100 years ago

[Ellie]

Life expectancy....47 yrs.

Only 14% of homes had a bathtub.

Only 8% of homes had a telephone.

There where only 8 thousand cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.

Maximum speed inmost cities was 10mph.

Tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

Average wage was 22 cents an hour.

Average worker made between $2O and $400 a year.

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2,ooo per year,dentist $2,500 per year between, vet between $1,500 and $4,000  per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,ooo per year.

More than 95% of all births took place at home.

Ninety percent of all Drs. had no college education. Instead they attended so called Medical School,many of which were condemned in the press and the government as substandard.

Sugar cost 4 cents a pound.

Coffee 15 cents a pound.

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

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason

Five leading causes of death were...
1. Pneumonia and influenza...2.Tuberculosis......3.Diarrhea....4.Heart Disease....5.Stroke...

The American Flag had 45 stars.

[daywalker]

...and then came the privately-owned "federal" reserve, which led to "inflation" of the American dollar, which led to... Wait a minute... people actually died from "diarrhea"?  Geez, I cannot think of a more painful and humiliating way to die... 


- Daywalker 

[deftarchangel]

Wait a minute... people actually died from "diarrhea"?   Geez, I cannot think of a more painful and humiliating way to die...  


- Daywalker  

On a large scale, I would have to agree.  But have you ever read about some of the winners of the Darwin Awards that have died in the most bizarre and humiliating ways, thanks to their own stupidity?  Some of those stories makes dying by diarrhea seem almost welcome.  

I had to laugh at the Canada bit.  How far we've come in 100 years.  Nowadays, we'll not only let poor people in for any reason.....we'll let anybody in for any reason!  

[Fester]

Ellie,

What is the source of this dribble?
Not passing judgment yet but on the surface it rings of B.S.

Fester

[musicman]

Ellie,

What is the source of this dribble?

Good question!!  Back then they didn't yet have fast food grease joints.  How would people get diarreha (or dribble)?  I guess sanitation was rather bad, and the dribble came from bacteria in the out door crappers.  Believe me, the dribble is a big deal.  It burns.

[Ellie]

These quotes were sent to me in an E.mail.This is Off Topics,is it not?The source of it  comes from a stats. site on the internet.

I guess it is up to us to use discernment even in light hearted comments.

I certainly don,t  intend to deceive or to knowingly lie to anyone.

Dribble and B.S. are not judgments?

Peace to all.....

[hillsbororiver]

Ellie,

What is the source of this dribble?
Not passing judgment yet but on the surface it rings of B.S.

Fester

Hi Fester,

I searched Google using "100 years ago" & "100 years ago America" and if this is B.S. then it is very prevalent B.S. Actually I don't really know what part of it would be so unbelievable.

Here are a few of the many links I found that substantiate Ellie's post;

http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.med.transcription/2004-12/4055.html

http://www.naute.com/stories/100years.phtml

http://www.rense.com/general70/100yrs.htm

Peace,

Joe

[bluzman]

Joe, thanks for the links and to Ellie for bringing up this topic. It's amazing how fast time goes by. Some of you may find this interesting.
My mother's father was born shortly after the end of the American Civil War. My father was born in 1897. He was orphaned at 12.
He was taken under the wing of what we would call today a naturalist, and taught my father many things about nature and how to survive.
Logging and fishing were the only industries there at that time, even less nowadays. At 16 my father started to work in the lumber camps,
and worked two winters in order to buy his first rifle. He fought in France in the First World War. My family started out in a log cabin a good walk from the small town there. A few years before my birth, the house where I was born had been started. We had no indoor plumbing
until I was perhaps 10 or 12, can't remember exactly. I remember my younger sister and I carrying water when August came around. The well would go dry at that time. When the house was being built, my mother was alone most of the time with all the kids in that small log cabin. At that time there was six boys and one girl. One boy died if pneumonia at around age two. my father served in the Vets Guard
during the Second World War. They would escort prisoners from the port of Halifax and take them by train to Northern Ontario and beyond out to the Prairies.
By the time I was born, life for my family was not as hard as during those days. I have six brothers and three sisters. They have all done
well in life and all have grandchildren.
As for me, I guess that I'm the black sheep of the family, who doesn't have any wool.
Bluzsman
P.S. Anyone who contacted tuberculosis was quarantined and and put in special hospital, more secure than some of the prisons are today.

[ez2u]

being a history nut this is all very fascinating to me bluzman how old are you may i ask?

[bluzman]

Hello Peggy
   History has always fascinated me also. I will be 64 this winter.
Ches

[Terry]

Very nice Ellie i also like to know of the things of the old days

Terry

[meee]

              This was neat Ellie, so thanks for posting. Bluzman, I loved hearing about you too!
               Have we all read the thread  " Forum Blues ", it's a very good one and if you haven't, it's a must read!
               Ellie, keep posting kiddo,
                   hugs,meee

[Dave in Tenn]

With recent 40th anniversary of the moon walk, it was a reminder that just over 100 years ago, the Wright Bros made the first controlled air flight.  There are a few people alive today who were alive then.  It's astounding to consider all the changes in the world in the last 100 years, and to remember also that nobody 100 years ago accurately foresaw life today.  For me, it's both inspiring and frightening.   

