100 Years

[Loretta Ann]

THE YEAR 1904

Maybe this will boggle your mind, I know it did mine!

The year is 1904, one hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!

Here are some of the U.S. statistics for 1904:

The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven
dollars.

There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of
paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily
populated than California.

With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the 21st
most populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents an hour.

The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,

a dentist $2,500 per year,

a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and

a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at
home.

Ninety percent of all U.S. physicians had no college education.
Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were
condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax
or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the
country for any reason.

The five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:

1. Pneumonia and influenza

2. Tuberculosis

3. Diarrhea

4. Heart disease

5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.

Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn't been
admitted to the Union yet.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was 30.

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been
invented.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

Two of 10 U.S. adults couldn't read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the
counter at corner drugstores.

According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion,
gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels,
and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."

Eighteen percent of households in the U.S had at least one full-
time servant or domestic.

There were only about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.

And I forwarded this from someone else without typing it myself,
and sent it to you in a matter of seconds!
Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years ....
it staggers the mind.

Happy New Year,
Love Darlene.

[Kersten Lee]

Darlene,

I am a little bit of a historical nut. History always tends to put current problems into a new perspective for me. Thanks so much for the bump this morning. I will love sharing this with so many. It is quite an eye opener.

Thanks Darlene,

Kersten

[Celia]

Life can change a great deal in 100 years. It can change a great deal in a matter of moments. I've been reminded of this repeatedly (as I'm sure we all have) over the last several days, with all of the coverage of the tsunami disaster. A lush, tropical paradise, to a watery hell, to a moonscape and a mass grave. Our lives can be taken from us so quickly that it's probably a good idea to defer grace until after the first bite. Take nothing for granted.

-Celia

[Beauty]

Hi Darlene,

Wow.. now that's what I call a year.

Thanks for the thread!

Beauty

[Anita]

Yes, Darlene, that's still an eye-opener, whenever I see statistics from that era. My dad was born in 1910, in a rural area, so his first ten or fifteen years he grew up with a lot of the facts you list. His father was one of the first farmers to get a tractor, but dad still remembers the four horses they had when he was a boy. A trip to see relatives 15 miles away was an all-day affair, before they got their model-T.

And my grandparents still had a wall phone that rang whenever anyone on their road got a call. You had a certain number of long and short rings, and that was "your" ring. It was a party line, and every family in the neighborhood could listen to your conversations. You had to crank the phone, (no dial) and a live operator in a little building in the next town would connect you. This 1905 technology was still happening in 1955!

[Terri(SO)]

"Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax
or egg yolks for shampoo." BLEAH!

Oy, Anita! You bring back such memories and make me feel a little old too. When I was a kid, we would regularly spend time in a cabin in Maine which had a party line phone. It also only had no running water (we kids were tasked with carrying the pails to the pump and bringing in the drinking water and we used an outhouse-what an adventure!) Now? I have a great deal of difficulty going without email or IM! So spoiled!

What I really hope we get in my lifetime is transporters. I don't believe as my father used to say - the road trip is more fun than the destination. Beam me up!

The world is a grand and wondrous place.