The USA in 1905, interesting e-mail I received

[madokie]

THE YEAR 1905
This will boggle your mind, I know it did mine!
The year is 1905.
One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!
Here are some of the US statistics for the Year 1905 :
The average life expectancy in the US was 47 years.
Only 14 percent of the homes in the US 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 US, 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 people, 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 US was 22 cents per hour.
The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2,000 per year
A dentist $2,500 per year.
A veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year.
A mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the US took place at home
Ninety percent of all US doctors had no college education.
Instead, they attended so-called 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 that prohibited poor people from entering into
their country for any reason.
Five leading causes of death in the US 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 only 30!
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn't been invented
yet.
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day
Two out of every 10 US adults couldn't read or write.
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter
at the local corner drugstores.
Back then pharmacist said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives
buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact,
a perfect guardian of health." (Shocking!)
Eighteen percent of households in the US had at least one full-time
servant or domestic help.
There were about 230 reported murders in the entire US
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 ...

[Selatius]

1. Adjusted for inflation, 3000 then is roughly 65,000 today.

I'm probably in the ballpark, but it's roughly along the average rate of inflation for the 20th century. Inflation...gotta love fractional reserve banking.

[rucky]

2. I want my flying car!

they promised me flying cars

[madokie]

7. I remember popular science mags of the '50s we all would be flying long

before now. I just wished I would have kept all of them. Be so interesting today

[Liberal In Texas]

8. Here we go again...

The Moller Skycar:



Limited numbers are expected to be available within the next three years. These will be used for marketing demonstrators, special sales, and military applications. A FAA certified model is more than four years away. We already have over 100 reservations for the FAA certified models. The timing of the models available to the public will depend on the speed of the government in certifying the vehicle as airworthy. Moller has little or no control in this process.

In limited production (500 units per year) the M400 Skycar will sell for a price comparable to that of a four-passenger high performance helicopter or airplane, approximately $500,000. As the volume of production increases substantially, its price can approach that of a quality automobile ($60,000-$80,000).

http://www.moller.com/skycar/

[baldguy]

15. For as long as I can remember

The Moller Skycar has been "three years away".

[tmooses]

3. It strikes me that cancer is not among the top 5 causes of death. It

shows what a century of industrialization have done to poison our skies, water and food. I guess it's a trade off-life expectancy up by 30 years and we do not have to worry about dying from diarrhea.

[Crazy Guggenheim]

4. People are also living to an age where they get cancer.

[hootinholler]

6. Most cancers strike later in life...

If people were being killed by diarhea, etc by 47, then the cancer rate wouldn't appear. Also I think cancers were often mis-diagnosed.

-Hoot

[Horse with no Name]

10. Exactly

How many people died of "consumption"?
Even though "consumption" is technically tuberculosis, but without any type of fancy diagnostic machinery or blood tests, how many of those cases diagnosed as such were actually lung cancer?

[MrMonk]

9. It strikes me that the average age at death was 47.

Also, causes 1-3 are now under control, and that our understanding of 4 and 5 has greatly increased.
It's fair to argue that, with longer life spans, and the removal of the former leading causes of death, the number of cancer cases would increase.

In 1905, did they know what cancer was?

[madokie]

12. My dad was born in 1897 went to oregon in '03 in a wagon train

came back to ok in '05 passed away in '77. He had a lot of stories about life as it was back then.

[Crazy Guggenheim]

13. Something else is when was the last time you heard of someone

having anemia? Many people died of it back then.

[Auntie Bush]

17. My mother, born in1909, used to ride 8 miles on a donkey to school.

every day. Spent more time on his back than in school. Those were the days...She only died 2 years ago. She lived a good life. I think the people who lived throughout the 1900's saw more change in their lives than anyone before them and probably more than anyone in the future. They went from the horse and buggy days to the moon! I do wish I could come back to earth in a hundred years and see what happened. Maybe there will be nothing to come back to!

[madokie]

18. I'm not sure my dad ever believed the moon landings

he said it looked like the desert to him

[RC]

5. The way things are going, WMD will be

that pile of rocks inside your cave entrance.

[Crazy Guggenheim]

11. They didn't have minimum wage laws back then either.

[Selatius]

14. It's amazing what life was like without PUBLIC HEALTH CARE/EDUCATION

Back then, you had to PAY out of POCKET to finish high school. Nevermind going to college.

I mean, look at some of these numbers. Only 6 percent graduated high school. How many of them even made it completely through college? 20 percent of the population was illiterate. 90 percent of US doctors weren't even college educated.

And the Republicans want to PRIVATIZE AGAIN education and health care in this country. Sure, we never came as far as our European neighbors when it came to better subsidizing our education system with higher standards, paying the way for all college students, or making access to affordable, effective health care a RIGHT ALL AMERICANS DESERVE, but what we do have today is a hell of a lot better than GOING BACK TO THAT.

[starroute]

16. Some of that is misleading

I do genealogy, and I know that most people were not dying around the age of 47. The high childhood mortality rate lowered the average age of death -- but if you could survive through the diphtheria and whooping cough epidemics, you were more likely than not to live into your 60's or 70's or even beyond.

The education figures are also misleading. My grandmother, who was born in 1890, left school after 8th grade to work to help support her family. But the sort of books they were reading back then in 7th and 8th grade -- Dickens and other stuff on that level -- is well beyond what the average high school graduate these days, or even a lot of college students, is capable of tackling.

