Can you define the parameters of the class system you speak of please?

One might assume financial status would be one of them, but that would preclude notables such as Harry Pope, Arthur Hubelek, Hubelek's son Arthur Jr., John Kaufman, and other members of the Long Island Rifle Club.

Many shooters arrived on public transportation.

When I was shooting NRA pistol bullseye, we had a saying that "you can't buy points".
None the less, as you say, the top scorers were not generally shooting Ruger MK 1's.
My scores improved when I bought my GSP and again when I installed Bowlers' grips.

The reason for my post was to comment on Dr. Maynard's remark that "Schuetzen was not an activity open to everyone, for a vast host of reasons, and there were vestiges of exclusivity."

Still, I maintain, Schuetzen was an activity open to everyone, it was more popular than baseball.
You don't need to win a match to have fun, many people just compete against themselves. (myself included)

So, as I am unfamiliar with Polo, (and scared of horses from a childhood ride at Frontierland) we might make an analogy to golf.
Many people play, but not everyone is Arnold Palmer. To play on that level is most certainly exclusive.
I think a "cast system" might be a bit of a stretch.
What say you, Dr. Maynard? I'm most interested in your reply.

It took an interest in shooting & schuetzen, sufficient free time, access to discretionary funds, and access to one of the ranges where schuetzen shooting took place.   

Anyone could have an interest.   

Most working people did not have the time.  The average work week was somewhere between 50 and 70+ hours, depending on what the work was & where it was done.  In the Schuetzen era, most Americans lived on the farm, where farming was a dawn (or earlier) to dark, 7 days a week job, with time off for church (after the morning milking was done) if you were lucky.

But shooting in general and particularly schuetzen cost money.  Farm families and those of ordinary workers were big.  4 kids was a small family.  Many families had 10 or 12 kids.  Wages were low, almost non-existent for agricultural workers and only a few $ a day for almost everyone else. Almost no one made $1 an hour. There were many demands for those few $.   The Singer sewing machine was very expensive, and necessary if the family was to be clothed.  That and the piano took up a big chunk of the few discretionary $$.  Food & education & the MD took up most of the rest.

Transportation was horse & buggy or bicycle or streetcar or by regular rail.  Rifle ranges were near streetcar or rail lines and were near main roads.   

The only groups that had time, money and access were the  very wealthy (not many of them, then & now), the professionals (MDs, lawyers, etc) and the successful businessmen (merchants & contractors).  Kids from poor families could become professionals or business successes.  Schuetzen was not a game of a closed class system.  But it demanded access to resources that were unavailable to most Americans.  Just like golf today.

Reasonable to think that you had to be reasonably clever and motivated, which I would think accounts for the number of doctors and other professional people.   That hardly defines the successful shooters as a social class in the English class sense.  Yes, some had money, but so far as I can see they earned it.

waterman wrote on May 22^nd, 2015 at 1:10pm:


A few dollars a day in the late 1800's would have meant you were a very wealthy man! Even those who lived comfortably, did so on incomes of about $2 a day.
There's an excellent report done of various jobs, and how wages changed between 1860-1890 by the National Bureau of Economic Reports. Shows income in 1860 for most skilled trades at around $1.60, and by 1880's at around $2.30 a day. Various farmers, ranch hands, or unskilled labor was all much less.

Rebel wrote on May 22^nd, 2015 at 4:11pm:


Considering Marlin came out with many Schuetzen models of the Ballard in 1876, I would guess it was in response to demand, and not to create demand. Schuetzen started out with percussion rifles, and gunsmiths like George Schalk built far more muzzle loading Schuetzen rifles, than cartridge. Cartridge guns were later in his career.
The info I have for the period 1900-1910 is listed by average hourly wage, and it states 37 cents an hour. So that equates to just under $3 a day, if they worked an 8 hour day. I'd bet most worked more like 10 hour day, so we could easily figure $3 a day.
Figure $60 a month, and no taxes to speak of then. Wonder how many months a guy had to save his "excess" income to buy a rifle?