A Documentary History of American Industrial Society (Volume 7) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: i. GENERAL VIEW" (a) BY AN ENGLISH OWENITE New Moral If arid (London), Jan. 20, 27, April 20, June 29, July 6, 1844. " Notes of Travel in the United States," by John Finch. The writer was an adherent of Robert Owen's, and published these and several articles on American communities in Owen's paper. His visit to America was made in 1843. [January 20] . . . It is much easier to obtain employment, at present, in the United States than in England; but in this respect they are getting into a worse and worse condition. The manufacturers, in the East, have introduced all our improvements in machinery, (and the effects are the same as in this country) they are making very large quantities of goods; competition is increasing, prices are very much reduced, and the wages of labour, generally, throughout the States and Canada, have been reduced from thirty to fifty per cent within the last four years, and wages are still reducing in some parts of the country, in spite of their trades' unions and democratic institutions; and, if competition continue, no parties can prevent wages from falling as low there as they are in England, and this within a comparatively short period. Wages in America are not much higher, even now, than they are with us. Agricultural labourers can be hired, in Illinois and other states, for from eight to twelve dollars per month. Smiths and mechanics for from twelve to eighteen dollars per month, with board. The boarding of labourers of all kinds is almost universal in the small towns and villages in the agricultural districts. They think nothing of boardand lodging in the west; it can be found them well for from $i to $1.50, or 4s. to 6s. per week. At Baltimore iron works the labourers earn about 2S. 8d. per day, and the head men, at the furnaces, get about $i, or...