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How Long Was the Workday in 1880?

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Author Info
Jeremy Atack
Fred Bateman

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Abstract

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.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Historical Working Papers with number 0015.

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Date of creation: Aug 1990
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0015

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  1. Michael D. Bordo & Robert D. Dittmar & William T. Gavin, 2003. "Gold, Fiat Money, and Price Stability," NBER Working Papers 10171, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Dora L. Costa, 2000. "From Mill Town to Board Room: The Rise of Women's Paid Labor," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 101-122, Fall. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Jeremy Atack & Fred Bateman & Robert A. Margo, 2001. "Part-Year Operation in Nineteenth Century American Manufacturing: Evidence from the 1870 and 1880 Censuses," Working Papers 0106, Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University, revised Mar 2001. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Jeremy Atak & Fred Bateman & Robert A. Margo, 2001. "Part-Year Operation in 19th Century American Manufacturing: Evidence from the 1870 and 1880 Censuses," Macroeconomics 0105001, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Robert W. Fogel, 1994. "Economic Growth, Population Theory, and Physiology: The Bearing of Long-Term Processes on the Making of Economic Policy," NBER Working Papers 4638, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Dora L. Costa, 1998. "The Unequal Work Day: A Long-Term View," NBER Working Papers 6419, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Dora L. Costa, 1995. "Health, Income, and Retirement: Evidence from Nineteenth Century America," NBER Working Papers 4537, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Jeremy Atack & Fred Bateman, 2000. "Downtime in American Manufacturing Industry: 1870 and 1880," Working Papers 0048, Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University. [Downloadable!]
  9. Dora L. Costa, 1998. "The Wage and the Length of the Work Day: From the 1890s to 1991," NBER Working Papers 6504, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Jeremy Atack & Fred Bateman & Robert A. Margo, 2000. "Productivity in Manufacturing and the Length of the Working Day: Evidence from the 1880 Census of Manufactures," Macroeconomics 0012003, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
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  11. Michael Huberman, 2002. "Working Hours of the World Unite? New International Evidence on Worktime, 1870-1900," CIRANO Working Papers 2002s-77, CIRANO. [Downloadable!]
  12. Michael R. Haines, 1991. "The Use of Historical Census Data for Mortality and Fertility Research," NBER Historical Working Papers 0031, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. W. Michael Cox & Richard Alm, 1993. "These are the good old days: a report on U.S. living standards," Annual Report, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, pages 2-25. [Downloadable!]
  14. Dora L. Costa, 1993. "Explaining the Changing Dynamics of Unemployment: Evidence from Civil War Records," NBER Historical Working Papers 0051, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Fogel, Robert W., 1993. "Economic Growth, Population Theory, and Physiology: The Bearing of Long-Term Processes on the Making of Economic Policy," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 1993-1, Nobel Prize Committee. [Downloadable!]
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