Nerdy History people can learn a lot from the advertisements in early 19th century women's magazines. Unfortunately, while the magazines are easy enough to find online, only a few contain the advertising pages.
This one came from one of those rare copies, the 1807 La Belle Assemblée.
Was this expensive? For some, prohibitively so. To give an idea of the subscription costs:
First, a little background.
Before decimalization—
£1 = 20 shillings
1 guinea = 21 shillings
Using one system of valuation, £1 comes to about £70 in today's money (or about $110).
Looking at value in terms of wages: The highest paid servant in a household, according to The Complete Servant, was "A French Man-Cook." For this position, the authors recommend a salary of 80 guineas (£84) a year. At the other end of the scale, one of the lowest paid in the household, a nursery maid, got 7 guineas/year. And this was in 1825, when wages had risen quite a bit.
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