The Worthington Advance

Wages in 1800.

Master's History.

The condition of the wage class of that day may be well examined; it is full of instruction for social agitators. In the great cities unskilled workmen were hired by the day, bought their own food, and found their own lodgings. But in the country, on the farms, or wherever a hand was employed on some public work, they were fed and lodged by the employer and given a few dollars a month. On the Pennsylvania canals the diggers ate the coarsest diet, were housed in the rudest sheds and paid $6 a month from May to November, and $5 a month from November to May. Hod carriers and mortar mixers, diggers and choppers, who, from 1793 to 1800, labored on the public buildings and cut the streets and avenues of Washington City, received $70 a year or if they wished, $60 for all the work they could perform from March 1 to December 20. The hours of work were invariably from sunrise to sunset. Wages at Albany and New York were 3 shillings, or, as money then went, 40 cents a day; at Lancaster, $8 to $10 a month; elsewhere in Pennsylvania, workmen were content with $6 in summer and $5 in winter. At Baltimore men were glad to be hired at 18 pence a day. None by the month asked more than $6. At Fredericksburg the price of labor was from $5 to $7. In Virginia, white men employed by the year were given £16 currency; slaves, when hired, were clothed and their masters paid $1 a month. A pound of Virginia money was in federal money $3.33. The average rate of wages the land over was, therefore, $65 a year, with food and, perhaps, lodging. Out of this small sum the workman must, with his wife's help, maintain his family.