The 'Egalitarian Ideal' and the distribution of wealth in the northern agricultural community

Most previous studies of the distribution of wealth during the nineteenth century have focussed either upon the slave South or the urban North. This paper on the other hand examines the distribution of wealth in 102 rural townships in sixteen northern states. The sample covers 21,118 rural households and is representative of twenty northern states. Wealth was found to be more evenly distributed in the rural North than in either the urban North or slave South. Despite this, the distribution of wealth was far from egalitarian and levels of wealth were found to be heavily dependent upon age, sex, race, education, occupation and birthplace.