Philly pricebook exhibition

[Mark Arnold]

I just found out about this exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/326.html.
Has anyone been to see it? Woodshop News, Jan. issue, has a page on it.

[MikeWenzloff]

While I would like to be able to see the original, one can purchase a reprint (which has scans of the original pages).

http://www.philamuseumstore.org/istar.asp?a=6&id=30177

But the rest of the exhibit. Now that would be so wonderful to see those examples from notable maker(s) and how they correspond to the Phill price book.

Take care, Mike

[Adam Cherubini]

Mark,

I saw it, took a couple pictures.  I think I was disappointed. 

The price book is about price fixing, which was wrong then and fraud today.  Not only did the price fixing screw the customer, it also screwed the workers.  The prices in the book are pretty low for most jobs.  Did guys actually get paid that little?  Was the price book effective?  What steps might they have taken to make furniture profitably?  What does the furniture show?    What features, singled out in the price book, were more or less expensive than we expected? Why? What was it about their economy that necessitated a price book? The exhibit didn't discuss any of this.

What it does offer however, are examples of some of the forms listed in the price book (but only a few).  It also offered a glimpse of the work of Thomas Gross Jr, an African American cabinetmaker active in late 18th c Philadelphia.  Also fun to see pieces of different style side by side.

While the art museum really needs visitors, I think if I recommended this exhibit heartily, folks would be mad at me if they made a special trip for it.  If you are in the area, be sure to go.  If you aren't, I wouldn't make a special trip for it.  Bu certainly do buy the book.  It's available here:

http://www.philamuseumstore.org/istar.asp?a=6&id=30177

Adam

[MikeWenzloff]

It would have been great if the exhibit would have covered those, and other, questions, Adam. Though I am uncertain there are factual answers for most all of them.

I am uncertain I would characterize the price fixing as wrong then. Different business ethics and all. While I do consider price fixing as wrong today, it happens all around us both formally and informally.

I would also like to see how the book affected prices in reality across more examples of shop bills and log books/journals in Philly. But that is probably not gonna happen.

Take care, Mike

[klkirkman]

Adam,

It has been my experience that those who manage museum collections are only rarely domain experts in the items being managed - they are often professionals at managing museums and making displays - and to produce really effective presentations would do well to consult with true domain experts to provide context to the materials such as the items you suggest

BTW, there is a good chance that your car repair shop uses a flat rate manual - I hate the concept, but it is legal and not fraud.

Karl

[Adam Cherubini]

It's been a while since I read about the price book.  I'm not a lawyer and know very little about the law.  I think the Chilton's guide, which is the book mechanics use to bill customers, is different from the price book in intent and execution.

The Chilton Guide a.k.a. "The Book" provides the number of hours it should take a mechanic to perform a brake job.  How it usually works is "The Book" is consulted and the customer charged the standard hourly rate for the time listed.  So, let's say a front disc brake job, linings only, might be 1.0 hours.  So the customer is billed for parts (typically MSRP or higher) plus the standard shop rate x 1.0 hours.   Let's say one mechanic can do the job in 20 minutes.  Another might take 40 minutes or longer.  Do we bill one customer .3 hours because they got the fast, young mechanic while the older slower moving mechanic charges the customer more and makes more money doing the same job?  BTW, my experience is that the older mechanics I worked with were faster than the younger mechanics.  They knew just what to do, sometimes had special tools, etc, etc.

The Chilton Guide doesn't tell the shop what to charge.  Labor rates vary and nothing forces the shop from using the guide.

The Philadelphia Price book on the other hand set retail prices for furniture. Recipients were probably coerced into upholding those prices.  It also included prices to be paid for labor.  These were max prices.  The price book sought to keep retail prices artificially high, and labor prices low.  I'm not sure what that's called.  I think it's collusion.  I don't think any American companies or industries can do that.  Even OPEC doesn't control prices.  OPEC controls oil production and OPEC members don't always do what they are told.

I'm not 100% sure.  But I think these sorts of labor practices are what led to Marxism, trade unions, etc etc.  Businesses in these times were pretty rough.  Just sharing this text could probably have gotten your shop burned down.  That's why having the entire text is such a big deal.  What they were doing was really pretty rotten.

Adam

[MikeWenzloff]

I understand your point, Adam.

One (probably unanswerable) question would be, just how many Philly shops signed onto and obeyed the Philly book? I seriously doubt all of them did. But that too raises more questions. For instance, was there pressure applied to force furniture makers to adobt the book? Was there retribution towards those who refused? Etc.

