[191] Goddard, Where to Emigrate and Why, 247.
[192] Report of the Industrial Commission, XV, 22.
[193] Mattson, The Story of an Emigrant, 29 ff.
[194] Mattson, The Story of an Emigrant, 17.
[195] Ibid., 29. For work on the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad, Mattson received $.75 per day, and paid for board $1.50 a week, but the determination of the real wages, per month, requires a liberal deduction from these day-wages, for the process of acclimatization was severe in such malarial districts as that in which Mattson worked, and few men at first worked more than fifteen or twenty days in the month.
[196] The following tabulation is drawn from the statistics of Dr. Young, Labor in Europe and America, to illustrate the differences of wages. Personal inquiries among men from all parts of Northern Europe confirm in a general way these figures reported from Europe. The European rates are reduced to gold values, while those for the United States are in paper money values, and should be discounted 10% or 12% to put them on a par with the other rates.
| Summer | Winter | |||||
| Experienced agric. laborers, per day | With Board | Without Board | With Board | Without Board | ||
| Sweden, 1873 | $ .66 | $ | $.46 | $ | ||
| Norway, 1873 | .28-.43 | .42-.55 | .21-.31 | .55 | ||
| Denmark, 1872 | .54 | .80 | .40 | .60 | ||
| U.S. (Western), 1870 | 1.34 | 1.84 | .97 | 1.40 | ||
| Minnesota, 1870 | 1.60 | 2.50 | 1.17 | 1.67 | ||
| U.S. (Western), 1874 | 1.15 | 1.58 | .93 | 1.35 | ||
| Minnesota, 1874 | 1.00 | 1.50 | .75 | 1.25 | ||
[197] Ibid.
| Mechanics and skilled laborers, per day | Blacksmiths | Carpenters |
| Sweden, 1873 | $.80 | $.80 |
| Norway, 1873 | .90 | .85 |
| Denmark, 1873 | .85 | .65-.85 |
| U.S. (Western), 1870 & 1874 | 2.88 & 2.66 | 2.98 & 2.72 |
| Minnesota, 1870 & 1874 | 3.03 & 3.00 | 2.92 & 2.50 |
| Domestic servants, female, per month | ||
| Sweden, 1873 | $2.14-8.00 | |
| Norway, 1873 (cooks) | 2.42-3.59 | |
| U.S. (Western), 1870 & 1874 | 9.43 & 9.28 | |
| Minnesota, 1870 | 8.98 |
[198] Personal interviews with a large number of Swedes and Norwegians in northwestern Minnesota, in May, 1890, brought out the fact that many of them worked in the construction of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern railroads, and then invested their savings in railroad lands in the Red River valley, where they were prosperous farmers.