Girl's: Mostly covers manufacturing industries (tobacco was prominent), but there is some data for women who worked in mercantile stores, 5-and10-cent stores, and in laundries. Shows the income of each member of a Zurich household and the amount that household spent on various necessities like food, clothing, rent, etc. Source: "Income of Lawyers, 1929-1948" in the August 1949 issue of. Knickerbockers, shirts, high school boy's suits, boy's fine suits, overcoats, winter coats, jackets, pajamas, rain coats, caps and hats, shoes. Shows wage rates for engineers, conductors, passenger baggage men, coal passers, firemen, switch tenders, hostlers, signalmen, station agents, telegraphers, machinists, car cleaners, and more. Tells cost of public transportation and railway fares as well. Table shows average 1929 and 1931 weekly wages of full-time store employees, managers, and supervisors by kind and size of chain and location. Source: BLS. 664. Trump blames his predecessors environmentalism for the loss of jobs in Appalachia, but the reality is a long-running product of market forces, not liberal tree-hugging. In West Virginia's colliers, miners were paid 49 cents per ton of clean coal, compared with 76 cents in the unionized mines of Ohio. Bathroom: Source: Historical chart shows salaries of members of the U.S. Congress, along with dates of enactment and statutory authority for each pay increase. He later recalled his terror at being lost in a maze of underground rooms when his lamp went out. Dresses, skirts, blouses, suits, patterns for sewing frocks,, dress gloves, shawls, sweaters, silk undergarments, pajamas, union suits, corsets, gowns, stockings, hats, winter coats, fur coats, winter gloves and mittens, shoes, purses and bags, diamond rings, necklaces and jewelry, brooches, perfume, wigs. Includes breakouts for those who lived with the family and those who did not. Kitchen: Paragraph below the table describes the weekly earnings of blast furnace workers, smelters, rolling mill operators, and foundry workers in both Pounds Sterling and U.S. Click for more info about the kind of home a family earning less than $2,500 annually could buy in 1928. Source: BLS, Shows the daily wages for various occupations in Tokyo. Click "more" for direct links to wages in each occupation. Compares average retail prices for drug-store items at independent stores and chain stores in Cincinnati and Washington DC. Boys younger than 12 often worked beside their fathers underground because, in many communities, it was the only paying job available. Discusses doctor and hospital fees as well as related expenses such as home nursing care. Miners would lie on their backs and use a pick to undercut the coal. The 1920 Montgomery Ward mail order catalog showed the price of. It was a dreadful experience Booker T. Washington never forgot. Mentions the wages paid to both skilled and unskilled workers in francs. In 1927, "$30 per month was taken as the average minimum expenditure for rent in Boston for the [working class] family of four living on the American standard.". Source: BLS, Shows the average daily wages of manual work occupations in Barcelona, Spain. When a miner and his helper approached the entry to their room, danger lurked in almost every move they made. Shows expenditures among rural Virginia families for food, housing, clothing, automobiles, health insurance, recreation, personal items and more. Also shows the averagecost to rent farm landor pastures by the acre, by county. The need to correct these abuses led the UMWA to demand the employment of a check-weigh man whom the miners could trust. Shows the standard wages for different shift at ports in Antwerp, Belgium. Coal powered industrial America. This is a New Zealand government document. See table 164 for average annual wage. Describes the labor policy of South Africa in the 1920's and throughout the rest of the early 20th century. The deal, brokered by. "In this region, I presume that a fee of $200 would be a pretty fair estimate of the surgeon's charge for operation and the after-treatment there would be between the operation and the death of the patient." This was the world Frank Keeney entered as a boy. Describes the labor policy of New Zealand in the 1920's and throughout the rest of the early 20th century. Compensationby job titlefor New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, San Francisco and more cities. In 1907, West Virginia appointed John Nugent as superintendent of immigration. (Jack Corn/EPA) A ppalachian coal production has been on shaky ground almost since the industry's inception in the mid 19th century. Source: Missouri State Dept of Agriculture. Believed to be the worst coal mine disaster ever, an explosion at the Bnxh mine in Liaoning province killed 1,549 people in 1942. Frank Keeney wanted to be a first-class tonnage man because he needed to support his widowed mother and two sisters, along with his new wife, a fair teenager named Bessie Meadows, an Eskdale girl who wanted to become a schoolteacher. Shows the average daily wages paid to masons, electricians, bricklayers, bakers, blacksmiths and more. Source: You may download