakota towns like Wahpeton and Grand Forks, and of course Fargo, saw the advance guard of the hobo army move in, usually on freight trains. They came from everywhere; and down in the jungles by the railroad yards they stacked their bindles, lighted their fires, and cooked their mulligan. This native invasion of Goths was welcomed by the professional man-catchers of the bonanza farms, and by the small farmers as well. Wagons were waiting to haul them to the fields. Though wages fluctuated from year to year, the average wage for field workers in 1879 was $18 a month, with board, room, and laundry free. In every crew there were a few pacesetters who were paid from $2 to $7 a month extra for their stimulating efforts. [7 pg..]
1870
Yet, farmers were farmers still, which is to say they were devout believers in tradition, and individualist almost to a man; and they were not to be hurried into paying a small fortune for some damn’-fool contraption, no matter the claims of its makers. For one thing, there was the cost. In 1870 this amounted to approximately $120 for each indicated horse power. Add to the factory price the cost of freight to your nearest railroad station, and the steam engine capable of running a big thresher set you back not far from $1,000. [7 pg 56]
The notorious record of steamboat and locomotive engines was something the farmer knew about. Indeed, right on J.I. Case’s home ground, for instance, The Racine county Argus reported, just as the first Case steam portable was ready, that “scarcely is the ink dry recording a railroad holocaust than a frightful report of a boiler explosion appears that caused the loss of twenty rivers.” … The snorting monster not only carried death about him; he was also capable of destruction. Even though “fire-Proof Champion” seems to have been a favorite phrase used by makers of portable engines to describe safety from fire hazard, any farmer who could read knew from his newspaper or agricultural journal what was happening, especially at threshing time. In a single issue of a farm journal one reads that “we have near this village one grain stack burned…a barn and contents entirely consumed values at 300 dollars. Both caught fire from a steam engine driving a thresher.” [7 pg 57]
Fire insurance companies were as frightened as the farmers, and at first immediately canceled the policies of anybody who permitted a steam threshing rig on his farm. Even when this summary treatment was stopped, the insurance people imposed an extra fee which ran as high as $50 a day during threshing – if done by steam. [7 pg57]
In the summer President Grant appoints [Trist] postmaster in Alexandria, Virginia. He was paid $2,900 a year, which was more money than he had earned at any time since 1841, but he had less than four years to enjoy this munificence. On February 11, 1874, after suffering a stroke, Trist died. [12 pg?]
In 1870 the price of [a seat on the NY stock exchange] was $2,000. [22 pg 54]
1871
[Nicholas Philip] Trist receives the sum of $14,599.90 – money owed him for his salary and expenses in Mexico twenty three years earlier. It came none to soon, for he had to give up his railway job a year earlier, and the Trists were poverty stricken. [12 pg?]
By 1871 the sewing machine, which only twenty years before had been a curiosity to be exhibited at fairs for twelve and a half cents’ admission, was being manufactured at the rate of 7000,000 a year. [28 pg 96]
[Aaron Montgomery Ward] became a traveling salesman for a dry goods wholesaler; covering the rural West, he learned the problems of the farmers who bought from a general store. Ward say that he could reduce retail prices if he purchased large quantities for cash direct from manufactures and then sold for cash direct to the rural consumer. This was the seed of his mail order idea. Returning to Chicago, he began to lay his plans. The great Chicago fire of 1871 nearly consumed his savings, but by the spring of 1872 he had scraped together $1,600 of his won, to which a partner added $800.
Starting in a loft, 12 feet by 14 feet, over a livery stable, ward issued a single price sheet which listed the items for sale and explained how to order. Within two years the price list became an 8 page booklet and then a 72 page catalogue. By eliminating the middleman, Ward promised savings of 40 per cent: on fans, parasols, writing paper, needles, stereoscopes, cutlery, trunks, harnesses, and scores of other items. The catalogue grew and grew, at the same time becoming more vivid and enticing through illustrations. By the 1880’s a woodcut illustrated nearly every item. In 1883, only a decade after the founding with a capital of $2,400, the catalogue boasted goods in stock worth a half million dollars. The catalogue for 1884 numbered 240 pages and listed nearly ten thousand items. [28 pg 122]
1873
Except for Washington, who was a good businessman, most of the Presidents of the Virginia dynasty who retired to their plantations soon discovered they were deeply in debt. Madison and Monroe, like their friend Jefferson, died virtually penniless.
To avoid this specter, congress doubled the Presidents salary… to $50,000. [1. Pg 18]
(From the Enterprise June 4, 1873) Wednesday morning at half-past 7 O’clock the alarm of fire was struck on our town bell, and the cry on the street was that the Linen-Mill was on fire. The Steamer started with two horses; the torrent with one horse; the other branches with such aids as they could command, and strange as it may appear, with the mercury at 80, in thirty minutes a stream was playing on the fire. The Torrent but a trifle behind; and the union from the North Village which had two miles to go; was but a little behind the others. The fire commenced in the Card Room of the Old mill, which was burned before the department arrived, and the large mill was well on fire. Through the efficient exertions of the fire department the fire was confined to the upper story and attic of the main mill.
The Fitchburg mutual Fire Insurance company, 2nd Department, had
On the Old Mill Building $200
On Machinery $200
On stock $600
Total $1,000
On Main Mill Building, insured for $2,200, loss nearly covered; $4,000 on Machinery, loss nearly covered; $800 on stock in process; Total of $7,000.
The Bleachery building, Machinery and Stock were saved. The Flume was destroyed; no Insurance. Loss, $1,000. Insured in the North American and Franklin of Philadelphia; continental, N.Y.; Royal, Liverpool.
I think the people of Leominster never before had so through a conviction of the activity, efficiency and cheerful endurance of their Fire Department as on this their most severe trial. J.B. [32]
When Glidden & Ellwood first began the sale of the Glidden fence, which was confined to the vicinity of DeKalb, they received 25 cents per pound for the barbed wire. Since then, as production has increased and the facilities for manufacturing have been multiplied and perfected, the price has gradually dropped, until now a farm can be well fenced for forty‑five cents, or less, per rod, and to the incalculable advantage of the country over fencing by posts and boards, hedges or rails, as any one may see by a simple dollar and cent comparison of materials at his own door. [37]
1874
For these and other reasons [steam engine fire] it is in no way astonishing that as late as 1874 the United states commissioner of agriculture reported that the use of steam power had not made the advance it was justly entitled to on farms simply because the farmer himself “has clogged the wheels with his incredulity and prejudice.” [7 pg58]
By 1874, the year [President] Grant stopped over, (Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, on Martha’s Vineyard) the Methodist campground with its monstrous new tent was the biggest camp meeting in the country and was still the heart of the town. But the rest of Oak Bluffs was a full blown summer resort with its own less pious attractions: bathing, band concerts, boating, croquet, ice cream, and “promenading,” which generally appeared first on lists of “things to do at Oak Bluffs.” A roller skating rink had been built, and avast frame hotel, the Sea view, which looked like a fantasy palace and which offered accommodations (American plan) for $4.00 a day. [16 pg 41]
Caro, a German chemist, invented in 1874 the red color known as eosine, which was brought to thi
s country in the following year and sold for $125 per pound. Its color is destroyed by acids. [41]
1874 first appearance on the two cent coin of the motto ‘In God We Trust’. The expression to ‘put in your two cents worth’ become current at this time.
