Arts and ChartsMain MenuIntroductionAn Age of PanicsNineteenth Century TrackAn Age of EconomicsTwentieth Century TrackGalleryCreditsDaniel Platt and Rachel Knecht3ebb098c099a4564606054ddd3beb814ce8f359d
Workman's Account Book
12017-02-10T10:06:39-08:00Daniel Platt and Rachel Knecht3ebb098c099a4564606054ddd3beb814ce8f359d118621plain2017-02-10T10:06:40-08:00Daniel Platt and Rachel Knecht3ebb098c099a4564606054ddd3beb814ce8f359d
To manage their daily economic lives, many Americans relied on account books that they kept to document the many transactions that added up to a successful or struggling livelihood. These ledgers, which were increasingly mass produced in the antebellum period, featured rows and rows of sales and expenditures, each of which were tallied at the bottom of each page. Double-entry ledgers modified this basic model by recording each exchange as both a liability and an asset, lending potentially erratic businesses an aura of stability and balance. Account books also helped employers manage their employees. This pre-printed account book from 1828 shows columns for a six-day work week, suggesting that some of these mass-produced items helped shaped what aspects of economic life were normal.
12017-07-20T10:58:47-07:00An Age of Panics1plain2017-07-20T10:58:47-07:00
