Mt. Carmel High School

Family Economics

Cost of Living

A comparison of the cost of living today and the cost of living in 1900 is not readily available. On a national level the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show that the cost of living in 1900 was approximately 5% or 1/20 of 1999’s cost. It is important to keep in mind however that a number of modern conveniences were impossible or difficult to obtain—examples would be televisions, automobiles, automatic washing machines, advanced medical care or even often sanitary food and water. Other conveniences were only known to the middle and upper classes such as piped hot water and bathtubs, central heating, electric light, telephones and large houses.

Below are a selection of 1900 Chicago food prices from The 18^th Annual Report of the U.S. Commissioner of Labor:

Cost per pound :

Vegetables- Corn $.04 , Buttered Beets--$.08, Pickled Beets--$.08, Cole Slaw-- $.08
Fruit- Strawberries $.05, Bananas $.03, Apples $.03
Grains- Rice $.06,  Irish Potatoes $.02, Dry Beans $.05, Bread-1 pound loaf $.05
Protein- Rib Roast $.13, Chuck Steak $.08, Sirloin $.14, Corned Beef $.06, Mutton $.08, Pork Chops, $.10,  Eggs dozen $.18 (equals 1 pound in weight)
Dairy- Butter $.22, Cheese $.17, Milk quart $.06

Housing costs were often among the most crippling items in the family budget. It is difficult to find data on costs in 1900, but below are some representative figures.

Robert Hunter in Tenement Conditions in Chicago p.46 cites a tenement in which small dark 2-3 room apartments rent for $4-7 per month. Frances Embree concludes the average rent paid in slum districts was $8-10 per month, bath and heat not included. Heat would be a coal stove. The average person spent $.05 a day on coal. Toilets were either shared inside water closets, or two hole outhouses underneath the sidewalk or stairs. A bath cost 25 cents, or a laborer could visit the free public bath.

Robert Hunter in Poverty gives rates for lodging hotels. The better class favored by single men with steady employment charged 25-50 cents a night , feature good sanitary conditions, a bathroom down the hall, and separate rooms for each lodger. The 20 cent and cheaper rooms have partitions and poor sanitary conditions. The cheapest hotels provided floor space among hundreds of other men for 2 cents. For 5 cents a filthy mattress was also provided. The city also made the floors of the police stations available free to homeless men, and some months had as many as 11,000 applicants.

Homer Hoyt suggests that older houses in the more fashionable neighborhoods rented for $25-60 per month. Apartments were being built for the upper class along the fashionable boulevards which were to be rented for $100-300 per month, or even $1,000 for certain Lakeshore Drive palaces. Apartment or flat living was becoming popular because of increasing difficulties in getting servants to maintain large detached residences.

Such middle class and upper class residences usually came equipped with many modern conveniences, such as bathtubs and flush toilets. A few even had the relatively new electric lights, telephones and stream heat. Due to improved public transportation many of the new middle and upper class residences were being built some distance from the congested areas close to the city center. A ride on the subway only cost $.05 each way. Outlying and suburban locations such as Hyde Park, Morgan Park, the North Shore and Austin were undergoing rapid growth. Sometimes these were used by the upper class as summer homes. The family would also maintain a flat closer in which would be used by the whole family in the winter, the husband weekdays during the summer.

Other

Public Transportation: a five cent fare was almost universal, but free transfers were not provided. Many people walked, either because they lived close to work or were unable afford the fare.

Letters: 2 cents per ounce for first class. Postcards were 1 cents.

Wages

For the working class employment was often a problem. Most occupations required sixty hour or longer work weeks, paid poorly, and in many cases required difficult and dangerous labor. For example many workers in the stockyards had to work 10 hour days, six days a week standing in cold water.

Employers hired and paid on a weekly or daily basis and often shut down for several months of the year due to weather or lack of business. When the employer shut down, or a worker was sick, the worker did not get paid. Most of the income figures reported below assume year round employment, but various sources reported that the typical laborer spent at least several months of the year unemployed and without income.

In order to get by, it was often necessary for all family members to work, often even young children. It was also very common to take in lodgers or boarders even in a rented two room tenement. In slum districts some people even housed horses in the basements, or slept in stables. Otherwise unemployed family members often resorted to small-scale and poorly paying businesses such as fruit peddling.

Solitary women and aged persons faced special obstacles. Women faced institutionalized wage discrimination which, with the exception of certain occupations such as clerical work and teaching, almost guaranteed they would be unable to live on income from employment. Aged persons were often unable to perform labor and had to depend upon relatives and charity. The Census shows 82.3% of the men aged 10 and over in the workforce and 23.2% of the women.

Robert Hunter in his controversial book Poverty estimated that a typical family of five needed to earn at least $600 a year to meet basic food and shelter needs. As the figures below show, the average family was often on the brink of impoverishment. A number of other authors have written about the economic conditions in Chicago at the time. Some notable examples are Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and the study The Italian in Chicago.

The middle class--examples of which are; professionals, the higher paid clerical workers and owners of businesses such as saloons-- fared better. Misfortune might bring them uncomfortably close to the poverty line, but they usually had steady employment, and a higher income. However these families formed considerably less than half the population. The upper classes, or capitalists, as they were then called, lived in often opulent splendor.

The 18^th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor p.300 reports on a large, but possibly not representative, sample of Illinois families. Among the numerous family economic statistics, it showed the percentage of all Illinois families having income from the following sources: Working Husband 98.2%, Wife 7.7%, Children 18.7%, taking in boarders and lodgers 22.5%, other sources 15.6%.

On the average, those Illinois families having income from the above sources earned annually from the: Working husband $620.19, Wife $114.43, Children $334.93, Boarders and lodgers $240.47, other sources $139.76. The overall average annual income for the average family of 4.91 persons was $756.63.

The 19^th Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor gives the average male wages for a variety of mostly skilled occupations. Below is a selection of Chicago hourly wages and hours worked per week for the year 1900: