The Gender Pay Gap a Hundred Years Ago

As 2019 draws to a close, Gossips continues to explore the Columbia Republican from the penultimate day of 1919. Today, I discovered this ad for one of Hudson's banks. In 2019, we talk about a gender pay gap. Women are paid somewhere between 78 and 82 percent of what men are paid. In 1919, it was universally accepted that men earned most of the money, but women also had a role in household finances.

Hudson River Trust Company, established in 1830 and able to claim in 1919 that it was the oldest bank in Columbia County, started out in this building at 231 Warren Street. 

In 1869, the bank's original building was demolished to make way for "a more magnificent structure." That building, which became the Elks Lodge before it was demolished in 1936, is shown below.

In 1919, when the ad that inspired this post appeared in the Columbia Republican, Hudson River Trust Company had been located for twelve years in its new building at 520 Warren Street--the building that is now City Hall.

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