Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T09:52:35.928Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How Long Was the Workday in 1880?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Jeremy Atack  and
Fred Bateman
Jeremy Atack
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics, University of Illinois, 1407 West Gregory Dr., Urbana, IL 61801
Fred Bateman
Affiliation:
Chair and Professor of Economics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article develops the first comprehensive set of estimates of daily hours of work in 1880 using new data from the Census of Manufactures. We conclude that the average workday was almost exactly 10 hours in 1880—almost a decade earlier than hitherto supposed. Our statistical analysis also reveals small but statistically significant variations in hours between firms and industries, between regions, and by location. We also find that higher-paid workers probably substituted leisure for income, that total employment was unresponsive to hours, and that hours and days of employment during the year moved together.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 129 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Atack, Jeremy, and Bateman, Fred, “Whom Did Protective Legislation Protect? Evidence from 1880” (Unpublished Manuscript, University of Illinois/Indiana University, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atack, Jeremy, and Bateman, Fred, “Louis Brandeis, Work and Fatigue at the Start of the Twentieth Century: Prelude to Oregon's Hours Limitation Law” (Unpublished Manuscript, University of Illinois/Indiana University, 1991).Google Scholar
Atack, Jeremy, and Bateman, Fred, “Were Hours of Work ‘Too Long’ in 1880? Industrial Productivity and Hours of Work in 1880” (Unpublished Manuscript, University of Illinois/Indiana University, 1991).Google Scholar
Attack, Jeremy, and Bateman, Fred, “Seasonality and Employment in American Manufacturing Industry in 1880” (Unpublished Manuscript, University of Illinois/Indiana University, 1991).Google Scholar
Bry, Gerhard, “The Average Workweek as an Economic Indicator” (NBER Occasional Paper No. 69, 1959).Google Scholar
Bulow, J. I., and Summers, L. H., “A Theory of Dual Labor Markets with Application to Industrial Policy, Discrimination, and Keynesian Unemployment,” Journal of Labor Economics, 4 (10 1986), pp. 376–414.Google Scholar
Carter, Susan B., and Savoca, Elizabeth, “Labor Mobility and Lengthy Jobs in Nineteenth-Century America,” this Journal, 50 (03 1990), pp. 1–16.Google Scholar
Cahill, Marion Cotter, Shorter Hours (New York, 1932).Google Scholar
Coelho, Philip R. P., and Shepherd, James F., “Regional Differences in Real Wages: The United States, 1851–1880,” Explorations in Economic History, 13 (07 1976), pp. 203–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coelho, Philip R. P., and Shepherd, James F., “Differences in Regional Prices: The United States, 1851–1880,” this Journal, 34 (09 1974), pp. 551–91.Google Scholar
Commons, John R. et al. , History of Labour in the United States, 3 volumes (New York, 1918).Google Scholar
Douglas, Paul H., Real Wages in the United States, 1890–1926 (New York, 1930).Google Scholar
Eckler, A. Ross, “A Measure of the Severity of Depressions, 1873–1932,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 15 (05 1933), pp. 75–81.Google Scholar
Engerman, Stanley L., and Goldin, Claudia, “Seasonality in Nineteenth Century Labor Markets” (NBER Working Paper Series on Historical Factors in Long Run Growth, No. 20, 1991).Google Scholar
Federated American Engineering Societies, the Committee on Work-Periods in Continuous-Industry, The Twelve-Hour Shift in Industry (New York, 1922).Google Scholar
Fels, Rendigs, American Business Cycles 1865–1897 (Chapel Hill, 1959).Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, “Maximum Hours Legislation and Female Employment: A Reassessment,” Journal of Political Economy, 96 (02 1988), pp. 189–205.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia, and Margo, Robert, “Wages, Prices, and Labor Markets Before the Civil War” (NBER Working Paper No. 3198, 12 1989).Google Scholar
Hershberg, Theodore et al. , “The ‘Journey-to-Work’: An Empirical Investigation of Work, Residence and Transportation, Philadelphia, 1850 and 1880,” in Hershberg, Theodore, ed., Philadelphia (New York, 1981), pp. 128–73.Google Scholar
Huberman, Michael, “How Did Labor Markets Work in Lancashire? More Evidence on Prices and Quantities in Cotton Spinning, 1822–52,” Explorations in Economic History, 28 (01 1991), pp. 87–120.Google Scholar
Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, Biennial Reports (Springfield, various years).Google Scholar
Kelly, Matthew A., “Early Federal Regulation of Hours of Labor in the United States,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 3 (04 1950), pp. 362–74.Google Scholar