No doubt it attempted to level a playing field, both in retail prices and labor management. I don't think anyone knows how successful this book was, whether it was a mere formalization of then current prices for both retail and labor or not. Or whether it was an attempt to widen the gap between cost and return. Who knows?

Later when the London book was published, was there the same motivations? Which were?

Answers, if ever uncovered will likely lead to yet greater and deeper questions. Who's going to be able to ever uncover the answers?

Take care, Mike

btw, a better soft attempt at price controls is gasoline prices at the pump. I've been in that game before.

[chamfer]

Karl et al,

Your mention of the auto repair flat rate book in the context of  the Cabinet-makers' and Chair-makers' Price Books of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is actually quite suggestive. In Alexandra Kirtley's commentary on the 1772 Philadelphia Price Book, after she acknowledges that it was an example of price fixing, she then goes on to state that it likely codified already existing verbal agreements. Agreements which limited the journeymen's ability to sell their labor to the highest bidder, but also "protected them against unscrupulous master craftsmen." She then goes on to briefly suggest that such verbal/understood arrangements were likely carried with them from the guild systems of Europe, especially London, and that this early written codification likely reflected the growing power of the journeymen in dynamic Philadelphia. In other words, a major aspect of this trend toward producing such "price books" over the ensuing 56 years (at least) was a partially successful attempt to establish piece rate wages that were sustainable. I.e., they were striving for a living wage.

And, it is exactly in this light that _The Philadelphia Cabinet and Chair Makers' Union Book of Prices for Manufacturing Cabinet Ware_ of 1828 is so interesting. First, note the use of the word Union. Second, the "prices" in this book are strictly piece rate wages for the journeyman, wages which were agreed upon "by a committee of employers and journeymen." What I don't know, is what percentage of Philadelphia journeymen and shops abided by these agreements. Historically, in the carpentry trades, guild membership comprised a surprisingly small percentage of all working carpenters in a given area, so I suspect there was a similar pattern among Philadelphia cabinet-makers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

But, we do have a pretty clear idea what happened in the London cabinet trade by the middle of the nineteenth century. At that time, Henry Mayhew undertook a survey of conditions and trends in various London trades, including cabinetmakers. He reports there were 5,208 cabinetmakers (including fancy cabinet-makers, chair-makers and bedstead-makers) working in London, of which only 642 were "Society men." Interestingly, Mayhew refers to the shops and journeymen who belonged to the society and abided by its rules, as the "honorable" side of the trade, while he grimly outlines the miserable conditions of the non-society garret masters who are at the mercy of the "slaughter-houses" (furniture warehouses, where the buyers pitted the garret masters against each other and ruthlessly cut prices paid for work to the point they were unsustainable). I'm not sure what honor there is in such misery.

As to the effect of such "price fixing" on the customers, that doesn't seem to be so clear-cut either. For example, as in the London example portrayed by Henry Mayhew, it is clear that customers had cheaper alternatives if they so chose. And I suspect that was true well before 1850. Additionally, it isn't clear that such price/wage agreements necessarily led to artificially high prices for the customer. I don't have an example from cabinet work, but can provide one from another area of work.

In Sheffield, the edge tool manufacturers met as early as 1824 to set prices and discounts on a very wide variety such wares  made in Sheffield. In part, it is clear that this was done to avoid the type of "competition" exhibited by the London  furniture "slaughter-houses" in an effort to maintain the long-term viability of the numerous Sheffield firms. One might expect this to consistently lead to higher than necessary prices, but a quick comparison of Sheffield and American firmer gouges in the 1873 J. B. Shannon (Philadelphia) catalogue casts some doubt on this. The (Sheffield) "Wm. Butcher & Isaac Greaves' Celebrated Firmer Gouges" in that catalogue consistently run slightly less expensive than comparable ones from the Buck Brothers not so far up the road. The price fixing in Sheffield would have led me to expect otherwise, but, apparently, there was some economy in long-term viability and, possibly, economies of scale. I realize this is just one example, but I think it clearly demonstrates that these issues aren't quite as black and white as some would like them to be.

