Modulator

Where We've Been

Lists detailing what it was like somewhere in 19xx or 18xx show up from time to time in varying formats. We might be well served if we clipped and posted one next to our monitors as a reminder of how much things can change and how little someone looking back on 2004 from the future may understand us.

Tyler Cowen provides some excerpts from one version and Michael at 2blowhards provides a variant extracted from an audio Economics course he has listening to.

Read both lists here:

Tyler Cowen's List:

Average life expectancy was 47.

Only 14 percent of homes had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

There were 8,000 cars and just 144 miles of paved roads.

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.

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

90% of all physicians had no college education.

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

The five leading causes of death were: 1. Pneumonia & influenza 2. Tuberculosis 3. Diarrhea 4. Heart disease 5. Stroke

And worst of all,

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was 30.

Michael's list:

# Total U.S. population in 1900 was 76 million people, less than a third the population we have now.

# The U.S. was the wealthiest economy in the world. Per capita income was on a level with Britain and Australia, was twice that of France and Germany, and was quadruple the standard of living in Japan and Mexico.

# Still, most Americans in 1900 were living in what we today would consider poverty. In present-day dollars, per capita American income in 1900 averaged around $5000, less than a fifth the current level. In other words, the typical American in 1900 had about the same income that a typical Mexican has today.

# Only three percent of American homes were lit by electricity.

# Only about a third of American homes had running water; only 15% had flush toilets; and half of farm households didn’t even have an outhouse.

# Most people lived within a mile of where they worked, and depended on their feet to get them around. Only one urban household in five owned a horse.

# Half of all people lived in spaces where they averaged more than one person per room. Taking in lodgers was common.

# Half the population drank alcohol; half didn’t. The half that did averaged two hard drinks and two beers a day; wine consumption was minimal. In Europe, by contrast, people drank twice as much beer, and averaged more than four glasses of wine a day.

# Life expectancy at birth was 47 years, and infant mortality rates were high. Of every 1000 babies born, 140 died in their first year. These days, fewer than 10 do.

# Flu, pneumonia, typhoid, gastritis, and whooping cough were common causes of death.

# 10% of the American population was completely illiterate, and the average adult had an 8th grade education. Only 7% of students would ever complete high school.

# A man’s typical on-the-job work week consisted of 60 hours of work spread over six days. Pensions were rare; men generally worked until they were too feeble to go on doing so. 2/3rds of men over 65 had fulltime jobs.

# Women were 18% of the paid work force. They mainly worked in fields like textiles, apparel, shoes, canning -– fields where you were paid according to how much you produced.

# At home, women spent around 40 hours a week on meal preparation and meal cleanup, seven hours on laundry, and another seven hours on housecleaning. The average housewife baked a half a ton of bread -- about 1400 loaves -- a year.