100 Years Ago (in the States)

[wAggie]

Only 14 percent of the homes in the United States had a bathtub.

There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 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 twenty-first most populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

The average wage in the U.S. was twenty-two cents an hour. The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee cost fifteen cents a pound.

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

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.

Plutonium, insulin, and antibiotics hadn't been discovered yet. Scotch tape, crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented.

Some medical authorities warned that professional seam- stresses were apt to become sexually aroused by the steady rhythm of the sewing machine's foot pedals. They recommended slipping bromide - which was thought to diminish sexual desire - into the woman's drinking water.

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 the bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."

Coca-Cola contained cocaine instead of caffeine.

There were about 230 reported murders in the U.S. annually.

[iRONKNiGHT]

The average life expectancy was forty-seven.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

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

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was thirty. The remote desert community was inhabited by only a handful of ranchers and their families.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

[wAggie]

hehehehe

NOW i KNow why they drive so slow in the old movies!!

[melanie]

ah they probably drove so slow because their cars were made by the crappiest of the crap- FORD.

thank god we have holdens, or i would have had to walk everywhere.

[badger]

Unbelievable. In the fifties, my mother could feed a family of five well for 15$ a week. My father was a doctor and sometimes was paid in kind - often fresh fish and venison - this was before Canada established socialized medicine. Our world is not just changing, it's accelerating, one change builds on another. The three biggest influences IMO: mobility - to wit, the car - and to a lesser extent the airplane - (a curse and a blessing), television (and now the Internet) and, still (but maybe not for long), antibiotics.
Frankly, apart from the life expectancy, some of this sound pretty good. I may have been born in the wrong century...

[wAggie]

h3hehehehe, at badger...

I certainly enjoy bathing more than once a month!!

etc, etc, etc .

[glasslass]

FORD - Found On Road Dead!

[lezzpezz]

I'm sorry, I got lost after the fact that canned beer had not yet been invented!! What on earth did they do!! Aaaauuuggghhh!

[Sunkist/Winnie]

Here's two more for you...

FORD - Fix Or Repair Daily

FORD - Four Old Rust Doors