"Productivity in Manufacturing and the Length of the Working Day: Evidence from the 1880 Census of Manufactures"

Data from the manuscript census of manufacturing are used to estimate the effects of the length of the working day on output and wages. We find that the elasticity of output with respect to daily hours worked was positive but less than one--implying diminishing returns to increases in working hours. When the annual number of days worked is held constant, the average annual wage is found to be positively related to daily hours worked, but again the elasticity less than 1.0. At the modal value of daily hours (ten hours per day), it appears that from the standpoint of employers, the marginal benefits of a shorter working day (a lower wage bill) were approximately offset by the marginal cost (lower output).

Capital Deepening in American Manufacturing, 1850-1880

We use establishment-level data to study capital deepening -- increases in the capital-output ratio -- in American manufacturing from 1850 to 1880. In nominal terms, the aggregate capital-output ratio in our samples rose by 30 percent from 1850 to 1880. Growth in real terms was considerably greater -- 70 percent -- because prices of capital goods declined relative to output prices. Cross-sectional regressions suggest that capital deepening was especially importnat in the larger firms and was positively associated with the diffusion of steam-powered machinery. However, even after accounting for shifts over time in such factors, much of the capital deepening remains to be explained. Although capital deepening implies a fall in the average product of capital it does not necessarily imply that rates of return were declining. However, we find strong evidence that returns did decline. We also show that returns were decreasing in firm size, although the data are not sufficiently informative to tell us why it was so.

Productivity in Manufacturing and the Length of the Working Day: Evidence from the 1880 Census of Manufactures

Data from the manuscript census of manufacturing are used to estimate the effects of the length of the working day on output and wages. We find that the elasticity of output with respect to daily hours worked was positive but less than one—implying diminishing returns to increases in working hours. When the annual number of days worked is held constant, the average annual wage is found to be positively related to daily hours worked, but again the elasticity less than 1.0. At the modal value of daily hours (ten hours per day), it appears that from the standpoint of employers, the marginal benefits of a shorter working day (a lower wage bill) were approximately offset by the marginal cost (lower output).

Irregular Production and Time-out-of-Work in American Manufacturing Industry in 1870 and 1880: Some Preliminary Estimates

This paper makes use of hitherto untabulated data from the censuses of manufacturing for 1870 and 1880 to investigate the extent to which firms operated at less than their full capacity year round in these census years and thus provides some evidence of the extent to which workers may have faced temporary or permanent lay-off. We conclude that firms nationwide operated for the equivalent of 254 days (out of, perhaps, 309 working days) during the 1870 census year from the end of May, 1869 to the beginning of June, 1870 and 261 days during the 1880 census year from the beginning of June 1879 to the end of May, 1880. Workers put in the equivalent of slightly more days of work in each of these years in their customary industrial employment because larger firms were more likely to operate for more days per year. There were, however, significant regional and industry differences. Although our estimates are broadly consistent with independent estimates and are generally in accord with expectations, they raise important questions about economic performance in the late nineteenth century which remain unanswered here.

Louis Brandeis, Work and Fatigue at the Start of the Twentieth Century: Prelude to Oregon's Hours Limitation Law

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there was considerable interest among the scientific and business communities in the relationship between work, fatigue, health and productivity. Study after study not only documented well-known relationships between occupation and disease such as mercury poisoning among "mad hatters" but also an increasing body of evidence suggested a causal chain between fatigue induced by long hours of work, specific occupational characteristics and weakened resistance to diseases, especially viral diseases such as tuberculosis that posed specific public health, as well as private health, hazards. This evidence first persuaded the Courts to allow limitations upon the hours of work for women on the grounds of protecting the "weaker sex" and the health of future generations as a public health regulation. Eventually such limits were extended to all workers. In this paper, we analyze the data from an 1892 California Bureau of Labor Statistics survey of 3,493 wage-earners that provides some evidence on the relationship between hours of work and time in a job and worsening health or days of absence from work as a result of ill-health. We conclude that these data support the hypothesis that long hours of work each day in hot and poorly ventilated workshops performing physically or mentally exhausting work at a pace set by inanimate machines was bad for employee health. However, it is hard to make a convincing case for the public regulation of hours and conditions in the workplace as a public, as opposed to a private, health question, except in the case of children, including children in utero, or communicable diseases such as tuberculosis.

How Long Was the Workday in 1880?

We know remarkably little about the length of the working day before the 1880s. In this paper, we summarize what is known about the trend in the length of the workday in American manufacturing industry from 1830 to 1890. We than develop estimates of the daily hours of work and form the basis for our on-going research into the performance and operation of the industrial labor market in America in the late nineteenth century. We conclude on the basis of our firm-level sample data that the average workday in American manufacturing industry in 1880 was almost exactly ten hours, placing the attainment of the ten-hour day almost a decade earlier than hitherto supposed. Despite the decline in hours to 1880, however, daily hours of work were still long enough that they would have required the use of artificial light in most factories during the winter. Our statistical analysis also reveals and documents small but statistically variations in hours between firms and industries and between regions and by location.

Did Railroads Induce or Follow Economic Growth? Urbanization and Population Growth in the American Midwest, 1850-60

For generations of scholars and observers, the "transportation revolution," especially the railroad, has loomed large as a dominant factor in the settlement and development of the United States in the nineteenth century. There has, however, been considerable debate as to whether transportation improvements led economic development or simply followed. Using a newly developed GIS transportation database we examine this issue in the context of the American Midwest, focusing on two indicators of broader economic change, population density and the fraction of population living in urban areas. Our difference in differences estimates (supported by IV robustness checks) strongly suggest that the coming of the railroad had little or no impact upon population densities just as Albert Fishlow concluded some 40 years ago. BUT, our results also imply that the railroad was the "cause" of midwestern urbanization, accounting for more than half of the increase in the fraction of population living in urban areas during the 1850s.

The 'Egalitarian Ideal' and the distribution of wealth in the northern agricultural community / BEBR No. 522

Includes bibliographical references (p. 30-31).Most previous studies of the distribution of wealth during the nineteenth century have focussed either upon the slave South or the urban North. This paper on the other hand examines the distribution of wealth in 102 rural townships in sixteen northern states. The sample covers 21,118 rural households and is representative of twenty northern states. Wealth was found to be more evenly distributed in the rural North than in either the urban North or slave South. Despite this, the distribution of wealth was far from egalitarian and levels of wealth were found to be heavily dependent upon age, sex, race, education, occupation and birthplace