By European standards, wage rates, even for unskilled men, were enormous.
From about 1815 what struck Europeans most was the size and luxury of American hotels. The first luxury hotel was Barnham's City Hotel in the boom town of Baltimore, built 1825-6, which had no fewer than 200 bedrooms, twice as big as the largest in Europe. The Continental in Philadelphia (1858), which housed 800-900 people in suites, doubles, and singles, struck a new high in size and luxury (Europe's largest was then the Queen's, Cheltenham, 'the Grandest Hotel in Europe,' with 110 rooms).
What all observers recorded was the absence of begging. As one of them put it in 1839: 'During two years spent in traveling through every part of the Union, I have only once been asked for alms.' To Europeans, that seemed incredible, the real proof of a benevolent prosperity.
Philadelphia was ahead with piped water, getting it in 1799. By 1822 the Fairmount Waterworks had brought piped water to the entire city. This was amazing by the standards in Europe. Philadelphia created the largest urban park in the world. At this stage, most municipal services, public and private were, by world standards, go-ahead.
Open competition was driving down prices relentlessly: thus the first penny newspaper dates from 1840, an amazing price by European standards at that time.'
'Open the doors of opportunity to talent and virtue and they do themselves justice; property will not be in bad hands. In a free and just commonwealth, property rushes from the idle and imbecile to the industrious, brave and persevering.' (Ralph Waldo Emerson).
'Every man is a consumer and ought to be a producer.' United States was a nation which pursued moral improvement with enthusiasm. (Ralph Waldo Emerson).