Don McConnell
Eureka Springs, AR

[Adam Cherubini]

Don,

One thing that confused me that maybe you can clear up is the term "societies" used in Kirtley's intro.  Check out page 15.  Here's the salient quote for those of you have haven't yet received your copy (pretty sure they had these in the Wallace Dewitt museum book store last year, BTW):

"Access to the price books printed in the 1790's was limited to paying members of the craftsmen's societies, a practice that likely originated with earlier manuscript price lists and certainly applied to the 1772 printed version.    Fines were imposed if a master or journeyman disclosed to outsiders specific price information, or perhaps existance of document itself."

"Through control of the market over time, the community of craftsmen hoped to motivate non-member masters and journeymen to join their respective organizations,..."

Here's the question: What societies are we talking about?  I always thought the joiners/cabinetmakers guild never really took hold in colonial Philadelphia.  I know there was a carpenter's guild (it's called the Carpenter's Company, it still exists and it's members are politicians and architects).  I've never seen reference to a cabinetmakers or chair maker's society.  What can you tell me?

Adam

[Adam Cherubini]

Some gossip about the price book:  Rumor has it, upon receipt of his copy, Mack Headley called the museum to ask about this quote:

"Journeymen commonly earned between 15 and 25 shillings for a day's work."   "A bureau table with a prospect door and square corners, for example, probably took a little over two days to make; add quarter columns to the order and the journeyman would have worked almost three days on the case piece."

Phillip Zimmerman wrote in "The Magazine Antiques" that a "bureau table" was a term used to describe something like a block front desk.  It was a table with two vertical banks of drawers.  Rumor has it Kirtley defended the rate but I never heard what the source was.  So many sources point to journeymen in Philadelphia earning about 5s/ day, and that common laborers may have earned 15-25s/week.  The 15-25s per day figure makes most pieces seem impossible to build.  A chair with plain (cabriole) feet and solid splat is listed at 9s in labor.  Using Kirtley's rate, this was about 6 hours work.  A the 5s rate, it's still a tremendous undertaking, with the journeyman earning less than 2 days' pay for the chair.

I doubt Mrs. Kirtley is reading along here.  If she is, my intention is not to publicly chastise her for what appears to me to be an error.  I don't think it's a typo as she offered the example of the bureau table.  This suggest to me that she had some data from somewhere.  As a graduate of Winterthur's master's program in American Decorative Arts one would think she would raise an eyebrow if her research led to the conclusion that a large case could be built in two days.  That she didn't tells me she trusted her data.

I find it interesting that there is sufficient doubt on these basic sorts of questions.  Mack Headley didn't just dismiss this.  He went looking for sources and data.  And you know somebody proof read the Price Book introduction.  For my part, I just think this is all the more reason for folks like us to read it, and think about it, with our unique (slightly freakish) skills and experiences. 

Even with the 5s/day figure, how much of the stuff in the price book could we build in the time allotted?  By hand?  By machine?  Are the chairs the bigger problem?  I always think chairs are harder to build with machines, i.e. machines provide less increase in efficiency.   Do the numbers even make sense?  Were the journeymen just getting hosed on some pieces?  Did the economies of scale kick in, knowing the chair jobs were 8, 10 or 12 chairs?

It seems to me that there are significant questions to be answered and I think they are all fun to think about.  As Mike says, we may never know all the answers.  For me that's aprt of the fun of this type of thing. 

Adam

[klkirkman]

I want to add to Adams observations about the relative amount of time "allowed"  to make a piece in the old price book.

In an earlier life I was in responsible charge of a relatively large wood shop that made scale models of ships to be used for towing experiments that were about 24-feet long and glued up of lifts of 8/4 sugar pine and the hull carved to shape with templates.

Productivity was always an issue as we competed against non US towing tanks for the work , and so we spent a lot of effort understanding what steps took how many hours.

The mosy overwhelminmg conclusion I was able to obtain, using actual return manhours from pre-war experiences at other tanks was how much harder journeyman woodworkers must have worked in 1940 compared to 1970; the actual return figures were a fraction of what we were experiencing.

When we pressed this issue a little further, there were great differences in the quality control of the work in earlier times; items were made then to standards of dimensional tolerance that we would not have accepted.

We seem to hear similar things about the quality of early furniture pieces.

Karl

[kirtley]

Dear SAPFM bloggers:

Mrs. Kirtley, here...Yes, I am reading along, Adam!  In reference to your late "gossip", yes, "the rumour" is not a secret that Mack Headley and Jay Gainor contacted me in 2005 and I photocopied and sent them my source for evaluating the daily wage paid to a journeyman soon thereafter.  Their belief was that since Williamsburg was paying between 1.5 to 2.0 shillings per day, then wasn't Philadelphia's rate to be the same or close?  However, as I understand and explained it, in colonial times, the bills of exchange by which currency was valued were linked to the rate of exchange with London.  Philadelphia's trade with London was much more active than Williamsburg's, and thus, the value of the pound/shilling/pence was also drastically different and in fact flucuated frequently.

