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Virginia, Maryland jobless rates fell below national average

By Jeff Clabaugh

Both Virginia’s and Maryland’s unemployment rates fell below the national unemployment rate in January of 4 percent.

Virginia’s statewide unemployment rate in January was 2.8 percent, and Maryland’s unemployment rate was 3.7 percent.

On March 8, the Labor Department reported the nation’s unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent in February. It will report February unemployment numbers for states later this month.

Maryland also added 3,100 jobs from December to January, while Virginia added 23,700 in that same one-month time frame.

Iowa and New Hampshire tied for lowest state unemployment rate in January, at 2.4 percent.

Alaska had the highest state unemployment rate in January, at 6.5 percent.

America 250: How people ordered their ready-to-assemble homes from a catalog

By Linh Bui
For decades, Americans could browse a catalog, choose a home and order it by mail. Sears, Roebuck and Company was a prominent manufacturer of mail-order homes. The company sold about 70,000 to 75,000 homes from 1908 to 1940, according to the Sears Archives. Its catalogs offered more than 400 different house styles and the listed prices could range from around $200 to $6,000. Customers even had the option of designing their own home and submitting the blueprint to Sears.
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