1875
Lorenzo Coffin asks: Are there no safety devices available to the railroads? Yes. Eli Janney had already patented an automatic coupler that locked like two hands clasping, and George Westinghouse had developed a workable air brake that could stop a train from controls in the locomotive,
Whey weren’t these in use? The railroad officials’ bland, obdurate answer was that their installation was ‘impractical” – that is to say expensive. The dollar and fifty cents a day that the train man earned made him responsible for his won injuries. Air brakes and automatic couplers cost the lines money; maimed railroad men cost nothing. … To expensive to install, a Chicago and Alton official told hin once. “But I note,” coffin yelled back, “that the Chicago & Alton and most other lines continue to pay their eight per cent dividends regularly.” [11 pg 98]
1876
In 1876 Mr. Glidden disposed of his half interest in the concern of Glidden & Ellwood to the Washburn & Moen (wire) Manufacturing Company, of Massachusetts, receiving therefor $60,000 in cash and a royalty on the future goods manufactured, Mr. Ellwood retaining his interest. The new concern began the purchase of prior unused and conflicting patents involving itself in extensive litigation, but, sustained by the courts, soon gained control of almost the entire barb‑wire business of the country. Nearly all wire‑making companies are now running under license from the parent concern. [37]
1878
Nineteen years after Hartford opened his first “Red Front” tea store in New York, an eight dollar a week clerk in the Moore & Smith Store in Watertown, New York, conceived the idea of piling a miscellaneous lot of slow selling merchandise on a table bearing the sign, “Any Article Five Cents.” Shoppers literally grabbed at the opportunity. The table was cleared in short order. The enterprising young clerk was Frank W. Woolworth. [6 pg..]
[one of Woolworth’s first jobs as a clerk found his] salesman so poor that his employer reduced his wages from $10 to $8.50 a week. [28 pg 114]
The “poor settler” catspaw was again made use of. At the behest of the lumber corporations, or of adventurers or politicians who saw a facile way of becoming multimillionaires by the simple passage of an act, the “Stone and Timber Act” was passed in 1878 by Congress. An amendment passed in 1892 made frauds still easier. This measure was another of those benevolent-looking laws which, on its face, extended opportunities for the homesteader. No longer, it was plausibly set forth, could any man say that the Government denied him the right to get public land for a reasonable sum. Was ever a finer, a more glorious chance presented? Here was the way open for any individual
homesteader to get one hundred and sixty acres of timber land for the low price of $2.50 an acre. Congress was overwhelmed with outbursts of panegyrics for its wisdom and public spirit.
Soon, however, a cry of rage went up from the duped public. And the cause? The law, like the Desert Land Law, it turned out, was filled with cunningly-drawn clauses sanctioning the worst forms of spoliation. Entire trainloads of people, acting in collusion with the land grabbers, were transported by the lumber syndicates into the
richest timber regions of the West, supplied with the funds to buy, and then each, after having paid $2.50 per acre for one hundred and sixty acres, immediately transferred his or her allotment to the lumber corporations.
Thus, for $2.50 an acre, the lumber syndicates obtained vast tracts of the finest lands worth, at the least, according to Government agents, $100 an acre, at a time, thirty-five years ago, when lumber was not nearly so costly as now. [57]
1880s
During the eighties, which was the heyday of bonanza farming, the Red River Valley was the universal hobo magnet. Even bank clerks and counter jumpers were caught in the excitement and induced by low railroad fares to see the American valley of the Nile in its fullest bloom. (The true hobo, of course, invariably arrived on the rods or the blinds; it was against his principles to pay fare to the railroad.)
It was generally understood that the term “bonanza” could not properly be applied to any farm with less than a thousand acres.
All the farms, big and medium, shared variously in this boom which was aided by conspiring factors, including a new process to make a fine grade of flour with one grinding a revolution in spring wheat, which for many years afterward was considered to be superior to winter wheat, fetching a premium of $1 a barrel for spring wheat four at Minneapolis. Another thing was that the Red River Valley was, for several years, free of the pests and disease which were hastening to remove the Lake States from the list of leading wheat producers. A few of the bonanza farmers made fortunes, and as their wealth increased they began to display the traits which Thorstein Veblen, a studious farm boy, son of Norwegian parents, who had worked in the wheat fields, was adding to his notes to support his theory of the leisure class. These few of the wealthiest wheat kings left their farms in charge of agents, to build or rent enormous mansions in St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Chicago, to staff them with French maids and English butlers, and thus to add the gilt of wheat to the Gilded Age.
They might tour England or the continent in summer, and spend winter along the Mediterranean, but harvest brought them back to the American Nile, to watch Number One spring being cut and threshed. They arrived in state now, rolling into Fargo in their private railroad cars, which were switched to their own spurs, and in these they lived. Either that, or they transferred themselves, their retinues of servants, and their guests, to the master’s house, a rambling vast structure said to be of Dakota Gothic architecture. Here they dined, as befitted the lords of wheat, and scandalized lesser farmers at dinners reputed to have cost $50 a plate, including the vintages; and gambled with the cards, the dice, and the wheels of Satan himself.
The bonanza operators were not slow to adopt certain practices which had been thought up and perfected by Commodore Vanderbilt and John d. Rockefeller. The bought machinery and all supplies in great volume and at rock bottom prices. They shipped freight in volume, too; and from the railroads they demanded and got secret rebates, which, vulgarly speaking, were kickbacks of cash, and resulted in a much lower actual rate that was paid by smaller farmers.
The smaller farmers had been arising in numbers through out the eighties, owning in part to the superb advertising furnished by the bonanza farm boom. Within the decade population in the Red River valley increased from 114,000 to 180,000. But the almost incredible increase was not in population but in plowed acreage: from 394,000 acres in 1880 to 3,193,000 acres in 1890. Wheat production soared from less than seven million to more than sixty eight million bushels.
Bonanza boom also touched off a homesteaders’ boon. During 1877 for instance, homestead entries in the Dakota country totaled 213,000 acres. Five years later, in 1885, homestead grants ran to 11,083,000 acres. [7 pg 80]
1880
At the age of fourteen, Jesse Livermore began his career, appropriately, in the offices of a brokerage firm in Boston. For a dollar a week, he marked quotation prices on a display board. [22 pg 63]
Leaving the oil country, he went to Wall Street, where he became a broker in oil stocks and lost everything. To save the “inventor” of the oil well from destitution, the Pennsylvania legislature finally gave him a pension of $1,500 a year, but in 1880, in an age of famous oil fortunes, Drake died in obscurity. [28 pg 46]
..in 1880 Christmas was so undeveloped that a manufacturer of Christmas tree ornaments had difficulty persuading F.W. Woolworth to take $25 worth of his product. Within a few years Woolworth’s annual order of Christmas tree ornaments from this supplier alone came to $800,000. …”This is our harvest time,” Woolworth instructed his store managers in December 1891. “Make it pay.” [28 pg 158]
1881
[John and Mattie Truman] As a wedding gift, Solomon gave her a three drawer burl walnut dresser, with a marble top and a mirror with small, side shelves. She was never to own another piece of furniture quite so fine.
The ceremony took place at the home place three days after Christmas, December 28, 1881. The couple’s own first home was in Lamar, Missouri, a dusty, wind blown market town and county seat (Barton County), ninety miles due south. For $685 John became the proud owner of a corner lot and a white frame house measuring all of 20 by 28 feet, which was hardly more than the dimensions of the Youngs’ kitchen. It had six tiny rooms, no basement, no running water, and no plumbing. But it was new, snug and sunny, with a casement window in the parlor on the southern side.
