Figure 7.18 shows the results for t

Figure 7.18 shows the results for the period since 1916 and Figures 7.19 and 7.20 forthe period back to 1774. Beginning with the two top percentile series, they appear to beinversely U-shaped over the period, with wealth shares increasing slowly between thelate eighteenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries but then much faster between 1860and 1929, when they more than doubled. The long-run pattern of the lower 9% ofthe top wealth decile, however, exhibits stable or even decreasing shares of total wealth(although based on rather few observations). This inequality increase in the absolute topcoincides with the industrialization era in the United States around the mid-nineteenthcentury. Although the few pre-First World War estimates are uncertain, their basic messageis supported by researchers using other sources. For example, Rosenbloom andStutes (2008) also found in their cross-sectional individual analysis of the 1870 census that regions with a relatively high share of its workforce in manufacturing had relatively more unequal wealth distributions (see also Moehling and Steckel, 2001). Another anecdotalpiece of evidence in support for a linkage between industrialization and increased inequality is that the 15 richest Americans in 1915 were industrialists from the oil, steel,and railroad industries and their financiers from the financial sector.105