Roughly 40–45 percent of American disposable income went to food in the late nineteenth century, and poor people spent the highest percentage of their income on subsistence. They could not afford to be picky. Until the 1890s and the growth of refrigeration, the poor had no place to store food, and they had little ready cash. As a result they bought food daily and in small quantities and always paid a premium. With little space to cook in crowded and often stifling apartments and little time after long hours of labor, workers, like workers elsewhere since the beginning of the industrial
...more