For another $200 John bought a barn diagonally across the street and there he opened for business, his announcement in the Lamar Democrat reading as follows:
Mules bought and sold. I will keep for sale at the White Barn on Kentucky Avenue a lot of good mules. Anyone wanting teams will do well to call on J.A. Truman. [14 pg 37]
In 1818 there was a rat plague in certain districts of India. The crops of the preceding two years were below average and a large part of them had been destroyed by rats. Rewards offered for rat destruction led to a killing of over 12,000,000 rats. Shipley estimates that a single rat does about 7s. 6d. Both of damage in a year, which makes a charge of sixty cents to two dollars a year to feed a rat on grain. Every rat on a farm costs about fifty cents a year. Lantz adds to this that hotel managers estimate five dollars a year as a low estimate of the loss inflicted by a rat. He thinks in the thickly populated parts of the country an estimate of one rat per acre is not excessive, and that in most of our cities there are as many rats as people. 9see 1909) [27 pg 152]
“Our Eastern farmers are giving up the cattle-breeding,” General James S. Brisbin explained, in 1818. “ They cannot compete with plains beef, for while their grazing lands cost them $50.00, $75.00, and $100.00 per acre, and hay has to be cut for winter feeding the grazing lands in the West have no market value, and the cattle run at large all winter– the natural grasses curing on the ground and keeping the stock fat even in January February, and March.” Brisbin could not imagine “why people remain in the overcrowded East” when out West, fortunes were there for the taking. [28 pg 8]
Speaking in the Senate of the United States June 13, 1882, the bill for National “Aid to Common Schools” being under consideration, Senator Henry W. Blair, of New Hampshire, said:
Excluding the states of Maryland and Missouri and the District of Columbia, and the total yearly expenditure for both races is only $7,339,932, expenditure is, from taxation, $70,341,435, and from school funds $6,580,632, or a total of $76,922,067, (see tables 2 and 7,) or one‑tenth of the whole, while they contain one‑fifth of the school‑population. The causes which have produced this state of things in the Southern States are far less important than the facts themselves as they now exist. To find a remedy and apply it is the only duty which devolves upon us. Without universal education, not only will the late war prove to be a failure, but the abolition of slavery be proved to be a tremendous disaster, if not a crime. [50]
1883
..the Woolworth’s increased the maximum price of the merchandise to ten cents inaugurating the now familiar “Five and Ten” stores. [6 pg 172]
[George Porterfield] Gates was partner in the Waggoner-gates Milling company of Independence, [MO] founded in 1866, which hit a bonanza with “Queen of the Pantry Flour,” a product known though the Midwest.
Gates himself was part of a postwar Yankee influx. He had come from Vermont by way of Illinois, joined William Waggoner in the Milling business in 1883, and two years later greatly remodeled and expanded his relatively modest house at the corner of North Delaware and Blue avenue, spending in all, according to the independence Sentinel,
a fabulous $8,000. Painted gray with black trim at the windows, the finished clap board “mansion” had fourteen rooms, verandas front and rear, fancy fretwork, tinted (“flashed”) glass in the front bay windows, slate roof, gas illumination, and hot and cold running water. [14 pg 50]
A happy new year to all of the readers of The Prairie Farmer, and may your labors of 1884 be crowned with success. Mr. Granger, what are you doing these long winter evenings? Can’t you find time to write a few lines to the readers of The Prairie Farmer? You can send a little report from your county, at least.
Come, let us be a little more sociable and talk more to each other through the columns of our paper. We can learn something by reading each other’s views on different subjects. In my next I shall try and tell some of the careless fellows how to run a farm to make it pay. If I fail to give a little light on the subject perhaps some one else will try it. We are having what you might call winter, now. Snow is about six inches deep, but the weather is not very cold. The thermometer has not been below zero but once.
Nearly all of the corn is gathered; only about one‑third of the crop is sound enough to keep until next summer. Farmers are feeding their soft corn to hogs and cattle. In that way the soft corn will pay pretty well after all, for fat stock brings a good price. Stock cattle are wintering well, for feed in the fields is good, and most farmers have got plenty of good hay. The weather was so nice the first part of this month that the farmers did a large amount of plowing. Potatoes are plenty and cheap; worth from 30 to 40 cents. Apples are scarce, and good ones bring a big price. Butter is worth from 25 to 30 cents. S.O.A. Knox Co., Ill. [37]
Mr. Calhoun’s (grandson of John C.)testimony was given before the Blair Senate Committee on Education and Labor and will be found in the Committee’s Report as to The Relations between Labor and Capital. (Vol. II, pp. 157).
New York, Thursday, September 13, 1883
Q. 2. Under what systems are the laborers in your section employed?
—A. There are three methods: we hire for wages, for a part of the crop, or we rent.
Q. 3. When hired for wages what is paid?
—A. When hired by the month we pay unskilled field hands from $10 to $20 per month and board. When hired by the day, for unskilled laborers, from 75 cents to $1. Teamsters, $1 a day and board. Artisans, from $2 to $5. In addition to their wages and board, the laborers are furnished, free of cost, a house, fuel, and a garden spot varying from half toone acre; also the use of wagon and team with which to haul their fuel and supplies, and pasturage, where they have cattle and hogs, which they are encouraged to raise.
. . .
Q. 4. What division is made between labor and capital of their joint production when you work on shares?
—A. I doubt if there is greater liberality shown to laborers in any portion of the world than is done under this system. The proprietor furnishes the land and houses, including dwelling, stables, and outhouses, pays the taxes, makes all necessary improvements, keeps up
repairs and insurance, gives free of cost a garden spot, fuel, pasturage for the stock owned by the laborer, and allows the use of his teams for hauling fuel and family supplies, provides mules or horses, wagons, gears, implements, feed for teams, the necessary machinery for ginning, or, in short, every expense of making the crop and preparing it for market, and then divides equally the whole gross proceeds with the laborers. In addition to all this, the proprietor frequently mortgages his real estate to obtain means to advance to the laborers supplies on their portion of the crop yet to be grown, thus mortgaging what he actually possesses, and taking a security not yet in existence, and which depends not only upon the vicissitudes of the seasons, but the faithfulness of the laborers themselves. Under this system thrifty, industrious laborers ought soon to become landowners. But, owing to indolence, the negroes, except where they are very judiciously managed and encouraged, fail to take advantage of the opportunities offered them to raise the necessaries of life.
They idle away all the time not actually necessary to make and gather their corn and cotton, and improvidently spend what balance may remain after paying for the advances made to them.
Q. 5. When you rent, what division is made?
—A. Where the laborer owns his own teams, gears, and implements necessary for making a crop, he gets two‑thirds or three‑fourths of the crop, according to the quality and location of the land.
Under the rental system proper, where a laborer is responsible and owns his team, &c., first‑class land is rented to him for $8 or $10 per acre. With the land go certain privileges, such as those heretofore enumerated.
Q. 6. How many hours do the laborers work?
—A. This is an extremely difficult question to answer. Under the wages system, from sunrise to sunset, with a rest for dinner of from one and one‑half to three hours, according to the season of the year.
. . .
Q. Upon these plantations is there any crop raised for consumption anywhere but upon the plantations, save the cotton?
—A. Only in a very limited way. We raise Irish potatoes for the northern markets, and it is an extremely profitable and productive crop with us.
Q. What is the home market price?
—A. We do not sell these potatoes at home at all. We get them to Saint Louis, Chicago, and Cincinnati before the ground is really thawed out up there. We get from $5 to $10 a barrel for them.
Q. A barrel of about 3 bushels?
—A. A barrel of about 3 bushels. That of course is a fancy price, and only lasts until the product comes in from other sources.
. . .
Q. Under these favorable circumstances which surround the laborer on the plantation one would think he ought to accumulate; but I understand you that as a rule he is rather improvident and fails to accumulate. To what do you attribute that improvidence on the part of the negro laborer?
—A. It is simply from the want of a proper appreciation of the opportunities of advancement from his condition. The negroes are just beginning, as I expressed it, to realize the responsibilities of life, and just as they begin to realize the responsibilities of life here, they begin to prosper. The prosperity of the South has only begun in the last few years, and it has begun to increase just as the race issue has ceased. I will demonstrate that to you by a little paragraph I cut out of the New York Herald last night, taken from the New Orleans Times‑Democrat. If you take the assessed valuation of real estate in Alabama, in 1879 it was at $117,486,581; in 1883 it is assessed at $152,920,115. There has been that increase in four years from $117,000,000 to $152,000,000. Now let us take the State of Arkansas: in 1879 our real estate was valued at $86,892,541; in 1883 it is valued at $136,000,000. It goes on just in that same proportion. For instance, this shows that in eight of the Southern and Southwestern States there has been an increase of nearly half a billion dollars—that is, $494,836,686—in value of taxable property during the short period of four years.