Indeed, in my days as a student at Winterthur, we read a great deal about the economies of colonial American and how it affected commerce in manufactured goods. (I was fortunate to take Charlie Hummel's celebrated Craftsmanship course).  For the estimate about daily wages, the source I used and sent to Mack and Jay was extracted from the conventional published source for this material.  Here in my home office, I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the author (an economist), but I can visualize it on the shelf in the Winterthur library!!  If I can, I will run by Winterthur and fetch it on Friday.  Anyway, this book (title, author to be disclosed later) certainly provides a much more accurate scale for that volatile period in our history than any online valuator I have found and I used it, a well-known and tried and true source.  I also recall that, if using the Williamsburg scale, some of the chairs and the simplest of tall clock cases would have taken tens of days to make.  I stand by my assertion that Philadelphia journymen cabinetmakers circa 1772 were paid on a significantly different scale than in Williamsburg.  I may be off by a few shillings, but, as this conversation confirms, it is a discussion that my introductory essay brought into a forum like this and--exactly four years after I wrote it--is still fueling comments. There is much more research and discussion to be done and, in time, a more comprehensive exhibition on 18th century cabinetmaking in Philadelphia should be in store.           

I welcomed Mack and Jay's phone call and our subsequent discussion in 2005.  Such constructive commentary and discussion is always a goal.  As many of you have mentioned, there are many questions about the book's use, etc that we may never answer.  I am fortunate to have fine and wise colleagues in the furniture conservation lab at the PMA and I bounce questions off of them frequently.  I believe that craft shop life varied and that there was simply not one way to set up a shop or one way to use the price book.  I believe we simply cannot recreate the situations where apprentices began at young ages and worked long hours (10 to 12 hour days) for many years.  For the "Queen Anne" armchair Adam references: first of all, I think there were no compass seats delineated in the Price Book.  Secondly, is it also not possible that certain elements, types of furniture were not conventionally relegated to journeymen who worked for lower wages?  Like with carved details, where elements closer to the eye received the hand of the master and the treatment of the knees is less accomplished?

In reading account books through the years (i.e. master carpenter Thomas Nevell's and Benjamin Randolph's), one knows that this society was also a barter economy.  Nevell was paid to build Randolph's house through a series of payments made in lumber and manufactured furniture (tea tables and chairs and dining tables) among other things.  That known fact raises yet another question about the actual use of the Philadelphia Price Book.  Was it simply a benchmark?  Will we ever know?

In reference to the comments about the exhibition, as stated in the intro panel in the gallery, the exhibition was an experimental installation focused around displaying the document (for the first time ever) and using the furniture collection to bring the words to life.  It was not aimed at furniture makers like you, but rather at acquainting visitors (mostly furniture novices) to the book's existence and use and explaining some of the terminology, which is cryptic to most.  The editorial and graphics team I worked with would constantly comment on my texts "explain this" or "what does this mean."  As the curator, I hoped to open up the idea of furniture as an art, to broaden visitor's knowledge and appreciation of the 18th century Philadelphia furnture making tradition.  I hope for those of you who saw the exhibition, you enjoyed it even if just for the fact that 18th century furniture making received major billing in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's galleries.

Also, for the query regarding the use of the word "society" for the 1790s Phila cabinetmaker's groups, the best secondary source read on this is Montgomery (1966), pages 19 to 26 (and mostly pages 22 and 23).

Happy 2009.

Alexandra Kirtley

[Adam Cherubini]

For those of you reading along.  Alexandra Kirtley (posted above) wrote the introduction to the Price Book (published by the Philadelphia Museum of Art), is a Winterthur trained curator, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art curator responsible for the price book exhibit. 

Mrs. Kirtley,

I think the reason why this is still of interest is precisely because this issue has not been resolved.  For a person like me, trying to recreate 18th c style work using 18th c style tools, this is probably the most important, ... what would you call it, controversy? out there.  This is an important topic.  And whether this will come as comfort or not I don't know, but generations of american furniture makers are going to "stand your your shoulders" on this issue 

If we go forward with the assumption that these guys could build a formal chair frame in 6 hours or a block front in 2 days, or a secretary (winged desk) in 4 or 5, we need to rethink everything we think we know about hand tools, shop practices, and small manufacturing.  I can't speak for everyone else; I guess I'm really struggling with how colonial craftsmen, working without electricity, could build significantly faster than Norm Abrams. 

