Background Notes

Although some miners worked independently in the early years, most miners worked for mining companies that paid them for their work. Workers were usually paid in cash. However, sometimes the Upper Peninsula's severe winter weather made it impossible to get the money to the mine to pay the miners. Also, money was scarce during hard times and depressions, including the Panic of 1893. When cash was hard to come by, some mining companies issued their own paper money, called scrip.

The scrip could be used in the company store to buy supplies miners needed for work, such boots or candles. Miners and their families could also buy food and household items with the scrip. Some towns had places where miners could exchange their scrip for U.S. currency for a fee of up to 10% of the amount. The exchanged scrip would then be sold back to the mining company.

Objectives

• Students will describe scrip and its use to pay miners.
• Students will state differences between scrip and legal tender (money).
• Students will describe the necessity of making choices among purchases with a limited amount of funds.

Michigan Social Studies Curriculum Content Standards

This lesson presents an opportunity to address, in part, these standards:

SOC.I.2. Comprehending the Past. All students will understand narratives about major eras of American and world history by identifying the people involved, describing the setting, and sequencing the events.

SOC.IV.4 Economic Systems. All students will explain how a free market economic system works, as well as other economic systems, to coordinate and facilitate the exchange, production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

SOC.IV.5. Trade. All students will describe how trade generates economic development and interdependence and analyze the resulting challenges and benefits for individuals, producers, and government .

Materials Needed

Sample of mining scrip (PDF), catalogs and magazines, paper and markers.

Directions

Show students the sample of mining scrip. Discuss with class its use to pay miners when companies were short of cash money. Compare it to a current $5 bill. Discuss how it differs from legal tender (e.g., appearance, not issued by government, not valid at stores that did not have an agreement with the mining company to reimburse it).

Have students select a name for their own "mining company" and design scrip for it in different denominations. Make copies of the scrip to use in the general store.

Plan a company "general store." The store can be stocked with pictures from catalogs and magazines. Each item should be priced. Use nineteenth century prices (see the list below, the Derks and Emmet references, 19th century newspapers and magazines or other resources).

Arrange students into groups to represent mining families with a miner, wife and children. Pay each "miner" his 1893 week's wages with scrip. For example, a miner making $1.43 per day who worked a week of six days receives $8.58. Each "family" should then make a week's shopping list for food and other items. "Families" then go to the company store and do their "shopping." Students report back with their list of purchases and how they decided on the items for the week. Listed below are items with 1893-1895 prices:

Questions for Discussion or Research

1. Why might the prices of goods be higher in the Keweenaw area than in Detroit?
2. Would it be possible for other family members to earn money? How?
3. What does the following phrase mean: "I owe my soul to the company store."?

At the Michigan Historical Museum

• Look at photos and displays in the "Workforce" area of the "Mining inMichigan" gallery to see clothing worn and furniture used to get an idea of "extras" that mining families could buy after purchase of food and necessities.
• Find the chart of 1893 wages and prices in the "Growth of Manufacturing" gallery. How do miners' wages compare to wages of workers in the other industries listed there? How many day's wages would the miner need to buy a blanket? a pair of shoes? a bicycle?

Vocabulary

• Company store: A store founded and operated by the mining company. It would accept the miners' scrip in payment for purchases.
• Scrip: Paper currency issued by mining and other companies instead of cash. It was generally spent in the company store.
• Wages: That which is paid for work or services.

References

• Derks, Scott (Editor) (1994). The Value of a Dollar: Prices and Incomes in the United States, 1860-1989. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc.
• Emmet, Boris (1969). Montgomery Ward Catalog No. 57, Spring and Summer 1895 (reprint). NY: Dover Publications.
• Stapler, Harry (1985). Pioneers of Forest and City, A History of Michigan for Young People. Lansing, MI: Michigan Department of State, Bureau of History (Chapter 10).

Michigan Historical Center, Department of History, Arts and Libraries
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