. . .
Taking the important item of assessed value of property, a comparison between the years 1879 and 1883 gives the following remarkable results:
States Assessment 1883 Tax rate Assessment 1879 Tax rate
Alabama $152,920,115 6½ $117,486,581 7
Arkansas 136,000,000 7 86,892,541 6½
Florida 56,000,000 5 29,471,648 7
Georgia 300,000,000 2½ 135,659,530 5
Louisiana 200,000,000 6 209,361,402 6
Mississippi 116,288,810 2½ 129,308,345 3½
Tennessee 252,289,873 2 223,211,345 1
Texas 500,000,000 3 304,470,736 5
Total 1,710,498,798 4 1,215,662,128 5
This shows that in eight Southern and Southwestern States there has been an increase of nearly half a billion dollars—$494,836,668—in the value of taxable property during the short period of four years, while the rate of taxation has been actually reduced. At the same time liberal appropriations have been made for schools, public improvements, and other useful purposes. “Nor is this marvelous advance in valuation,” says the Times‑Democrat, “the result of any inflation in value, but the natural sequence of grand crops, new industries developed, new manufactories, mines, and lumber mills established.”
The extension of railroads has been hardly less astonishing. In the eight States above enumerated there were in 1879 11,604 miles of railroad. There are now 17,891 miles, showing an increase in four years of 6,287 miles. The agricultural progress made is shown by the fact that the value of raw products raised in these States, including all crops, lumber, cattle, and wool, has advanced from $398,000,000 in 1879 to $567,000,000 in 1883, or an increase of $169,000,000. During this period the mineral output of Alabama alone has increased from $4,000,000 to $19,000,000, and the lumber product of Arkansas from $1,790,000 to $8,000,000.
The trade of New Orleans is a barometer of Southern industry and commerce. The value of domestic produce in that city in 1881‑82 was $159,000,000; in 1882‑83 it was $200,000,000. The value of exports of domestic produce to foreign countries in the
former year amounted to $68,000,000; in the latter it reached $95,000,000.
These figures tell a remarkable story of recent progress in the Southern States. Always rich in natural resources, the South has long been poor through lack of development. It has at last entered upon a new era of industrial activity, and is now making rapid strides toward a stage of material prosperity commensurate with its great natural wealth.—New York Herald, September 12,1883.
. . .
Q. The data you consider reliable?
—A. What I read I think comes from the census report; I think this is reliable:
In this connection let us glance at Montgomery County, Alabama, which, although not in the belt we are studying, is on the same prairie formation crossed by the Georgia Pacific Railway, on the edge of Mississippi. Compare it with Butler County, Ohio, which “shows the best record of any county in the West.” In live stock Montgomery has $1,748,273; Butler, $1,333,592.
That is the largest producing county in Ohio as compared with Montgomery County, Alabama, before the war.
Montgomery had 63,134 hogs; Butler, 51,640. Animals slaughtered: Montgomery, $336,915; Butler, $318,274. In grain Butler was considerably ahead, but in roots Montgomery led. Montgomery doubled Butler in the production of wool, and had its cotton crop to show besides. The total value of the crops of Montgomery County was $3,264,170; those of Butler only $1,671,132.
. . .
Q. At what rates per acre have you known the title to change in some instances?
—A. I have known lands to be bought there, including woodlands and cleared lands, at from $20 to $25 an acre, which would be, say, $40 or $50 an acre for the cleared land,and I have known other planters to refuse $80 an acre, cash. Q. Do you think that $80 or $100 per acre would be a reasonable price for these plantation lands?
—A. They sold before the war for $120 an acre.
. . .
Q. Upon what price per acre do you think those lands would pay, one year with another, an interest of 6 per cent?
—A. I will best answer that question by the figures of rents which I have given. The rent, without any responsibility attached to the proprietor at all, is from $8 to $10 an acre.
Q. In money? —A. In money. I will say further that I have been living in that country since 1869, and I have never yet known a year when there has not been a sufficient crop made to pay the rent, without a single exception.
By Mr. Call:
Q. What is left to the tenant after he pays this $10 an acre?
—A. That land produces on an average 400 pounds of lint cotton to the acre, which at 10 cents a pound is $40.
Q. You have described with some minuteness the condition of things among the planters and those who work upon the plantations. I should like to ask this question further, whether any of the negroes along the alluvial bottoms are obtaining ownership of lands in fee‑simple?
—A. In very few instances in the alluvial lands. When they make enough money to buy a home they generally go to the hill country, where land can be bought at a much more reasonable price.
Q. With what amount of accumulation will a negro get up and go to the hills?
—A. There are negroes right in my section of the country who have an accumulation clear of all expenses of from a thousand to $3,500 a year.
. . .
Q. How in regard to the value of the hill lands you have spoken of in the State of Arkansas; as compared with the alluvial, what is the difference in value?
—A. It is very great. There are farms in Arkansas that can be bought, partially cleared up, and with some improvements upon them, for from $5 to $20 an acre, less than the rent of fair lands on the river. There is no finer section of country in the world—I say that unhesitatingly—for a foreign immigrant, or the immigrant from the East, or from anywhere, than is afforded to‑day in Arkansas and Texas.
. . .
Q. Some pride in their race, to have them get on, I suppose?
—A. I think there is a certain pride in that respect; and, again, they want to gain a reputation as teachers.
Q. What compensation does a teacher get?
—A. I think about from $50 to $100 a month.
Q. Do they pay their own expenses, board and shelter?
—A. Yes, sir; but board is cheap, merely nominal.
Q. About what amount?
—A. I should say these teachers can get board for $10 a month.
Q. Is the cost of clothing in your part of the country about the same as here?
—A. This is our market.
Q. You buy the ready‑made clothing largely for the population in general, I suppose?
—A. We buy both ready‑made clothing and cloth to make up.
Q. I suppose the colored population hardly buy custom goods?
—A. A great many of them buy the cloth, and some of their women are as good tailoresses as you would find anywhere. They buy the cloth and make it up themselves.
Q. That must bring a suit of clothes pretty cheap in a colored family; they really expend nothing but buy the cloth themselves?
—A. They sell very good jeans cloth there at 35 or 40 cents a yard; they generally wear jeans.
Q. All seasons of the year?
—A. Generally in all seasons of the year. In the summer time a laboring man hardly ever wears a coat at all.
Q. What do you think an average colored Southern laborer expends per annum for his clothing, say the head of the family, the man—what does it cost him for clothing a year?
—A. I cannot give you a definite answer. I will only say that we who are the producers of cotton are very glad to see them get in a prosperous condition in order that there may be more consumption, and when a man is prosperous he will buy two suits of clothes, where if he is not prosperous he will make one do.
Q. We have had a good deal of testimony as to what it actually costs a Northern laborer a year for clothing. I have no desire to show that any laborers dress cheaply or poorly; I merely want to get an idea of the relative cost of the laboring man living North or South, in the item of clothing?
—A. I can sell and do sell a man a pair of jeans pants and a coat from $7 to $12 per suit.
