Eight Dollars a Day. Written & Dedicated to the Congress of the U.S.

Boston, Massachusetts: Olivery Ditson, 1848. Folio, 14 x 10 ½ inches, 5 pp. Slight splitting to covers, contents fine, very good plus overall.. The sheet for the anti-politician polemic “Eight Dollars a Day", which was apparently a crowd favorite at the Hutchinson Family’s performances. The song lambastes the political class and its waste, insinuating, among other things, that the politicians were spending their bloated salary on alcohol: “A flaming speech is made by one when the call is yea or nay, But all are agreed with the question comes of Eight dollars a day.” The song was written in 1848, early in the Hutchinson Family’s period moving toward social activism, and four years after their most famous abolition-themed compositions.[1] Judging by the twelve copies held at libraries, this was probably one of the better selling titles in their repertoire from the time period.

[1] Philip D. Jordan, “The Hutchinson Family in the Story of American Music,” Minnesota History 22, no. 2 (1941): 113–32.