At one point when I was home schooling my son, we did a comparison of three high school world history books -- one my mother used c. 1930, one I used c. 1960, and the one his school was using c. 1990. The degree of dumbing down over each interval was incredible. More pictures, fewer words, more bald facts, less interpretation.

The only way in which we genuinely seem to have advanced over a century ago is that people now are far more cosmopolitan. Back then, unless you were a pioneer (or a travelling salesman), you were likely to live all your life in one place, marry the girl/boy next door, and die in the same small town where you were born. Getting to the nearest big city was a once-or-twice-in-a-lifetime experience. If you dreamed of a larger world, you did it through reading books or collecting postage stamps or going to the circus to see the exotic animals. And if you were the only oddball in town, heaven help you.

The means of connecting with the world beyond your front porch -- automobiles, telephones, moving pictures -- were only just being introduced. Those things have made the biggest difference between the way we lived then and the way we live now.

But the most dramatic revolution in lifestyle actually took place between about 1905 and 1925 -- and that's the other way in which choosing 1905 as a representative year is misleading. What's significant about 1905 is not that there were so few cars and phones, but they they existed at all and that people were already away of their implications. (Go read George Bernard Shaw's "Man and Superman" for a sense of how at least some people in 1905 perceived themselves as living at a moment of accelerating transition.)

[troubleinwinter]

27. Excellent post.

[Aristus]

19. The facts in the original post are excerpts from a book called

"When My Grandmother Was A Child" by Leigh Rutledge. Portions of it were featured on an episode of "The West Wing" a few years ago. They were so interesting that I picked up a copy of the book on Alibris. Fun reading. :-)

[madokie]

20. killer, and to think that my 'father, was a child then

I still remember when I was just a kid and we had no tv for entertainment so we would build a small fire in the yard, some kind of weeds to keep the mosquito's at bay and listen to mom and dad tell us stories of the way it was in their childhood.

[sasquatch]

21. Oklahoma wasn't a fucking state yet in 1905?!?!?!?

:wow:

[madokie]

25. I'm sorry, you're right it was indian territory

[Berserker]

22. eggs .14 cents a doz.

they have not gone up that much what the hell is with that?

[BiggJawn]

23. In another 100 years....

The average life expectancy in the US will again be 47 years.
Only 14 percent of the homes in the US will have a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes have a land-line a telephone.
A three-minute call from Denver to New York City will cost twenty-one
dollars.
There will be 8,000,000,000 cars in the US, and only 144 gallons of gasoline.
The maximum speed limit in most cities will be 70 mph. Only the Wealthy will have the 500 funtional cars among the 8 trillion.
The tallest structure in the world will be the GW Bush Freedom Tower
The average wage in the US will be 22 cents per hour.
The average US worker will make between $200 and $400 per year
A competent accountant can expect to earn $2,000,000 per year
A dentist $25,000,000 per year. (only accountants and vets will be able to afford their own teeth)
A veterinarian between $150,000 and $400,000 per year.
A mechanical engineer about 5,000 Rupees per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the US will take place at in the street.
Ninety percent of all US doctors will have no college education, since only the doctors to the wealthy will be able to attend IU or John Hopkins.
Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were run by "Granny Wimmen", or they trained in Haiti.
Sugar will cost four dollars a pound.
Eggs will be fourteen bucks a dozen.
Coffee is fifty dollars a pound.
Most people only bathe once a month, and use home-made soap, because Ivory is $50 a bar.
Canada passes a law that prohibits poor people from entering into their country for any reason, thus allieviating "Murkan Flight"..
Seven leading causes of death in the US are:
1. Pneumonia and influenza

2. Tuberculosis

3. Diarrhea

4 Malnutriton

5. Sepsis

6. Scurvy

7. Occupational "accidents"

The GOOD news is that diabetes and other obesity-related illnesses will be rare, except among the wealthy...

The American flag will have the Bush coat of arms.
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea will be outlawed.
There will be no Mother's Day or Father's Day, nor Labor Day. Attendance at Xmas church services will be mandatory, with flogging proscribed for violators.
Eight out of every 10 US adults won't be able read or write.
Only 6 percent of all Americans will have graduated from high school. The Accountant's kids.
Birth Control will be a thing of the past, not because it's not needed, but because it's the death penalty to possess a rubber or a pack of pills.
100 years from now, Pharmacists will dispense Homeopathic remedies and conduct the "Laying on of hands". Viagra will be sold from gumball machines.
Eighty percent of households in the US had at least one person working full-time as an Indentured servant or domestic help.
There will about 23 reported murders in the entire US. But they only keep statistics on the upper 5% income bracket. Rumor has it 600,000 Poor die under "unknown circumstances" ecvery year.

[Poll_Blind]

26. Awesome post! Loved it- scary and too true! n/t

PB

[Crazy Guggenheim]

24. Arizona wasn't a state until February 14, 1912. Barry Goldwater

was born a couple of years before that. So technicaslly he was not born a U.S. citizen and was not eligible to be President.

[upi402]

28. It''l be like it was 100 years ago. The direction we're headed.

:mad:

[kineneb]

29. Grandma was born that year, and Grandpa was 7

I have a photo of Grandma taken when she was several months old, sitting in a fancy baby carrige at the photographer's studio. For Grandpa, plumbing was still an outhouse and transportation to school was by mule. Both did graduate from high school; Grandpa studied at a trade school for a while after WWI, but neither went to college.

A reminder: most children did not graduate from high school because they were needed as labor on the farm or in factories. An 8th grade education was considered sufficent for many.