ABSTRACT
During the early twentieth century working-class families remained family wage economies. The household's need for wages continued to define the work of family members. Membership in a household still meant sharing in the economic support of the family unit as well as "eating from one pot." The family was an economic unit and a unit for purposes of consumption. Among increasing numbers of families, however, the standards of consumption were rising. The goal of working families in the mid-nineteenth century had been to earn enough to subsist. As many family members worked as were necessary to earn a "target income" which would maintain a minimum level of subsistence. By the early twentieth century the higher wages of men particularly and the availability of cheap consumer goods raised the target income of working-class families. Necessities now included not only food and clothing, but also other items that once had been considered luxuries. What we have termed the family consumer economy, then, was a wageearning unit which increasingly emphasized family consumption needs.
