Calculating Betsy's Worth

There are several ways we can determine how much money Betsy was worth.

Method 1:  Do some research on what has been written on this topic.  With a web search we found the following:

"Sewall's oral examination for the MA was a public affair and was witnessed by Hannah Hull, daughter of colonial merchant and mintmaster John Hull. She was apparently taken by the young man's charms, and pursued him; they were married in February 1676. Her father, whose work as mintmaster had made him quite wealthy, gave the couple £500 in colonial currency as a wedding gift. (Biographer Richard Francis notes that the weight of this amount of specie, 125 pounds (57 kg), may have approximated the bride's weight, giving rise to Nathaniel Hawthorne's legend that the gift was her weight in coins.)[9"

Question: How much was 500 pounds worth in today's economy?  How could you find out?

In a reference about colonial money, we found this quote interesting:  

"It would be nice if we had a simple exchange rate to compare colonial pounds, shillings, and pence with today's dollars and cents. But we don't. Economists and economic historians have tried to make these kinds of calculations, but they disagree -- often wildly.

"fine Holland sheets" were worth 50 shillings (about 2.1 pounds) -- a pair being the top and bottom sheet; pillowcases were extra. A bed stead, meanwhile -- the frame of the bed itself -- cost only 8 shillings  .08 pounds.    https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/value-money-colonial-america

So, depending on what you bought, 500 pounds could be a great sum! Can we know how much in today's money? Not very easily!

Method 2: Find out the normal range of weight of females over time and estimate Betsy's weight. Then determine the weight of a common coin of the time (the Pine Tree Shilling) and determine the number and value.

There isn't any data on the weight of women before this period because this sort of data was considered personal.  

Question:  If Betsy were an average woman, what would she weigh based on this graph?  Suppose she weighed the average recorded in 2010?

Question:  Given that weight, how many coins would have balanced the scales?  If Pine Tree Shillings were used, they weigh 4.7 grams.  If we we say Betsy weighed 166 lbs then that would be 75,296 grams.   How many coins would that be? (Hint, you will need to divide).  

Question:  Our answer was 16,020 Shillings!  That is a lot of coins.  Would that number of coins fit on the Mintmaster's scale?  16,200 shillings would equal 800 pounds (unit of money, not weight) and close to what was reported about her dowry in Method 1.

Method 3.  A more basic away of thinking about the problem. 

Using our information about the action figure, let's think about how we could compare it to Betsy.

 Our action Figure is 12 cm tall.  

To calculate his volume let's consider he is a cylinder.

We can assume she is about 157 cm tall. (5 foot 2)

If she were a cylinder, her radius would be about 50 cm.

Using the same formula

V = 3.14 X  (25 cm X 25 cm ) X 157 cm

V= 308,112 cm cubed

Question:  How many more times in volume than Besty that Hulk?  Or, how many Hulks would fit inside Betsy?  Hint, divide!

Our volume of Hulk was 35 cm cubed. Betsy was 308,112 cm cubed.  If we divide we find that 

8, 803 Hulks would fit inside our Betsy!

Question: How many pennies did Hulk weigh? 20?  So how many would Betsy weigh?

If we do the multiplication, 8,803 Hulks at 20 pennies each, we have 176,000 pennies!

Discussion

So, how much was Betsy worth? Maybe we can never know exactly.  If we did this experiment today we could know exactly, however.  If a 160 pound woman were put on a scale and balanced with, say quarters, here's the calculation:

1 quarter weighs 5.6 grams

160 pound woman is 72,564 grams

72,564/5.6 = 12,957 quarters

12,957 quarters/4 = $3,239

Challenge: Would you be worth more or less money if a different coin was used?

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