Dollar
"The Value of a Dollar" is a popular activity from our Farm to Factory curriculum guide (pdf). Farm to Factory, an in-school program especially suited to grades 3 - 5, focuses on the transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one as experienced by young New England women who left their farms to work in the Lowell mills.
Barilla Taylor was a real Lowell "mill girl" who left her farm in Roxbury, Maine, when she was 15 years old. Students completing "The Value of a Dollar" will learn not only about nineteenth-century economics but also about cultural and social issues of the times.
Barilla Taylor and her friends lived in Lowell in the early 1840s. Many of them earned $3.25 each week, and paid $1.25 for room and board. Listed below are some of the items they may have purchased with the remaining $2.00. Note the prices of these ordinary items. Estimate what you would pay for a similar item today and write the amount in the right hand column.
| Items | 1800s Prices | Prices Today |
|---|---|---|
| rent, food, laundry per week (1843) | women $1.25
men $1.75 | |
| gold watch (1843) | $20-$25 | |
| six concerts for two people (1843) | $1.00 | |
| novel (1843) | $.25 | |
| young ladies' leather walking shoes (1843) | $.75-$1.00 | |
| boys' dancing shoes (1843) | $1.00-$1.75 | |
| Ladies' World of Fashion and Literature (monthly magazine; price per year; 1843) | $2.00 | |
| postage for a letter (1842) | 2 pages, >30< 80 miles - $.20
3 pages, >80< 150 miles - $.25 | |
| library fee (per year; 1843-1883) | $.50 | |
| Lowell to Boston train fare (1845) | $.75 | |
| one pound of sugar (1839) | $.10 | |
| daguerreotype in leather case (1843) | $4.00 | |
| shawl (1839) | $2.00 |
Challenge
Pretend it is 1843. What would you buy with two dollars? Why?
Look at the difference in rent, food, and laundry for men and women in 1843. Why do you think the cost is different?