As I have devoted some space to the general condition of labor in the whole country, and as some of my statements and conclusions may be looked upon as extravagant, I deem it very pertinent to add to the appendix a portion of the testimony of Dr. R. Heber Newton, given before Senator Blair’s Committee on the “Relations between Capital and Labor,” in New York City, September 18, 1883 (Vol. II., p. 535). Dr. Newton is recognized as a clear thinker and a ready writer not only on theological but on economic questions as well. His testimony on the points to which I have asked attention was as follows:
A Labor Question Coming
The broad fact that the United States census of 1870 estimated the average annual income of our wage‑workers at a little over $400 per capita, and that the census of 1880 estimates it at a little over $300 per capita, is the quite sufficient evidence that there is a labor question coming upon us in this due allowance for the inclusion of women and children, a mass of miserably paid labor—that is, of impoverished and degraded labor. The average wages of 1880 indicated that this mass of semi‑pauperized labor is rapidly increasing, and that its condition has become 25 per cent worse in ten years. The shadow of the old‑world proletariat is thus seen to be stealing upon our shores. It is for specialists in political economy to study this problem in the light of the large social forces that are working such an alarming change in our American society. In the consensus of their ripened judgment we must look for the authoritative solution of this problem. I am not here to assume that role. I have no pet hobby to propose, warranted to solve the whole problem without failure. I do not believe there is any such specific yet out. * * * [50]
1884
When Grant & Ward went bankrupt…, the savings of thousands of people were destroyed. Nerveless, the penniless old soldier went on to become the first ex-president to make money out of his memoirs, which he finished only three days before he died of cancer. They earned his family nearly $450,000. [1. Pg 18]
[Henry Knolle] a Pennsylvania Dutchman …on wages of $1.15 a day…had succeeded in buying a small plot of ground, and was engaged in putting up the walls of a little house for himself in the morning before starting to work and at night after leaving. [2, pg 33]
Mattie’s first child a boy, was stillborn the couple’s first autumn in Lamar. A year and a half later a second child, a boy, was born in a bedroom off the parlor so small there was barely space for the bed. The attending physician, Dr. W.L. Griffin, received a fee of $15, and to celebrate the occasion the new father planted a seedling pine in the front yard. A story that John Truman also nailed a mule shoe over the front door for luck is apocryphal.
The date was May 8, 1884.
Two days later, a Baptist circuit rider took the baby out int the spring air, and holding him up in the sunshine, remarked what a sturdy boy he was.
Not for a month afterward, however, did Dr. Griffin bother to register the birth at the county clerk’s office un the street, and even then, the child was entered nameless. In a quandary over a middle name, Mattie and John were undecided whether to honor her father or his. In the end they compromised with the letter S. It could be taken to stand for Solomon or Shipp, but actually stood for nothing, a practice not unknown among the Scotch-Irish, even for first names. The baby’s first name was Harry after his Uncle Harrison.
Harry S. Truman he would be. [14 pg 37]
One day in 1884 Patterson rashly agreed to pay $6,500 for a controlling interest in the shaky new cash register enterprise. Other Dayton businessmen so ridiculed him for his bad judgment that the next day he offered the seller $2,000 to be released from his bargain. But his offer was refused. [28 pg 202]
“Spear, Mitchell Co., N.C., March 19, 1884.—Col. J.M. English, a farmer and prominent citizen living at Plumtree, Mitchell County, N.C., shot and killed a mulatto named Jack Mathis at that place Saturday, March 1. There had been difficulty between them for several months.
“Mathis last summer worked in one of Col. English’s mica mines. Evidence pointed to him being implicated in the systematic stealing of mica from the mine.
Still it was not direct enough to convict him, but he was discharged by English. Mathis was also a tenant of one of English’s houses and lots. In resentment he damaged the property by destroying fences, tearing off weather boards from the house, and injuring the fruit trees. For this Col. English prosecuted the negro, and on Feb. 9, before a local Justice, ex‑Sheriff Wiseman, he got a judgment for $100. On the date stated, during a casual meeting, hot words grew into an altercation, and Col. English shot the negro. Mathis was a powerful man. English is a cripple, being lame in a leg from a wound received in the Mexican war. [50]
1885
Asa G. Candler buys the Coca Cola formula from the inventor Dr. J.S. Pemberton for less than $2,000. [24 pg 187]
Gen. Russell Thayer, a Philadelphian, in 1885, working on instruction from the U.S. Army Ordnance Board, set out to develop a “monster airship, which is likely to be one of the most destructive implements of battle known to modern science. It will have an ascending force of seven tons, will cost $10,000, and will have a length of 66 feet and a diameter of 60 feet,” the long forgotten article in the London Graphic of June 13.
Cigar shaped, pointed at both ends, the balloon was supposed to move through the air at a speed of 30 miles an hour. Motive power was compressed air, “accumulated by machinery and discharged at the rear end.”
The airship was designed to be steered in any direction, and “tons of dynamite can be dropped as it sails over a fortification or a fleet of ships.”
No report of its completion or performance is test flights was given. There is no record at Army headquarters in Washington, today, that it was ever built. [33 pg 38]
Ad from the Brooklyn Eagle
Ad from the Brooklyn Eagel
1886
Field help became so scarce, at least in southern California, that in June, 1886, seventy Negro hands were shipped from North Carolina to Los Angeles to work in the fields and vineyards of E.J. Baldwin, reputedly the owner of two million acres. The help was to be paid $12 a month, board and room free. This may have been the first organized exodus of Negroes to work in the Far West. [7 pg 84]
In 1886 when a package of watches sent by a Chicago jewelry company was refused by the addressee in nearby Redwood falls, station agent Sears saw his opportunity. In those days it was common for wholesalers to ship on consignment to retailers; in fact, they sometimes tried to unload stock by shipping goods that had not been ordered. Or they would deliberately ship to fictitious addresses. Then, when the railroad station agent informed them that the goods were undeliverable, the wholesaler would offer the goods to the station agent at “half price” suggesting that this would save the shipper the cost of return freight, and that by reselling them, the station agent could make a good profit. Following this pattern, the Chicago company offered these undeliverable watches to Sears for $12 apiece. They were of a stylish type, gold filled, so called “yellow watches” with a hunting case, which retailed for about $25.
Instead of paying for the watches himself, Sears took advantage of his location on the railroad to offer them by mail to other agents along his line for $14 apiece. He offered to send them C.O.D. subject to examination, and since the station agents were bonded, there was little risk. The other agents along the line would then be in a position to sell these popular watches profitably as less than their price at the local jewelers. From this casual beginning, using the stock furnished by a Chicago wholesaler, Sears soon built a flourishing watch business. Sears himself extended his business by the old fashioned techniques of sending his watches to nonexistent persons and then offering a moneymaking opportunity to the lucky agents who held the unclaimed parcels.
Having made about $5,000 in six months, Sears gave up his station agent job and , in 1886 set up the R.W. Sears Watch Company in Minneapolis. From an office renting for $10 a month, equipped with a kitchen table, a fifty cent chair, some record books and stationery, he now reached out beyond the market of station agents by advertising in the newspapers. [28 pg 124]
1887
In 1887 [Sears] moved to Chicago, which was already the railroad capital of the nation. There he enlisted the help of Alvah Curtis Roebuck, a watchmaker of about Sear’s age, who had also run a job printing business, and Sears quickly showed his flair for advertising. His ingenious selling schemes included a “club plan” under which thirty eight men clubbed together, each pay9ng $1 a week into a pool; each week one man would win a watch by lot, until at the end of thirty eight weeks all the members had their watches. [28 pg 125]
As late as 1887, a town had to have 10,000 people to be eligible for free home delivery. [of mail] [28 pg 131]
1889
In 1889 Sears sold his young watch business for about $70,000. But within a few months he was back again in the mail order business, still featuring watches, watch chains, and other jewelry….
