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Notes about this site
Now that we are in the 21st Century,
it might be fun to look back
at the beginning of the last century
and see what it was like.
The average life expectancy in the United States was 47.
Only 14% of the homes in the United States had a bathtub.
Only 8% of the homes had a telephone.
There were only 8,000 cars in the US and 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 twenty-first most populous State in the Union.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel
Tower.
The average wage in the US was twenty-two cents an hour. The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, dentist $2500 per year,
a veterinarian between $1500 and $4000 per year and a mechanical engineer about $5000 per year.
Sugar cost 4¢ a pound. Eggs were 14¢ a dozen. Coffee
cost 15¢ a pound.
A three minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11.00.
More than 95% of all births in the United States took place at
home.
Ninety percent of all US physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press
and by the government as "substandard."
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, either as travelers or immigrants.
The 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.
Drive-by-shootings -- in which teenage boys galloped down the street on horses
and started randomly shooting at houses, carriages, or anything else that caught their fancy -- were an ongoing problem in Denver and other cities in the
West.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was 30. The remote desert community was inhabited by only a handful of ranchers and their families.
Plutonium, insulin, and antibiotics hadn't been discovered yet.
Scotch tape, crossword puzzles, canned beer and iced tea hadn't been invented.
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
One in ten US adults couldn't read or write. Only 6% of all
Americans had graduated from 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 is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
Coca-Cola contained cocaine instead of caffeine.
Punch card data processing had recently been developed, and early predecessors of the modern computer were used for the first time by the government to help compile the census.
Eighteen percent of households in the United States had at least one full-time servant or domestic.
Can we even imagine what life will be like in 2100?
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