What Life Was Like In 1906

[katlnhats]

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 $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 US took place at HOME .

Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND 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 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 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.

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 ! USA

Now I forwarded this from someone else without typing it myself, and sent it to you and others all over the United States, possibly the world, in a matter of seconds!

Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.

[firetiger888]

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

Interesting. I would have never imagined wimen washing their hair once a month.

[lookin4delz]

Diarrhea 3rd leading cause of death! I wouldn't have guessed that!

[whitequeen96]

There was a great show on PBS called "The 1900 House", and you can get the video. All the lovely ideas we have of "a slower, gentler time, where people had more time for their families, and didn't live with so many chemicals, but more naturally" are really blown away by this show. It's a reality show, and a family actually lives in London as was done in those days. The English form of OSHA almost didn't allow this show to be made because of all the toxins in the house; lead, arsenic, coal dust, etc.! And there was so much work that the mother and 2 teenage daughters couldn't keep up with it and had to hire a servant (who almost quit, as the work was just so hard)! Heating water, keeping the furnace going, cooking, keeping up with all the dust bunnies that formed; the work was overwhelming. And this was in a "modern" house! People died younger because they worked so hard and because they were exposed to so many poisons in the air, plus the reasons listed above. It certainly made me give up any ideas I had about longing for the "good old days!"

[Kipcc]

Two out of every 10 US adults couldn't read or write.

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE ! USA

Those two especially make me wonder what year 2106 will be like. If it keeps up, everyone will be a genius, and the crime will be insane. Scary, no?

[momto3taters]

almost reminds me of what my grandma told me about when she was a kid during the depression. They had a farm, and went to town twice a year. She told me they didn't know there was a depression cause they were so poor it didn't matter in the first place.

[Kygal2003]

8o That is so interesting...thanks for sharing it.

[tlspiegel -Closed]

Awesome. Thanks for sharing!

[katlnhats]

Those two especially make me wonder what year 2106 will be like. If it keeps up, everyone will be a genius, and the crime will be insane. Scary, no?

Hi Kippy,

Yes, it's that last one that really makes you think. Crime is up right now and that other hundred years from the time of that post, isn't too far away. If it keeps up, we'll probably have a high school graduation rate of 99% or so, and genius's are tested and are that way from birth, unless they find an artificial way to produce genius's, which would be REALLY weird, and I'm trying to imagine crime more insane than it is, especially in the citys!

Kat ;)

[katlnhats]

almost reminds me of what my grandma told me about when she was a kid during the depression. They had a farm, and went to town twice a year. She told me they didn't know there was a depression cause they were so poor it didn't matter in the first place.

Hi,

Yea, isn't that something? My grandma and grandpa, both came over here, one at the age of 9 (gram) and the other 11 (grandpa), sent over by themselves, by their respective familys as all they'd heard about America was that you could make money and they weren't doing so good where they came from... and they saved up, all the relatives and sent them each over here (they met long after they got here), and were told to work and send money home, and sooner or later they'd have PLENTY of money and then they could come back home. Well... that never happened, they got jobs in factorys, remember, no child labor laws back then, made practically nothing, and found places to stay, a room in someone's house.
Neither one spoke English when they got here, but both knew how to work hard. They both learned English, on their own, nobody teaching them and no schools of course, they had to work lots of hours, and hardly ever had even a nickel to send back home.
They not only learned to speak English, after awhile they could read and write in it also. Kinda cool when you think of all the people that couldn't care less about schooling today. They both did, they wanted to fit in with their new country. When they met, they courted, lol, fell in love and got married, had many children, and my teeny grandmother was shorter than me, UNDER 4feet, 9inches! And she had all her kids right at home, except one. She lost 3, one set of twins in birth as they were just too small and another boy when he was about 2 weeks old.
They went through the depression and I doubt, knew it - as I've talked to my Aunt and she always says that they never knew that they were poor, they were like everyone else! They didn't have any games or things like that so they made up their own. (not so bad, that.)
They had a home w/no hot water, so they did have to heat it and no heat upstairs as they heated the downstairs w/a stove!
My grandparents never drove, either one of them, so never had a car, when you wanted to go somewhere, or HAD to, you walked. That included the local grocery, or Dr.'s no matter how sick you were. And for the kids, there weren't buses for school, they walked about a mile and a half each way, in all kinds of weather, and no matter what, you did NOT miss school and all of them, loved it.
They, the girls, there ended up to be only one boy, and he died young, had each two dresses, which they alternated every other day. My grandmother made them all and never used or had a pattern, or a sewing machine.
To keep warm in the winter, upstairs while sleeping, first all the kids each slept w/another sister, the brother didn't, so they all took hot bricks from the stove wrapped in cloths to bed to help them not freeze during the night.
Grandma washed all her clothes by hand (I usually do too), and hung them out to dry, for the entire family and baked her own bread... nobody could afford a "store bought" loaf! Soo... I loved to hear her tell of "The Old Country" where she'd come from, Poland and my Grandpa's "Old Country", Lythuania, and neither one ever got back home to see their relatives. Ever.