In the early days, especially when Sears was still relying heavily on newspaper advertising, his ingenuity and his remoteness from the customer occasionally tempted him into the tradition of Western hoaxes. “An astonishing Offer” which he announced in rural weeklies in 1889 was illustrated by a drawing of a sofa and two chairs, all of “fine lustrous metal frames beautifully finished and decorated, and upholstered in the finest manner and with beautiful plush” which “as to anyone who remitted ninety five cents “to pay expenses, boxing, packing, advertising, etc.” customers who sent in their money received a set of doll’s furniture exactly as specified; they had not noticed in the first lie of the advertisement, in fine print, the word “miniature.” Sears’ clever advertising became proverbial. There was the story, for example, of a sears advertisement which offered a “sewing machine” for $1 – for which the customer duly received a needle and thread. [28 pg 126]
The number of farms without occupants in New Hampshire in August, 1889, was 1,342 and in Maine 3,318; and I saw lately a farm of twenty acres advertised “free rent and a present of fifty dollars.” [39]
1890s
[Henry Miller-see 1850] He was so thrifty that he could not bear to see even a piece of string wasted. Even after he had become a multimillionaire, he always insisted on having his potatoes boiled in the jackets because the skins could be peeled thinner that way; and he would go into a rage if he were given a full cup of coffee after he had asked for only a half cup. Because this meant he was going to have to drink more than he thought was good for him in order to avoid the wastefulness of throwing any coffee out.
Yet he was apt to leave a twenty dollar gold piece in one of his boots as a tip for the maid who shined them. One day during the depression of the nineties he called into his office in Merced county, California, everybody in the region who owed him money and gave back all their IOU’s. “It’s time for a clean start,” he said gruffly, wiping $350,000 off his books. [17 pg 22]
… I heard that the old‑fashioned farm‑house just opposite was for sale. And, as purchasers of real estate were infrequent at Gooseville, [Mass.] it would be rented for forty dollars a year to any responsible tenant who would “keep it up.” [39]
I nearly bought a horse for fifteen dollars, and did secure a wagon for one dollar and a half, which, after a few needed repairs, costing only twenty‑six dollars, was my pride, delight and comfort, and the envy of the neighborhood. Men came from near and far to examine that wagon, felt critically of every wheel, admired the shining coat of dark‑green paint, and would always wind up with: “I vum, if that ‘ere wagon ain’t fine! Why, it’s wuth fifty dollars, now, ef it’s wuth a cent!” After a hard day’s work, it seemed a gratification to them to come with lanterns to renew their critical survey, making a fine Rembrandtish study as they stood around it and wondered. A sleigh was bought for three dollars which, when painted by our home artist, is both comfortable and effective.[39]
At one auction, where I was the only woman present, I bid on three shovels (needed to dig worms for my prize hens!) and, as the excitement increased with a rise in bids from two cents to ten, I cried, “Eleven!” And the gallant old fellow in command roared out as a man opened his mouth for “Twelve!”: “I wouldn’t bid ag’in a woman ef I’se you. Let ‘er have ‘em! Madam, Mum, or Miss—I can’t pernounce your name and don’t rightly know how to spell it—but the shovels are yourn!” [39]
A country auction is not so exciting as one in the city; still you must be wide‑awake and cool, or you will be fleeced. An experienced friend, acquainted with the auctioneer, piloted me through my first sale, and for ten dollars I bought enough really valuable furniture to fill a large express wagon—as a large desk with drawers, little and big, fascinating pigeon holes, and a secret drawer, for two dollars; queer old table, ten cents; good solid chairs, nine cents each; mahogany center‑table, one dollar and sixteen cents; and, best of all, a tall and venerable clock for the landing, only eight dollars! Its “innards” sadly demoralized, but capable of resuscitation, the weights being tin‑cans filled with sand and attached by strong twine to the “works.” It has to be wound twice daily, and when the hour hand points to six and the other to ten, I guess that it is about quarter past two, and in five minutes I hear the senile timepiece strike eleven! [39]
1890
Assault with Battery – Claude King, day clerk of the American District Telegraph Company of Sioux City, hooks the office batteries to the iron railing in front of the office. Alderman George Myer sat on the railing and Claudius turned on the current. Myer filed charges. The Judge fined Claude five dollars, more that half his nine-dollar weekly salary. [2. Pg 109]
It was Mamma…who hustled [6 year old Harry Truman] off to Kansas City for expensive eyeglasses. Though he had been badly handicapped by poor eyesight all along – “bind as a mole” in his words – no one seems to have noticed until the night of a July fourth fireworks when Matt say hin responding more to the sound of the skyrockets than to the spectacle overhead. The Kansas city optometrist diagnosed a rare malformation called “flat eyeballs” (hypermetropia, which means the boy was far sighted) and Matt agreed to a pair of double strength, wire rimmed spectacles at a cost of $10. [14 pg 41]
Mamma (Truman) announced they were leaving the farm, moving to Independence, so that Harry could receive proper schooling. With money inherited from his father, John Truman acquired a house and several lots on south Chrysler Avenue, close to the Missouri Pacific railroad tracks. At age forty, having attained nothing like the success forecast in the Jackson county History, John had decided to try again as a stock trader. He paid $1,000 down for house and land, and took out a mortgage for $3,000, certain he had driven a good bargain with the owner, Samuel Blitz, one of the few jews in town. [14 pg 42]
1891
Daylight loading came in 1891 and five years later Eastman had a $5 camera on the market. [24 pg 86]
After free [mail] delivery was tried in the cities, the farmers began to ask the same for themselves. But the economy minded found the proposal outrageous. What could be more ridiculous than hiring an army of federal employees to travel miles across the country side to deliver an occasional letter to a farmer who would probably not even be interested in its contents? “The farm Journal wants, and the people want …1 cent postage. We don’t want our country roads overrun with half paid federal officials delivering 2 cent letters at a cost of 10 cents a letter.” [28 pg 131]
1892
The Association collected a war chest, rumored at $100,000, form donations of $1,00 apiece. Secretly they organized an armed band of about fifty men. Twenty six had been recruited by Tom Smith, a former cattle detective who had been indicted for murder for his work in Wyoming and who had served in Texas as a peace officer. To recruits from Paris and Lamar counties in Texas he offered pay of $5 a day and expenses, besides an accident policy of $3,000 and a bonus of $50 for each man they killed. [28 pg 31]
The Americanism “sweat shop” first noted at this time, where women and children worked long hours at piecework for low wages. [28 pg 100]
1893
Charles Becker… six feet tall…weighed two hundred and fifteen pounds, and according to one contemporary, “could kill a man with a punch.” …had saved up the $250 fee levied by Tammany Hall on all would-be policemen. {4 pg 93]
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty third St. 450 room red brick and sandstone structure, patterned after the German Renaissance style…built at a cost of $5 million. [22 pg 21]
The basis for the Sears business, he insisted, was the widest possible distribution of catalogues to the most likely customers. Policy varied from year to year on whether to charge for the catalogue; when it was not offered free, the price varied from five cents in 1893 to fifty cents in 1901, but the best customers always received their catalogue free. As a reward for their loyalty they sometimes were sent a deluxe edition on better paper bound in red cloth. [28 pg 128]
1894
…a Detroit café owner, Michael Heintz by name, organized the Heintz Cash Register Co. with a capital stock of $10,000. The company started to make a register called “Cuckoo” which was sold for $85. [6 pg 98]
On April 4…Patterson [NCR] opened the first sales agents training school in the United States. The school house was a small structure located near the NCR factory and came to be known as “the cottage under the elm.” The teacher was Joseph H. crane.
Once the school was established Patterson decreed that all NCR agents must take the course. The company paid the transportation and hotel bills of the students and gave them $3 a week for pocket money. [6 pg 114]
1895
John Truman was getting on in the world. There was money now for servants, books, for studio photographs. As a surprise for the children he bought a pair of matched red goats, with custom made harness, and a miniature farm wagon. The little rig became the talk of the neighborhood.
