Challenge 1031 Response discusses...

Dora’s Earnings

with Gary Inbinder

In Gary Inbinder’s Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland: Max gives Dora twenty dollars before knocking her out. Remember that the year is 1910. What would be the equivalent sum today?

I think the best way to answer this is to start with the average wage for a working woman in 1910. Based on some online research I found that in the USA, the average weekly wage for a working woman in 1905 was about $6.00. The average weekly wage for all workers similarly situated to Dora (factory workers, domestics, laborers), male and female, in 1910 was about $9.00 ($468 per year). So my best guess is that Dora’s $20 was about 3 weeks’ wages with the equivalent purchasing power

Max is no cheapskate and, unlike Philip Marlowe, his detective agency is prospering, especially following the big fees he earned at Phantom Point.