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Wages and Hours 

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This graph displays the average hourly wages (in cents) and hours worked per week for the different professions listed on the University Treasury Ledgers from 1927-1930.

 

 

 

 

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Payroll at Duke University, 1927-1930,

Boxes 32-33, Office of the University Treasurer, Duke University Archives, Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Durham, N.C. 

WAGE GAUGE

As we were transcribing the ledgers, the

first thing we noticed was the wages. 25 cents an hour! 30 cents an hour! Twenty-five cents in January 1929 is worth $3.68 in May 2018, and 50 cents is worth $7.36. Then we noticed the weekly hours. While many workers worked 40-hour work weeks or less, we could not help but noticing workers with 60-hour, 70-hour, even 80-hour work weeks (mostly in the heating plant).  Seeing those numbers got us thinking. Were average wages and hours like they were at Duke in other cities? Around the country?  

For the national data, we took averages from

the Bulletins of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Union Scales of Wages and Hours of Labor" from 1928 to 1930. For Atlanta and Birmingham, we used the History of Wages in the United States from Colonial Times to 1928 (revised to include statistics from 1929 to 1933) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

 

It should be noted that these are average

wages and hours as obtained from unions—thus, they do not encapsulate the total picture of construction workers in America. It is also very plausible that low-skilled laborers were not unionized, considering Durham’s status as a small town in a state hostile to unions. Maybe the workers’ wages stretched further in Durham than they would in a large city like Atlanta. Better comparisons should be researched further, but here is the disparity between average wages and weekly hours at Duke versus Atlanta, Birmingham, and the country at large. We used Tableau Public for the graphs.

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1.“CPI Inflation Calculator.” U.S. Bureau of Labor

Statistics. www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm. 

2. Payroll at Duke University. 1927-1930. Boxes 32-

33. Office of the University Treasurer. Duke University Archives, Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Durham, N.C. 

3. United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Union

Scales of Wages and Hours of Labor, May 15, 1928: Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 482," Union Scale of Wages and Hours of Labor (1929); United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Union Scales of Wages and Hours of Labor, May 15, 1929: Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 515," Union Scale of Wages and Hours of Labor (1930); United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Union Scales of Wages and Hours of Labor, May 15, 1930: Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 540," Union Scale of Wages and Hours of Labor (1931). 

4. United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics. History

of Wages in the United States From Colonial Times to 1928: Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 604, Washington, D.C: U.S. G.P.O., 1934. 

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