The most likely source of such information would be the Census but I
doubt that the Census would include this information dating that far
back. You could ckeck with the US Census (part of Dept of Commerce) or
National Archives for old Census forms to see if information on family
income is included. I doubt it. Remember America was a very agrarian
economy through the 19th Century and much agriculture was fro personal
consumption rather than sale so measuring family income and comparing
across time would be highly problematic.
You can forget the IRS because although an income tax was imposed
during the Civil War, it was eliminated after the war. The modern
Federal income tax The Sixteenth Amendment was ratified in February of
1913. At just 30 words, it is the briefest Constitutional Amendment
with the exception of the Bill of Rights. It states ?The Congress
shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever
source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and
without regard to any census or enumeration.?
Eight months after it was ratified, President Woodrow Wilson signed
the Underwood-Simmons tariff bill, enacting the first of many income
tax laws to follow. The bill eliminated many of the ?nuisance? taxes
from the Civil War era, and even reduced the original income tax rate.
The new income tax, with a rate of one percent on incomes between
$3,000 and $20,000, less deductions and exemptions, and graduated
surtaxes up to six percent on higher incomes, applied to barely one
percent of the population.
On January 5, 1914, the Department of the Treasury unveiled the new
Form 1040 to the awaiting public. See
http://civilwarstudies.org/articles/Vol_4/incometax.htm
The only other possible was to "estimate" this would be using Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) numbers and total population and some sort of
adjustment factor but getting reliable GDP numbers is probably
unreasonable for way back and the potential for significant errors in
any adjustment would be scary.
finally, if you do find a source, i would treat it with great
skepticism and spend some time to understand how the data were
estimated. |
