Although 99-cent stores and extra value menus would seem to disagree, a person with only a dollar doesn't have a whole lot of purchasing power these days. If they could time travel backwards to 1900, though, they'd find far more things that used to cost one dollar. While many of the items on display in 1900 were probably quite different from those today, turn-of-the-century grocery stores and catalogs sold lots of goods we still use, but at far cheaper prices.
Local grocery stores, the Sears Roebuck catalog, and general stores (that later evolved into big-box establishments like Wal-Mart) provided shoppers with the items they needed for their daily lives. The first official shopping mall was still a little over 20 years away.
Things that cost a dollar at the turn of the century included food, clothing, and many household items. One could even get a night of entertainment for a single buck. So exactly what could you buy for one dollar in 1900?
Sears Roebuck offered a package deal of 30 bars of laundry soap for 93 cents. Today, a 40-ounce jug of Tide original detergent will cost you about $7. Or, you can spend about $3 or more to wash your clothing at the laundromat.
Treating your sweetheart to some chocolate was expensive back in the 1900s, but it still cost less than $1. One pound of chocolate was about 34 cents. Today, a one-pound Hershey bar (and that's a big bar) will set you back about $20.
When vaudeville theaters started showing films and nickelodeons popped up in the early 1900s, they charged between 5 to 10 cents for a ticket. The average movie ticket price today is $8.61.
People could send postcards and other correspondence via the US Postal Service for an average of 2 cents per stamp. Currently, a First Class postage stamp costs 49 cents, but the design selection is most likely better than the 1900s.