If I remember the story right, my grandfather bought his first house and lot for 800 dollars, and needed a mortgage to pay it off.  How many people today can peel that out of their wallets?

[bluzman]

It is truly amazing just what our forefathers accomplished.

[Ellie]

Thank you Joe and all..Loved your history  Bluzman.I'm sure many here have interesting stories of their past and ancestors.
  My Grandparents were very slow or reluctant to step into the modern age,So I have memories,when I was tiny, of washing day...the old copper fired up...the blue rinse water...
those heavy old irons heating up on the wood stove for ironing the clothes...all the cooking done on the fuel stove as well....the horse cart still in the shed ...no electricity for ages....the meat safe... and so on.
  My mother thought it was the greatest thing to have her first fridge and that was a kerosene one.
  My Dad tells the story of being out in the paddocks for a walk with his brother.Suddenly they heard a tremendous noise which scared them both back home quick smart.Later they discovered that the noise belonged to a motor bike. They had never seen one before,let alone heard one.....

[gmik]

I read this somewhere...

100 years ago a woman literally "slaved" in the kitchen all day to prepare food.
Today, with all our modern gadgets to make cooking the easiest thing to do in all of history, we don't cook anymore!!


One of my hobbies is genealogy. It is very amazing what has transpired in the last 100 years.  However, people never change that much.  In my 8 lines (grandparents and great grandparents) there are divorces, abandonment, murder, adultery, deception and then bravery, love, charity, commitment, sacrifice, duty, honor.....

[judith collier]

Ellie, loved it! I was born at home and my grandparents were immigrants as was everybody else in Detroit at the time. During prohibition they ran whiskey from Canada back and forth from Detroit. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do! Judy

[hillsbororiver]

Hi Judy,

My grandparents on Mom's side of the family also settled in Detroit, Hamtramck to be exact, they emigrated from what was then called Prussia which is an area that has shifted from being a part of Germany, Poland, Russia at various times in history.

My grandfather and his brother built 2 houses on Harold (it actually doesn't say street, avenue, road, etc. on the sign) and my mother, her two older sisters and her brother were born in that house, only her youngest sister was born in a hospital. We used to visit there every summer (from New York) and the area always had an old world flavor exemplified by vegetable and flower gardens, trees painted white on the trunks and people sitting on their porches drinking cold beverages, eating watermelon, ice cream, etc.

During Prohibition my grandfather, my great uncles and all their friends were no doubt partaking of the illegal spirits but it wouldn't surprise me if they might of had a hand in bringing a bottle or two over the border once or twice. 

My grandmother prayed daily for them at the Catholic church on the corner of Harold & Conant.

Peace,

Joe     

[firefly77]

It is wonderful to read all the stories and history from your families.

I am a first generation immigrant (1976 to be exact). Hippie movement, flower power, love and peace, San Francisco... you get the picture. I went from a very civilized nation (Frankfurt, West-Germany), to living in a barn, 24 miles away from the closest town (Tonasket, WA), without indoor plumbing and running water; we had an outhouse made out of cardboard walls. We also had a barrel stove, cardboard walls, ceiling, and floor, sectioned off inside a huge hay barn.
It was February 10th, 1976... 28 degrees below. Using the outhouse was a very teeth shattering experience . I was never so constipated in my whole life  . A city girl became a "pioneer woman" in no time at all. I had no transportation, my next door neighbor lived 2 miles down a gravel road. I carried water in buckets to our cabin and used an old wood stove to cook on. We had a creek about 10 yards away from our home; during spring and summer I would use my fishing line to get fresh rainbow trout for breakfast. There was this neat little fishing hole which replenished itself every morning with 4 or 5 eight inch trout. I was 24 years of age... lots of dreams, wanting to live on a farm, growing my own vegetables, have dogs, cats, horses, chickens and goats. I learned how to garden, bake bread, make goat cheese, can and freeze food, and essentially live very simply and naturally. The only contact to the outside world was my radio... and snail mail.
I do miss this simple life again and am trying to recapture some of those experiences one more time. However, I would not be able to live without BT, email, and a fast internet connection.

Angie

[judith collier]

Angie I admire your spirit! I would have starved to death and died from never going to the outhouse.
Joe, yes, i know where Hamtramck is, my mother had a Polish girlfriend there and I remembered loving to eat at her house. Was it goulash, can't remember?  Trees being whitewashed from the ground up about 8 ft., I remember my grandfather, when moving to Indiana, where we had a tavern by the lake, and he whitewashed all the trees. I lived on the East side of Detroit, lots of Greeks, Italians, Germans, we were Belgium. What a great childhood, lots of freedom, translating for our parents or grandparents and lying through our teeth to them, confusing situations and then doing what we wanted. And a very devout Catholic grandmother who used to scare the beejeezies out of us with her tales of the devil.  Judy