a pdf version of the 1928, Hotel rates are shown in the advertisements in. Details the prices of appliances, furniture, and more household items on pp. Each table spans 2 book pages, and row labels only show on even-numbered pages. The strike was officially called to a halt on March the 3rd 1985. Also tells pay for court clerks and marshals. Appalachian coal production has been on shaky ground almost since the industrys inception in the mid 19th century. Watch the rocks, theyre falling daily, The coal industry required more labor than southern West Virginia could supply. Source: BLS, Shows the average price of foodstuffs and other common goods in the federal district of Mexico. Wages are shown in Italian lire. School and office supplies: Includes the states of RI, NJ, OH, DE, OK, MO, GA, TN, AR, KY, SC, AL and MS. Shows average value of mortgaged homes, average debt remaining on the mortgages and average interest paid on mortgages annually, for 68 cities of 100,000 or more population. Source: U.S. Federal Trade Commission report. Source: Median wages for butlers, chauffeurs, gardeners, furnace men and "house men" employed to work in private households in Philadelphia in the late 1920s. Source: Includes district-specific information and the average output of coal per person per shift. Before the days of electric cars, many boys served as mule drivers. Source: The tables show pay for employees engaged in the manufacture of automobiles, trucks, car bodies and parts. Heed no operators tale! Wages are shown in German marks. This booklet shows prices for hotels and amenities such astelephone, restaurant meals,haircuts, bath house, etc. Wages are shown in both Francs and contemporary US dollars. The correct use of explosives depended on the miners skill and knowledge of how to drill, how much powder to use, and how to damp a charge properly. by OCCUPATION Report published in 1921 tells wages for women working in offices, in meat and poultry packing, restaurants, food manufacturing, clothing manufacturing, laundries, and more. Source: Federal Power Commission. Source: BLS. U.S. coal mining employment change by state Q4 2011-Q4 2016 ; Source: BLS, Shows clothes prices paid by working class families in Great Britain. Gasoline cost an average21.7 per gallon in 1929. Average weekly earnings of male and female workers in the British cotton industry are shown at four periods of time in 1924. NOTE: Forhouseholdincome data for 1929, we recommend a1934 Brookings Institution report titled America's Capacity to Consume. Wages are shown in Czech krone. Table 26 shows wages for laborers with board for every year from 1780-1937; the, In the 1920s, people could sell their blood to hospitals for$35-50 perquart. 358, Average hours and earnings by occupation and district. The following is from James Greens The Devil is Here in These Hills. Prices are shown in either contemporary US dollars or Chinese coppers. They provided their own equipment and often hired assistants; managers extended credit for supplies like dynamite. Shows the average daily wages of Japanese and Chinese workers in various occupations for the South Manchuria Railway Co. Wages are shown in both contemporary yen and US dollars. Source: Report of the Salary survey commission to the Pennsylvania General assembly, 1929. Immigrants in southern West Virginia comprised some 25 nationalities, including Italians, Hungarians, Poles, Austrians and Russians. Source: BLS Bulletin no. Industrial home work was most common in clothing manufacturing and tobacco industries (rolling cigars, etc.) PRICES in FOREIGN COUNTRIES, WAGES -- GENERAL SOURCES (all occupations and worker types), WAGES in AIRPLANE and AIRCRAFT MANUFACTURING, 1920s. But to those who suffered alone in silence, the chorus offered hope and strength: Union miners, stand together! These deposits could produce firedamp, which contained methane and sometimes carbon dioxide that seeped out of the coal seams. Lists annual pay for individuals occupying administrative and supervisory positions in the executive and judicial branches. of Agriculture report. Dining room: Coal mining wages - Illinois, 1920. When the smoke cleared, the collier and his buddy would swing their picks to break up large clumps of coal and shovel the smaller lumps into a mine car; it was back-aching work made more painful by the narrowness of the room. Source: BLS Monthly Labor Review, Dec 1920 7-8 in: Extensive, 219-page report published in the Bureau of Labor StatisticsBulletin no. Compares to national averages. BookTok is Good, Actually: On the Undersung Joys of a Vast and Multifarious Platform, Seven Crime Novels Centered Around Musicians Out in 2023, Arlington Road: The Conspiracy Thriller That Foresaw the Spread of Far-Right Extremism in America, If you want to laugh, watch this Mitchell and Webb sketch about inviting Shaggy and Scooby Doo to a party, Uncrackable: 5 Films Featuring Devilishly Difficult Heists. Between 1880 and 1920, southern West Virginias population grew from 93,000 to 446,000, due almost entirely to the coal industry. Miners waiting to start their shift at the Virginia-Pochahontas Coal Company mine near