1904 US factoids (Honey, pick up some heroin on the your way home!)

[rainbow4321]

THE YEAR 1904
The year is 1904 .
One hundred years ago. What a difference a century makes!

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

-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."

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.
-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 US

[Book Lover]

1. I am pleased with every point of progress except

canned beer.

[Political_Junkie]

2. Interesting, where's this from?

[rainbow4321]

3. Got it in an email but I googled and found these:

http://www.pen.k12.va.us/Div/Winchester/jhhs/math/facts/summer5.html

http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=41362

http://taxmama.com/AskTaxMama/275/275mf.html

[Warpy]

4. The low life expectancy was due to childhood deaths

Once you'd survived the illnesses of childhood, you could expect to live to a ripe old age, depending on your genetic load and luck in avoiding accidents. Even tuberculosis killed very slowly.

If you did become ill with any sort of chronic disease like arthritis, you could go to the corner pharmacy and come out with something to use to treat your pain so that you could continue to function in your daily life. Whatever you say about OTC opiates, they did do that for people. They worked without killing them.

Ether and laughing gas had already been discovered, so the earlier problem of being killed off by infected teeth had largely been solved, although the dentists were likelier to knock you out and pull the tooth than they were to repair it. Repairs hadn't progressed very far.

All in all, it wasn't a bad time. Progressives were ascendant, the robber barons hand been thrown out of power and were relegated to muttering in their Newport "cottages," and you could treat whatever pain you were unlucky enough to have.

Once the unions got going, if the Harrison Act had been defeated in 1914, this might have been a very good place to live.

[cestpaspossible]

5. Except for the addiction, heroin is a relatively benign drug.

[claudiajean]

6. Childhood deaths, and death as a complication of childbirth...

...before 1910 and on back through thousands of years of recorded history, 50% (!!) of all deaths of adult women were a direct result of complications stemming from childbirth.


(Me and my childbearin' hips were born too late.)