I should also have stated that many of my 1900 numbers were from the 1896 Sears catalog, from which I used their prices for the medium quality of all goods listed.  Paul


  Because, as you state, of the very broad differences depending on the years involved and surely upon the places of transaction, I chose a rather fertile part of mid-Southern Ohio to approximate a multiplier.  It was there that corn meal and flour were equally available and such as horses, lumber, "stuffs", foodstuffs, and clothes, though not found on every street corner, were widely offered for sale by reason of the "new" transportation available, even to the ordinary farmer or small town artisan.

  Perhaps I could have used the area described by Turner as the "cradle of American Democracy" (Evansville, Paducah, Cairo, etc., middle Ohio River Valley), or surely central Southern PA, however I felt that my selected area had much in common with many portions of the then US.  My principle reasons for setting forth those numbers were, a) to demonstrate the rank inaccuracy of the multiplier of 10 for 1850 suggested by several websites, and b) the fact that researchers need to have some feel for who paid or received what for how much, and few have time for the efforts needed to compile such for THEIR family "wheres". I would welcome any better average multipliers.

  Finally, while barter was very often the medium of settlement for the ordinary citizen dealing in his home area, reckoning and expressing the sums owed, while very early stated in lbs. of tobacco or other commodities, later and to now, such were calculated in numbers signifying money.  That there were negotiable instruments - notes, bonds, and warehouse receipts - in common use, there is no doubt.  Still, I have come to believe that the everyday exchanges by ordinary rural and small town families (whatever that means??) were by barter and by the currency acceptable in the immediate neighborhood of the transaction; If your seller would accept the local banks paper money, you paid him in that or with your crops and products.     Paul  


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