John was an early riser, an all day striver, and thought to be ‘pretty ingenious” besides – because of his backyard gas well and various inventive ideas. He patented a staple puller for use on barbed wire fences. For an automatic railroad switch that he devised, the Missouri Pacific reportedly offered an annual royalty of $2,000. When the Chicago & Alton topped that with an offer of $2,500, four times what most American families had to live on in a year, John asked for double the amount, with the result that both railroads turned him down and adopted another version of the same thing – pirated his idea apparently – and he wound up with nothing. It was a story told usually to show just how stubborn John Truman could be. [14 pg 45]
…when the boy was eleven, John [Truman] traded their house for another several blocks to the north, receiving some $5,400 in the bargain. Though the new house had less property than the one on Chrysler Avenue, it stood on a corner lot at Waldo Street and river Boulevard, a more fashionable neighborhood and within easy walking distance of the courthouse square. Chrysler Avenue had never been the wrong side of the tracks, but for an ambitious man, 909 Waldo was unquestionably progress in the right direction. [14 pg 48]
A piano in the parlor had become part of the good life in America, a sign of prosperity and wholesome home entertainment, and the Trumans had an upright Kimball, the most popular piano of the day, priced at about $200 [14 pg 48]
…[advertisement] in a popular magazine of 1895: Be Brilliant and Eminent. The new physiological discovery memory Restorative Tablets quickly and permanently increase the memory two or ten fold and greatly augment intellectual power; difficult studies etc. easily mastered; truly marvelous; highly endorsed. Price $1.00 post-paid. Send for circular. Memory Tablet company, 114 fifth Avenue, New York. [24 pg 161]
1897
[ca.] Vivian [Harry Truman’s brother] in contrast to his girlish sounding name, was a sturdy, man’s kind of boy, who was good at games and wished no part of books or piano lessons. Already Vivian had shown such a knack for horse trading the at the age of twelve. Harry, try as he might, had no heart for trade. As he would later explain to Bessie Wallace, “When I buy a cow for $30 and then sell her to someone for $50 it always seems to me that I am really robbing that person of $20. [14 pg 62]
(Sears Roebuck Catalogue) Portable forge $6.30.
Popcorn popper eight cents.
Seven foot miners tent, complete with poles, for $2.30.
Men’s cashmere overcoat for $5.25.
Twelve pound pails of imported herring for 85 cents.
Four panel wooden door (weight 22 lbs.) For $1.10.
Michigan A grade combination market and pleasure Wagon $34.
Pocket Watch for $7.95 – with engraving on cases; script 2½ cents per letter; Old English script, 5½ cents.
Infants’ French Kid Button – Shoe made from a choice selction of genuine kid fancy stitched, had kid sole and is a very pretty shoe for an infant. Cut very full so you will have no trouble to put then on. Color tan, sizes 1,2,3,4,. Per pair 40 cents. The same style, in dongola kid. Black only. 1,2,3,4. Per pair 25 cents.
Bust pads, the kind that usually sell for 50 cents. Our price 25 cents.
Ladies’ Summer Union Suits. In Union there is strength. 75 – 50 – 43 cents.
Glad Sunshine Range – for hard or soft coal, with reservoir.
It has all the latest improvement – ventilated oven, solid end hearth, duplex grate, patent pedal attachment, quick draft damper, etc. We are inclined to think nothing so good and serviceable has ever before been offered for the money required to buy this range. This range has six holes.
Size size of covers size of oven shipping weight Price
80 8 in. 17×18x11 ½ 306 lbs. $19.00
18 8 in. 19×20x12 345 lbs $21.60
Black and blue Cheviouts Suits for men. $5.75, 6.50, 7.50, 8.00, 9.00, 10.00.
Full Beards – On wire 80 cents; ventilated $1.75
Moustache on wire spring , common. 10 cents each. Per dozen 75 cents.
$1.95 bus a $3.25 hat. The Evette. [15 pg 36-37]
The Reveille of New Whatcom, Washington, reported during the third week of July, 1897, that two ships carrying gold had put into Pacific coast ports. The dirty, rusty, stubby Excelsior docked July 15 at San Francisco. She carried a score of prospectors and nearly a thousand pounds of gold. Among the passengers were Mr. And Mrs. Tom Lippy of Seattle. Tom Lippy was somebody nearly everybody on Puget sound knew or knew of – the eighteen nineties equivalent of a high school coach. He had been a clerk and physical education instructor at the Seattle Y.M.C.A.; a wiry, likeable little man, he had tired of Y.M.C.A. penury and had taken a fling at prospecting. But here was Tom Lippy coming home staggering down the gangplank of the Excelsior, barely able to carry his suitcase even with his wife’s assistance. It held more than two hundred pounds in nuggets and gold dust. Gold then averaged seventeen dollars an ounce; good old tom was bringing out more the $54,000. [17 pg 36]
[Cyrus H.K. Curtis] bought the “elderly and indisposed” [Saturday Evening] Post in 1897 (pride $1,000), it had a circulation of less than 2,000, but within ten years he lifted its circulation to 1 million, and the circulation soon thereafter reached nearly 3 million. [28 pg 151]
(Ad) 350 Boy’s suits. Ages 4 to 15. Best values ever offered. These suits have pants with Bouble seat & Knees. $1.50 $2.00 $2.50 $3.00 Shapley Bros. [31]
(Ad) We offer this week a good trade in T. Good Oolong Tea at 25c lb. 5 lb. lots $1.00. Call for a sample pkg. Of Cream of Wheat. Cobb, Aldrich & Co. [31]
(Ad) The Peerless Bicycle Suit. The Peerless Bicycle Trousers. Are made with rubber attachments on each hip which holds the pants in position, but is sufficiently elastic topermit perfect ease and absolute comfort and freedom to all the muscles. The distinctive features are no belt and no fly. $6.50, $7.50, $8.50, $9.00. [31]
(Ad) Columbia bicycles. $100. Standard of the world. Hartfore Bicycles $60, $50, $45. [31]
(Ad) Our men’s $8 and $10 new spring suits far ahead of all competition. Shapley Bros. [31]
(Ad) N.E. Metcalf, Fire and Life Insurence and Real Estate Agent. Several Estates for sale at prices from $1800 to $10,500. [31]
History and Manuals of
Vertical Writing
By JOHN JACKSON
Theory and Practice of Vertical Writing, $1.25
Teaching of Vertical Writing, .50
John Jackson, the originator of this system of vertical writing, is the only teacher who has had the years of practice in teaching it that make these the standard manuals for teachers and students. The adoption of vertical writing abroad and in this country is largely due to his persistent work and the marvellous results of his teaching. His series of copy‑books were the first to be used in this country, and are considered by experienced teachers, who are not to be misled by mere beauty of engravers work, to contain the only practical well‑graded course of instruction leading from primary work to the rapid and now justly celebrated telegraph hand—for these books are the only ones containing copies in this rapid writing. The telegraph hand is the style used by the best telegraph operators in the country—and these writers are universally acknowledged to be the most rapid writers, and writers of a hand which of necessity must be most legible.
Copy‑Books (10 numbers), 96 cents per dozen
Copy‑Pads (8 numbers), 96 cents per dozen
BOTH SERIES CONTAIN SIMILAR COPIES.
Sample sets to teachers (post‑paid), 75 cents
WILLIAM BEVERLEY HARISON
3 and 5 West 18th Street, New York City
FOR SALE
500 Wentworth’s Primary Arithmetics, 10c.
each
250 Wentworth’s Grammar School Arithmetics 25c.
“
300 Brooks’ Elementary Arithmetics 10c.
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150 Brooks’ New Written Arithmetics 25c.
“
500 Colburn’s New Mental Arithmetics 10c.
“
100 Wheeler’s Second Lessons, 25c.
“
200 Harvey’s Practica Grammars, not revised, new, 10c.
“
200 Harvey’s Elementary Grammars, not revised, new, 10c.
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200 Kerl’s Language Lessons, >new, 10c.
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125 Dozen Haile’s Drawing Books, new, 50c.
doz.