And my 85 year old Aunt can tell some great storys about growing up in that time, with the sisters and things they used to do, I love to hear things she can tell me too. She insists that they really didn't know how poor they were. I believe her as my Mom used to say the same thing.

My grandfather never did get a good job, what he did all day, every day, was walk from home to the larger houses and ask if there was any kind of work that he could do for pay - sometimes the pay would be in a chicken, sometimes a little bit of money. But he took whatever he was given. And supported his family the best he could -- if there really wasn't any money, Gram would take whichever children were still too young to go to school with her and go off and work for awhile in someone else's fields, the older kids watched the babys. They had an amazingly hard life, but never ever, did I ONCE hear them complain.

Kat ;)

[katlnhats]

Diarrhea 3rd leading cause of death! I wouldn't have guessed that!


Hi,

Unless they, like my grandparents, knew the old home remedys and believe me, if they came at you with something to drink, RUN! - there was really no treatment. So, people died of dehydration. And many other things that today would not be any big deal. Sad, huh?

Kat

[katlnhats]

Kygal and Toby,

You're welcome and since my grandparents were here in 1906, reading that didn't seem too weird to me. But it would to a lot of people. My grandparents third son, the one who died when he was a couple weeks old? It was from one of my grandpa's jobs, the man paid him in milk and it was from a different cow than the one he usually got paid from - something about the difference in the milk killed him. That wouldn't happen today.

On the other hand, my Dad had awful memorys of the depression! They sure noticed it and they were also poor. But being poorer again, with the depression I guess made a big difference in the lifestyle that they really didn't have much of to begin with.

Kat

[Floridamom]

The rate of pay back then amazes me, as well as the three minute phone call being eleven dollars. And Canada not letting poor people in? I wonder how that would go over now.

Thanks, kat, for the interesting post.

[sunlover5]

:) Interesting post, kat.

Converting some of those figures (using the Consumer Price Index) to see what the cost would be in today's dollars...

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars. ($237.93 today)

The average wage in the US was 22 cents per hour. ($4.76 per hour today)

The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year. ($4,325.93 - $8,651.85 per year today)

[katlnhats]

:) Interesting post, kat.

Converting some of those figures (using the Consumer Price Index) to see what the cost would be in today's dollars...

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars. ($237.93 today)

The average wage in the US was 22 cents per hour. ($4.76 per hour today)

The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year. ($4,325.93 - $8,651.85 per year today)

That's cool, but keeping in mind that most everyone didn't have a phone, much less make enough PER YEAR to call anywhere or know anyone to call there, it kind of makes sense.
Also the wages were for the field workers, of which there were lots. But listening to people who lived it, it wasn't so bad, or most of them really have great storys to tell you about it, and if you've never had a phone, you won't miss it. Same with lots of things back then..........

Kat ;)