Lebergott, Stanley, Manpower in Economic Growth (New York, 1964).Google Scholar
Long, Clarence D., Wages and Earnings in the United States 1860–1890 (Princeton, 1960).Google Scholar
Lyons, John S., “Technological Dualism, Rivalry and Complementarity: Handicrafts in the Transition to ‘Modern Industry’” (Unpublished Manuscript, Miami University, 1988).Google Scholar
Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Annual Reports (Boston, various years).Google Scholar
Mitchell, Wesley C., and Burns, Arthur F., “Statistical Indicators of Statistical Revivals,” National Bureau of Economic Research Bulletin No. 69 (Cambridge, MA, 05 28, 1938).Google Scholar
Montgomery, David, The Fall of the House of Labor (New York, 1987).Google Scholar
Montgomery, James, A Practical Detail of the Cotton Manufacture of the United States (Glasgow, 1840).Google Scholar
Moore, Geoffrey H., ed., Business Cycle Indicators, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1961).Google Scholar
Ohio Bureau of Labor Statistics, Annual Reports (Columbus, various years).Google Scholar
The Old Farmers' Almanac, 1989 (Dublin, NH, 1989).Google Scholar
Parker, William N., “New England's Early Industrialization,” in Kilby, Peter, ed., Quantity & Quiddity (Middletown, CT, 1987).Google Scholar
Rees, Albert, Real Wages in Manufacturing, 1890–1914 (Princeton, 1961).Google Scholar
Rodgers, Daniel T., The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850–1920 (Chicago, 1974).Google Scholar
Rosenbloom, Joshua, and Sundstrom, William, “The Decline in Hours of Work in U.S. Labor Markets, 1890–1903” (Unpublished Manuscript, University of Kansas/Santa Clara University, 08 1990).Google Scholar
Shiells, Martha, “Hours of Work and Shiftwork in the Early Industrial Labor Markets of Great Britain, the United States, and Japan” (Ph.D diss., University of Michigan, 1987).Google Scholar
Sokoloff, Kenneth L., “Was the Transition from the Artisanal Shop to the Non-Mechanized Factory Associated with Gains in Efficiency? Evidence from the U.S. Manufacturing Censuses of 1820 and 1850,” Explorations in Economic History, 21 (10 1984), pp. 351–82.Google Scholar
Swank, James M., “Statistics of Iron and Steel Production,” in U.S. Department of the Interior Census Office, Report on the Manufactures of the United States (Washington DC, 1883), pp. 729–900.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States from Colonial Times to 1970, 2 vols. (Washington, DC, 1975).Google Scholar
U.S. Department of the Interior Census Office, Tenth Census, 1880, Instructions to Enumerators (Washington, DC, 1880).Google Scholar
U.S. Department of the Interior Census Office, 1880 Census, vol. 20: Report on the Statistics of Wages in the Manufacturing Industries with Supplementary Reports on the Average Retail Prices of the Necessaries of Life and on Trade Societies and Strikes and Lockouts, special report by Joseph D. Weeks (Washington, DC, 1883).Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Labor, Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Labor (Washington, DC, various years).Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Labor, Third Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor: Analysis and Index of All Reports Issued by Bureaus of Labor Statistics (Washington, DC, 1893).Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Labor, Index of All Reports Issued by Bureau of Labor Statistics Prior to March 1, 1902 (Washington, DC, 1902).Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, “Women in [State] Industries: A Study of Hours and Working Conditions,” Bulletins Nos. 10, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24, 26, 29, 32, 34, 35, 37, 44, 48, 51, 55, 56, and 58 (Washington, DC, 1919–1927).Google Scholar
U.S. House of Representatives, “Documents Relative to the Manufactures in the United States,” House Executive Document No. 308, 22nd Congress, 1st session (Washington, DC, 1833).Google Scholar
U.S. Senate, “Wholesale Prices, Wages, and Transportation,” Senate Report No. 1394, 52nd Congress, 2nd session (Washington, DC, 1893).Google Scholar
U.S. Senate, “Report of Conditions of Employment in the Iron and Steel Industry,” Senate Document No. 20, 62nd Congress, 1st session (Washington, DC, 1913).Google Scholar
von Tunzelmann, G. N., Steam Power and British Industrialization (Oxford, 1978).Google Scholar
Whaples, Robert, “The Great Decline in the Length of the Workweek” (Unpublished Manuscript, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 10 1988).Google Scholar
Wright, Carroll D., “Cheaper Living and the Rise of Wages,” Forum, 16 (10 1893), pp. 221–28.Google Scholar
Wright, Carroll D., History and Growth of the United States Census (Washington, DC, 1900).Google Scholar