172 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
about 50 per cent, 'whereas prices have risen over 100 per cent, 21 
The following tables, constructed from the Report of the Mas¬ 
sachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor for 1879 22 compare 
wages and prices in 1860 with wages and prices in 1872, the 
values being reduced to a gold basis. 
Occupations. 
Average 
weekly wage 
standard gold. 
Articles. 
Average retail 
prices 
standard gold. 
Approxi¬ 
mate in¬ 
crease. 
1860 
1872 
1860 
1872 
Agricultural laborers, 
Flour, wheat, super¬ 
per week, with board.. 
S3 4l 23 
S5 77 23 
fine, bbl. 
S7 61 
$10 75 
41# 
Cutters of boots and 
*Flour, wheat, family, 
shops. 
12 00 
14 81 
bbl. 
7 14 
12 75 
78 
Cutters of Clothing. 
13 92 
19 85 
Sugar, good, brown,lb. 
0 084 
0 104 
24 
Clotton dyers. 
5 87 
8 93 
Beef, corned, lb. 
0 064 
0 104 
61 
Cotton goods mechanics.. 
8 35 
12 96 
Butter, lb.. 
0 214 
0 394 
80 
Woolen goods, dyers. 
5 72 
7 95 
Cheese, lb. 
0 134 
0 174 
32 
Woolen goods, carders... 
5 32 
7 30 
Potatoes, bu. 
0 59 
1 02 
73 
Woolen goods, mechan¬ 
Milk, at. 
0 04i 
0 08 
68 
ics . 
' 8 90 
12 47 
Eggs, doz. 
0 204 
0 30 
48 
Coal, ton. 
6 40 
6 25 
45 
Wood, cord, hard. 
6 49 
10 124 
56 
Boots, men’s heavy.... 
2 75 
3 94 
43 
Rent, 4 rooms ten- 
ment, week. 
1 ll 23 
3 69 23 
L iqo 
Board, week, men. 
2 79 
5 62 
r ioy 
From these tables it appeals that wages went up about 48 per 
cent during the twelve years, while fuel went up over 50 per 
cent, provisions 55 per cent, and board and lodging about 139 
per cent. Other evidence 24 supports the conclusion that the 
workingman of Massachusetts was not as well off in the latter 
sixties and early seventies as he had been before the war. C. R. 
Fish, in speaking of economic conditions in Wisconsin after the 
war, says, “The ease with which Wisconsin adjusted itself to 
these two successive labor difficulties (of which he has given an 
account) suggests interesting questions as to the relative elastic- 
21 Report of the Commissioners on the Hours of Labor, Boston, 1867, 
pp. 16, 17. 
22 Pages 67 ff. 
23 Approximately. 
24 Table giving expenses of a house-carpenter of Salem, Mass., given 
in Report Mass. Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1872, p. 522; Report 
Boston Board of Trade, 1868, p. 121, says “The merchant, the manu¬ 
facturer, and the mechanic, who, in taking a retrospective glance at his 
business during the past twelve months, finds a balance in his favor, 
may consider himself fortunate, for his case is the exception and not 
the rule.” See also Boston Daly Advertiser, Jan. 13, 1870. 