Richland, Virginia, in 1974. Also shows rowboat and pack horse rental rates, cost for guided tours, and transportation fares. For example, a dollar earned in 2020 had the same buying power as 7 in 1928. The workday ended at 5:30 in the evening when the sunlight had already faded over the mountains. In some cases, when word came around that a miner had been scolded or punished by a boss, workers would gather on a pile of slate to talk about the incident, and the bolder ones with a manly bearing toward the boss would speak up for their fellow worker. Coal operators enticed workersmany African Americanto move to West Virginia from Virginia and the Deep South. Former Timeline picture editor. Shows the weekly wages of various occupations in Swiss farming as well as the daily wages of day laborers. Must use "search in this text" feature to navigate. Before the 1920s most miners were independent contractors. Many of the reports can be found in. Shows the average daily wages of workers in various industries in Riga as well as other parts of Latvia. Source: BLS. Wages are shown in Brazilian milreis. Wages shown in litas, and US dollars in parentheses. Bicycles, binoculars, footballs & basketball supplies, ice skates, athletic gear, boxing, baseball, & tennis supplies, fishing tackle, camping gear, guns. Lengthy article reports how much educators earned in Illinois' high schools in 1920-1921. Took into account additional sources of income for farm families, such as income derived from animals or investments. Processing plants called breaker buildings were symbols of pride for mine communities. Every three or four hundred feet, passageways were cut, creating narrower, corridor-like rooms that led to a coal face where each miner and his buddy worked in their own room. The colliers left large pillars of coal standing as they cut the face forward and sideways through breakthroughs that led to parallel rooms. Coal companies also recruited in Europe. Describes the labor policy of Great Britain in the 1920's and throughout the rest of the early 20th century. Shows data on the number of nursing school graduates from 1880 to 1929 as well as salary information. Source: Howard University, States "the average student probably spends about $700 per year for a college education" and shows, This source shows the cost of funerals and burial in 18 states and in 10 major cities. Source: BLS, The explanation states: "real wage rates have been computed by the Statistical Office on the basis of the official German cost-of-living index. Shows average charge per case for appendicitis, childbirth, heart troubles, cancer, dental problems and more. See also "C" tab above for carpenters, cement workers, etc. The miners called this unpaid labor company work.. Source: BLS, Shows the retail prices of foodstuffs and other staple goods in the Mexican capital. There is also a table showing, Shows the value of multiple currencies in US dollars in the years of. No. Source: National Education Association of the United States. He also learned not to scare the miners beloved pigeons or to be afraid of mine rats, because these creatures could sense danger coming before it struck. By 1850, approximately half of Kanawha Countys slaves worked in the salt industrymany mined coal to fuel the furnaces. Source: BLS Bulletins. After undercutting the face, the collier turned the crank on a five-and-a-half-foot-long breast auger and pushed with all his weight to bore a hole high on the face. Wages are shown in Sweden kronor. The pit closures the miners had fought so hard to prevent began in earnest. Under these terms, a hard worker could earn $2.00 for ten to twelve hours of labor, if the work was steady. This series of tables shows the wage distribution and average weekly wages of a variety of industries and occupations in Missouri in 1921. Data gathered by the National Industrial Conference Board using foreign government sources. Shows the average daily wages Greek workers were receiving in metal mines, lignite mines, smelting and refining plants, and quarries. Shows forty pages of incomedata with numerous breakouts. During the Great Depression output was nearly halved from 680 million tons to 360 million. Source: BLS, Shows the average daily wages and hours of a variety of occupations in Madrid. Wages are shown in both Chervonetz roubles and contemporary U.S. dollars. Pianos, violins, guitars & banjos, accordions, other musical instruments. For best detail, see the full chapters on. Fixtures, chamberpots, bathroom soaps, towels, toilet paper. Dollars. Even the most skilled miners could not detect the presence of kettle bottoms, the petrified remains of huge ancient tree trunks that could plunge through the roofs and crush workers. Report published in 1927 includes extensive wage data for women in Tennessee by race, industry, education, and more, circa 1925. Before the 1930s, many boys worked in mines. Coal industry labor strikes were common from the turn of the century up through the 1930s, as were catastrophic workplace injuries and the prevalence of black lung disease. Wages are in contemporary US dollars. Source: BLS Monthly Labor Review (September 1932). HEALTH CARE Patterns for sewing children's clothes, stockings, union suits, toys, bicycles. Includes breakouts for adults and. Besides know-how, the miners depended upon instinct and luck. Most trapper boys learned how to overcome their fears by watching and listening to the colliers who went underground with them. During the first three decades of the 20th century, African Americans comprised about 25 percent of all southern West Virginia miners. Prices are shown in Swiss francs. The veteran miners, who prided themselves on their toughness, taught the youngest ones how to act like men, how to ignore the pain, and how to laugh away their fears. Source: BLS, Shows the average daily wage in both yen and US dollars. Washington, D.C. Email powered by MailChimp (Privacy Policy & Terms of Use), The American Twins, Harpers Weekly, 1874, African American History Curatorial Collective. The regions first coal miners primarily were African Americans, both enslaved and free. Shows the average weekly wages for a variety of occupations and industries in New Zealand. Indicates prices per kilowatt-hour by areas and cities. First, the men had topush an empty coal car up wooden rails that they had installed on their own time. A man sometimes had to get down on his hands and knees, with his left shoulder, well padded, against the car, bracing himself with his toes against the ties and the dirt of the floor, wrote a former miner, while his partner controlled the brakes to keep the car from rolling back on the pusher if he slipped or grew tired. Back injuries, broken legs, and severed feet and fingers were common. Shows average value for farm land and buildings from 1850-1982. Shows firemen salaries for 25 American cities including New York City, Chicago, New Orleans, Indianapolis, Buffalo, Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Kansas City and more. Wages are shown in contemporary US dollars. Tables are broken down by type of job, gender of employee, and geography. An increase in annual vacation pay was also stipulated.Wage Chronology: Bituminous . Shows wages for common and semi-skilled workers in manufacturing and construction industries, in baking, agriculture, metal and printing trades. Typewriters, school supplies, office supplies, fountain pens, more fountain pens, books, drawing sets, home office furniture. $32k - $76k. Workers, Kohinoor mine, Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, 1884, Managers, Kohinoor mine, Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, 1884. During the early 1900s, roof falls in the bituminous coal mines killed an average of 886 workers every year, as compared with the 274 deaths per year caused by explosions and fires. Copy. Cabinets and cookware. The mine operators assumed that if they paid a worker according to the number of tons he loaded, they would foster a competitive climate underground; and in a sense, the tonnage system worked this way. Wages are shown in Japanese yen. Women's and children's clothing - Newcomb, Endicott, and Co. Retail prices for imported merchandise, 1922, Rates charges for hospital services, 1928, Health care costs and expenditures, 1923-1925, Average charges by type of medical complaint, 1929-1930, Public colleges - Tuition by institution, 1921-1922, Private colleges - Tuition by institution, 1921-1922, Howard University School of Medicine - Tuition & expenses, 1920-21, The Undertaker's Trade - Services and Prices, Average funeral cost by state and city, 1927, Cost to mail a letter or postcard, 1863-present, Vacation to Yellowstone National Park - Prices in 1920, Consumption expenditures per capita, 1901-1956, Cost of living increase in U.S. large cities, 1913-1941, Income needed for "minimum subsistence" in cities, 1929, Minimum income needed to live in Washington DC, 1920, Cost of living among wage earners, Detroit, 1921, Lynchburg, VA - Cost of living and expenditures, 1928-1929, Ability to pay and standard of living among farmers, 1926, Farm family expenditures in selected states, 1922-1924, Average annual costs of keeping work horses, 1921, Virginia - Cost of living and expenditures, 1928-1929, Calculator: Present-day purchasing power of a historic dollar amount, Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator, Canada - Food and rents by province and city, 1923, Canada - Prices of staple foods, fuel and rent in 1913, 1920-1927, Retail Prices in Czechoslovakia, 1914-1921, Clothing prices - Great Britain, 1914-1921, New Zealand - Food and cigarette retail prices by city, 1921. equal opportunity/access/affirmative action/pro-disabled and veteran employer. MORE PRICES in the U.S. Shows data for 12 cities located in NY, OH, PA and MA, including NYC, Boston, Philadelphia and more. This risk increased enormously when inexperienced miners failed to undercut the coal before blasting and took the risk of shooting on the solid.. Hourly Rate. In 1923, there were about 883,000 coal miners; today there are about 53,000. for rural households in the U.S. and selected foreign countries. Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Month. Shows monthly wages based on the ocean routes traveled: San Francisco to points west, and New York City to points south and east. Chart shows median wages of women employed in Philadelphia households as chambermaids, cleaners, cooks, waitresses, laundress, seamstress, and children's nurses (nannies.) Issues of Telephone engineer & management detail rates for telephone service in many states. "75 Years of American Finance: A Graphic Presentation 1861-1935" Firedamp, described as the monster most dreaded by the practical miner, could explode if ignited by sparks or powder blasts, which would send fires raging through mine shafts with hurricane force. In 1984 there were 174 deep coal mines in the UK by 1994 - the year the industry was finally privatized - there were just 15 left. Nothing was the answer, nothing but the miserable life he and his family endured living inrented shanties hard on the railroad tracks. Beds and mattresses, bedroom furniture, pillows, bedding. how much did coal miners get paid in the 1950s. They designed complex ventilation systems with fans and interior doors to keep dangerous gases from causing explosions. "The sum of $4,000 will buy only a very modest home and even then it will have to be in one of the smaller citiesor in a remote suburb of a large city." 59-71. Shows salaries for sevenoccupations inpolice departments of 25American cities. Source: BLS, Shows the average retail prices of staple foodstuffs in Madrid, Spain. Miners would lie on their backs and use a pick to undercut the coal. Boys learned the mining craft from their fathers and later passed this knowledge on to their own sons. When he lit the fuse, the lead miner hollered, Fire in the hole, and scuttled out of the room with his buddy. Source: BLS. Farm laborers in Missouri earned an average $41.90/month in 1921. By 2003 that number had dipped to just 70,000. Totals are shown in Canadian dollars. Using a thin iron needle about the thickness of a pencil, he shoved a cartridge of black powder into the hole and pushed a little clay into the hole with a damper; then he carefullywithdrew the needle and inserted a wick of waxed paper, a squib, that would burn down to the black powder. Shows police department salaries for cities over 100,000 population. The miners world was dark and dangerous. View object record Steam whistle With industrialization, workers lost control of when to start, eat, and end their day. Furniture, bookcases, carpets and rugs, curtains, hanging lamps, lightbulbs, table and floor lamps, clocks. Source:Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis. Living room: Religious organizations -Salaries, 1929in. Wages are shown in both contemporary Yen and US dollars. In the 1920s decade, 8% to 12%of peopleaged18-21enrolled incollege. He also absorbed the habits and traditions that gave pick and shovel miners a remarkable degree of freedom. If a man died in a mine, they quit work to honor him and to take up a collection for his surviving wife and children. Occupations included are limited before 1916. Source: Shows wages, hours and earnings for mechanics, pipe fitters, welders, tinsmiths derrick men, drillers, firemen, engineers and more. See quartile, "Women in Alabama industries: a study of hours, wages and working conditions," Women's Bureau Bulletin #34 (. Source: BLS Monthly Labor Review (July 1930). Work clothes, work shirts, dress shirts, dress pants, trousers, vests, suits, dress gloves, overcoats, winter coats, fur caps and collars, neck ties, belts and suspenders, caps and hats, nightwear, socks, shoes, boots, pocket knives, pocket watches, toupes, razors, smoking pipes. Retreat mining was a risky business, but at least the miners engineered these cave-ins. Shows average wages (with and without board) by province. Source: BLS. Lists the price of bricks, flooring, framing lumber, rough boards, Portland cement, roofing material, house paint and more. Some stopped the cars by jamming pieces of wood into the spokes. Sometimes they hired guards or brought in government troops to maintain order and control strikers. Source: BLS Monthly labor review, Oct 1927, Shows the average daily wages for 14 different occupations in the Florence district. Covers more than 1,200 cities. Source: BLS, Shows the daily wages of workers in the glass factories of northern France. Source: BLS. It is not yet available to read online; check your local library for a printed copy. Teacher salaries for. Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson is back. Appalachias traditionally small, locally owned mines started merging with larger energy firms in the 1960s, and by 1970 bituminous coal employment had dropped to 140,000 people from its 1923 peak of 740,000. Source: BLS, Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. Shows pay tables based on years of service,for Army and Navygenerals, admirals, colonels, lieutenants, captains, ensigns, etc. 514. After the top fell, they returned to break and load the fallen coal before another layer of the top came crashing down with a tremendous roar. Source: U.S. BLS Bulletin, no. Wages are shown in Danish ore. Source: BLS, Shows the average daily wages for various occupations in 6 different industries in Japan.