100 Dozen Barnes’ Drawing Books, new, 40c.
“
200 Dozen White’s, Krone’s, etc., new 25c. to 60c,
“
50 Williams’ Composition, not revised, new, 40c.
each
50 Kellogg’s Rhetorics, 276 pages, new, 50c.
“
200 Continental Fourth Readers, 25c.
“
200 Continental Fifth Readers 25c.
“
100 Lippincott’s Fifth Readers 25c.
“
100 Davis’ Fourth Readers 25c.
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All of the above books are used copies, good condition, except where marked new.
French and German Books, Arithmetics, Geographies, and Text‑Books of all kinds at low prices.
MAPS, CHARTS, &c. BARGAIN LIST.
UNITED STATES— 5 large Standard Government Maps, (82×66 in.) mounted on cloth and common rollers $1.50 each.
5 “Bird’s Eye View Maps,” (72×65 in.) A large relief map of the United States. Spring rollers. 10.00 ” Common rollers 7.50
” 7 Government Relief Maps, printed in browns, with actual heights of land given in accurate figures. An indispensable map for school work, (size 20×32 in.) mounted on
linen, (unmounted, 75 cents) 1.35 “
MISCELLANEOUS MAPS—
10 Guyot’s Physical Maps, small, assorted .75 ” Guyot’s Large Physical Map, Western Europe 3.00 ” 18 Monteith’s Wall Maps, assorted 1.25 “
OUTLINE MAPS—
25 sets Outline Maps, (size 24×36 in.) containing two Hemispheres, North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia, United States, &c. Subscription price, $25.00 5.00 “
ASTRONOMICAL CHARTS—
43 Astronomical Charts, giving Phases of the Moon, Planets, &c.
(Size 24×36 in.) 1.00 “
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15 Alphabet of Common Objects, imported, mounted on strong cloth 1.10 “
LONGITUDE CHARTS—
50 Callahan’s Longitude and Time Charts, mounted on cloth .40 “
GEOMETRICAL BLOCKS—
5 sets, slightly damaged, containing material for demonstration of all Geometrical exercises. Put up in strong box 3.00 “
HISTORICAL CHARTS—
5 King’s Historical Portfolio, published at $15.00,
now sold by subscription for $25.00 3.00 “
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15 Mounted Metric Charts, contain Metric System complete .50 “
EXTRA DISCOUNTS:
Bills of $10.00 or over, 10 per cent. $20.00 or over, 25 per cent.
…SCHOOL BOOKS…
I offer a great many bargains, in Standard School Books, similar to the following:
Brooks’ Elementary Arithmetic, (published price, 41 cents) 10 cts.
Brooks’ New Written Arithmetic, (published price, 80 cents) 25 cts.
William Beverley Harison, 3 and 5 West 18th St., N.Y. City. [42]
In Greece there is a penalty of $200 for any man belonging to the reserve who does not answer the call of the country, and, moreover, neither distance nor citizenship in another country excuses him. If he does not answer the call, he will be arrested and imprisoned whenever he sets foot again in Greece. [42]
Copies of the very interesting Röntgen or “X Ray” photographs can be obtained now from The Great Round World.
These famous photographs are mounted on cards, size 11 x 14 inches, and are from selected negatives made by
PROF. M.I. PUPIN, of Columbia University, New York,
DR. A.W. GOODSPEED, of University of Pennsylvania, and
DR. W.F. MAGIE, of Princeton College.
A selection of 39 different subjects is offered.
PRICE, 50 CENTS EACH, (to yearly subscribers of The Great Round World, 40 cents net).
Address all orders to The Great Round World, or
William Beverley Harison
3 & 5 West 18th Street New York City [42]
Great Round World Polisher
(Advetisment) Will take rust off your wheel, will polish your skates, your gun, your fishing‑reel—any and every polished metal surface can be kept clean with it. ..
It will polish knives—can be used as a knife sharpener. Put up in small packages convenient to carry in your bicycle tool‑bag; full directions with each package.
BEWARE OF IMITATIONS. THIS POLISHER IS FULLY WARRANTED BY “THE GREAT ROUND WORLD.” If it does not do all that we say, and a great deal more, we will refund amount paid at any time. CHEAP AND DURABLE—will remain good until last morsel is used up. NON‑POISONOUS!!
Every boy or girl, man or woman, can use it safely.
Price, 25 cents (13 two‑cent stamps), postage paid to any address.
CAN BE OBTAINED BY ALL FIRST‑CLASS DEALERS. [42]
1898
Bethlehem steel agrees to pay Frederick Winslow Taylor, a new kind of consulting engineer, the thirty five dollars a day he asks to install his new management system.
[2. Pg 30]
Edward Deeds…got a position at $6 a week in the Thresher Electric Company. On his arrival in Dayton he found that Mrs. Thresher, a motherly soul, had engaged a room with board for him. It was a kind and thoughtful act. The trouble was that it cost his full week’s pay. Deeds thereupon rented a room for $4 a week. In order to save the 25 cents cost of transporting his trunk to the new abode he borrowed a wheelbarrow and trundled it over himself on his first Sunday in town. [6 pg 73]
At last, in March, a bill requiring all American railroads to adopt air brakes and automatic couplers came before President Benjamin Harrison. The President signed it and gave the pen to Coffin. [see 1874] [11 pg 99]
{Spanish American war] The World and Journal paid $2.12 per word cable costs for news from Cuba, and their called for bigger and bigger sizes of railroad type to display it, but the Tribune, for the most part, relied on the Associated Press and featured local stories. Both the World and the Journal were selling at one cent a copy. Only grudgingly had Reid cut the Tribune’s price from four to three cents; further he would not go. … but in 1898 Adolph S. Ochs, who had purchased the critically weak New York Times two years before, put his paper before his pride. He took the Times down to a penny to challenge the World and the Journal, and he made a success of it. The Times tripled circulation and soared past the Tribune. For eleven more years, while Reid railed at the “penny press” and clung to the concept of a newspaper edited “for the gentry,” the Tribune sold for three cents and lost about a million dollars each year. When the editor finally yielded, in 1909, he was too late. Horace Greeley’s Tribune, “the bible of the West” had become known as “the little old lady of Park Row.” [16 pg 108]
1899
…Randolph Guggenheimer when he gave a dinner for forty ladies and gentlemen at the old Waldorf-Astoria on February 11, 1899. What did the evening’s’s pleasure cost? Ten thousand dollars – $250 a head. (Again, these were 1899 dollars; the cost in today’s terms was $750 a head.) [23 pg 33]
In March 1899, the consulting architects of the City of Boston made a report on certain tenements they had found in the North and West Ends of the city. They had found, they said, “dirty and battered walls and ceilings, dark cellars with water standing in them, alleys littered with garbage and filth, broken and leaking drain-pipes, …dark and filthy water closets, closets long frozen or otherwise out of order .. And houses so dilapidated and so much settled that they are dangerous.”
Even in far more hygienic quarters the overcrowding could be acute. M.E. Ravage, arriving as an immigrant from Rumania, became a tenant, at 50 cents a week, of Mrs. Segal’s apartment on Rivington street in New York’s Lower East Side. [23 pg 51]
By 1899 Woolworth’s’s Christmas trade was reaching a half million dollars. In order to avert a strike at that crucial time of year, Woolworth introduced a system of Christmas bonuses ($5 for each year of service, with a limit of $25). [28 pg 159]
In earlier years the two occupations of preacher and teacher were practically the only ones open to the black college graduate. Of later years a larger diversity of life among his people, has opened new avenues of employment. Nor have these college men been paupers and spendthrifts; 557 college-bred Negroes owned in 1899, $1,342,862.50 worth of real estate, (assessed value) or $2,411 per family. The real value of the total
accumulations of the whole group is perhaps about $10,000,000, or $5,000 a piece. Pitiful, is it not, beside the fortunes of oil kings and steel trusts, but after all is the fortune of the millionaire the only stamp of true and successful living? Alas! it is, with many, and there’s the rub. [51]
chronology continued on page marked: 1900 to 1960
