The Gross National Product per capital for the

period 1869 to 1873 amounted to $165 compared to about

$4,500 currently. But problems associated with the com-

parison of GNP for any two years, especially when those

years are widely separated in time, are both great and

well-known.2 Changes in product type and quality since

1860 have alone been sufficient to reduce the validity

of such estimates considerably. A more meaningful

contrast might be accomplished by a simple sketch of

the incomes people earned in 1860 and of retail prices

they paid.

 In 1860 less than four percent of the people

engaged in industry worked an eight to nine hour day.

Only ten percent labored less than ten to eleven hours,

and fully a third worked more than eleven hours.3 For

their efforts, common laborers might receive a daily

wage ranging from $ .65 to $1.50 depending upon the


 1U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census,
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times
to 1 (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office,
1960), p. 139, Series F 1-5, Kuznets estimates.

 2See, for instance, George J. Stigler, Trends in
 Output and Employment (New York: National Bureau of
 Economic Research, Inc., 1947), for an interesting
 discussion along these lines.

 Joseph D. Weeks, Superintendent of the Census,
 Report on the Statistics of Wages in Manufacturing
 Industries; With Supplementary Reports on the Average
 Retail Prices of Necessaries of Life and on Trades
 Societies, and Strikes and Lockouts, Vol. XX (Washington,
 D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1886), pp. xxix, xxxi.