180 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
tion was instrumental in bringing the boot and shoe industry 
from the small shops to the factories. 64 The Boston Board of 
Trade reports the industry as being in a very flourishing con¬ 
dition in 1870. 65 It is clear, that this branch of manufacture, 
though temporarily retarded during the war, was not seriously 
cheeked., but made rapid strides after peace had been proclaimed. 
Today Massachusetts is preeminently the shoe-manufacturing 
state of the Union. 
The fifteen years from 1855 to 1870 saw a great advance in 
the manufacture of sewing-machines. The number of machines 
manufactured in Massachusetts increased from about 4,000 in 
1855 to nearly 50,000 in 1865. 66 The number of hands em¬ 
ployed in this business was 514 in 1860, 1033 in 1870. 67 In¬ 
directly the extensive use of the sewing-machine somewhat 
affected the labor market. Women who had other sources of 
income sometimes took needlework at very low prices in order 
to afford themselves luxuries or to contribute to the family sup¬ 
port. This reacted on the labor of other women, forcing them 
to accept low wages. 68 The Voice in 1864 estimates the average 
wages of sewing-women at $3.00 to $3.50 per week, 69 a low rate 
at any time, but a most miserable pittance in a period of in¬ 
flated currency. The value of the sewing-machine to the house¬ 
hold, however, more than offset any disturbances which it may 
have brought to the labor-market. )• 
Ho study of economic conditions in Massachusetts at this time 
would be complete without some account of the decay of the 
merchant marine. In the first half of the nineteenth century 
very many of the coast and river towns of Massachusetts were 
important ship-building places. Boston was, of course, the 
most conspicuous of these, 70 but Salem, Newbury port, Ames- 
64 Fite, pp. 68, 69. 
65 Report, 1871, p. 139. 
66 DeWitt, Statistical Information, etc., 1855; Warner, Ibid, 1865. 
6.7 XJ. S. Census Reports, 1860, 1870. 
es Voice, Apr. 7, 1865. 
69 ibid, Dec. 13, 1864. 
70 u. S. Census Report, 1880, vol. VIII, The Ship Building Industry 
in U. S., p. 110. “For a long period Boston was the first of American 
cities in the amount of tonnage owned by her merchants, and she has 
always ranked as one of the first four.’' 