At 5s/day, the rate Nevell billed MacPherson, for journeyman carpenters, the chair would be a 2 day job which is still really fast but believable.  I think Nevell billed 8s/day for his labor.  I heard (but have not seen) Martin Jugiez charged 10s/day. 

Understanding that, as Mike said, this will never be settled, we're just not going to know all that we want to know about this period in general, I think it would be great if you could send us your source for the 15-25s figure, but more importantly, if you could give us some sense of why you felt that was the correct source.  Like I wrote previously,  I'm sure you saw plenty of sources suggesting 5s was the rate but you chose not to use them for some reason.  In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter that folks agree with you or not.  What is important is that folks understand the issue and its significance.  This will allow us to interpret furniture and our work with a greater degree of fidelity. 

Thanks again for the post.

Adam

   

[Mark Arnold]

Alexandra,

Thank you for taking the opportunity to share the goals behind the pricebook exhibition and to correct some misunderstandings about wages and prices. I have always heard that making such comparisons from colony to colony, even from the same period, is not as simple as it would seem. I will be interested to learn the source you referenced.

I find the idea behind a price book to be a bit perplexing, however, especially if not every shop signed on to the agreed prices. If I understand correctly, shop owners were attempting to stabilize a variable (rate paid to journeymen) that fluctuated greatly.  Couldn't the existence of such a book prove to be counter-productive as it may stem the flow of fresh, cheap(?) labor, thereby reinforcing the value of existing labor. In other words, the pie would have to be shared with fewer workers. 

It sounds like there was no 18th century cabinet-maker's cartel, so if some shops refused to sign on to the pricing schedule then it all falls apart.  Its existence would be more a tool of psychological warfare than a binding agreement with any teeth.

From a business viewpoint, I can see a price book being a good point of negotiation with a customer, similar to the manufacturer's suggested retail (MSR) prices used today. No one pays full MSR, but it is a way for manufacturers and retailers to give perceived value to the customer and have some room for negotiating without risking a loss. The customer never sees how the MSR is derived.

[Adam Cherubini]

"I find the idea behind a price book to be a bit perplexing, however, especially if not every shop signed on to the agreed prices." 

I don't think we know how many shops signed on or the consequences for not being a member.  Typically, cabinetmakers (in London, say) who were not members of a Guild would not be permitted to operate within the Guild's sphere of influence.  We know about legal actions through (English) court records.  What I don't know is about the levels of intimidation, violence or property damage that resulted.  That may have happened in the colonies.  If so, it may may have been mentioned in the Pennsylvania Gazette.

"If I understand correctly, shop owners were attempting to stabilize a variable (rate paid to journeymen) that fluctuated greatly." 

I didn't read that.  The price book never mentions a rate.  That's what part of this thread is about.  And just to be clear, the question isn't what journeymen in Philadelphia got paid.  We know in some specificity what they got paid because we have primary source documents that tell us.  No, the question is what was the daily rate the author(s) of the price book had in mind in 1772 when they wrote it.  I'm guessing Alexandra has some insight about that.

What the price book does is fix the cost of labor (not the rate) associated with specific pieces.  My guess is they weren't fixing a variable labor rate, but rather codifying the lowest possible cost to be paid a journeyman for a set amount of work.  Using the rate we THINK journeymen got paid will tell us how long the authors of the Price Book felt these jobs took (a good craftsmen, working hard).  This is not the same as saying this is how long they really took.  Just like the Chilton Guide. 

"Couldn't the existence of such a book prove to be counter-productive as it may stem the flow of fresh, cheap(?) labor, thereby reinforcing the value of existing labor. In other words, the pie would have to be shared with fewer workers."

Not sure I followed the first part, but the second part is the goal of every union in existence.  They seek to limit access to the market through licensing or membership requirements to keep wages high and limit competition.  Folks usually think of the blue collar unions like the UAW recently in the news.  But doctors have a union (AMA) as do teachers (EAA) and other white collar workers.  (And if you feel strongly about unions one way or another chances are you don't understand them fully.)  Pretty sure Alexandra mentions fines associated with hiring non-represented workers???

I think the size of this book is also suggestive.  This was dirty pool, not shared with customers.

Adam