The making of the American nation; a history for elementary schools . o sun ; that is, fromsunrise to sunset. A dollar a day was considered very fair wagesfor skilled labor; ten dollars a month with board and lodgingwas a very common price for farm labor. It was not until 1830that a ten-hour working day was adopted. It was adopted firstin Baltimore; afterward ten hours was ordered by President VanBuren (1840) to be a days work in the various government estab-lishments. The introduction of machinery in the various fieldsof labor tended at first to throw workmen out of employment ;this, however,
The making of the American nation; a history for elementary schools . o sun ; that is, fromsunrise to sunset. A dollar a day was considered very fair wagesfor skilled labor; ten dollars a month with board and lodgingwas a very common price for farm labor. It was not until 1830that a ten-hour working day was adopted. It was adopted firstin Baltimore; afterward ten hours was ordered by President VanBuren (1840) to be a days work in the various government estab-lishments. The introduction of machinery in the various fieldsof labor tended at first to throw workmen out of employment ;this, however, was followed by a readjustment that not only enor-mously increased old fields of labor, but created new ones. The Electric Telegraph. — In 1836 Samuel F. B. Morse con-structed a working model of a magneto-electric telegraph the following ten years, he and his associate, Alfred Vail,improved the instrument, finally producing an instrument that issubstantially the same in principle as that used to-day. The first 294 THE MAKING OF THE AMERICAN NATION. The oceancables L^b^. C^Jx^. operator was William B. first working line was oijenedbetween Baltimore and Washing-ton in 1844; in the followingyear a line was opened betweenJersey City and Philadelphia, themessages being carried across theriver to New York. The WesternUnion Telegraph Company wasorganized in 1856. In 1854 Cyrus W. Field of NewYork City began to direct thework of laying a tele-graph cable under theAtlantic Ocean fromNewfoundland to Ireland. The cable was laid in 1857; one ortwo messages were sent, and then the line ceased to work. Another cable was laid in thefollowing year, but it failed totransmit messages after about amonth of use. In 1866 cablelaying was made successfiil, andat the close of the century twocompanies were operating abouttwenty cable wires between theUnited States and Europe. Ocean Steamship Navigation. —We have seen that the first steam-ship to cross the ocean, the
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