Beekeeping Forums banner

The year is 1909...

1284 Views 6 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  G3farms
[attachment=0:2qof1g6y]1900car.jpg[/attachment:2qof1g6y]
This will boggle your mind, I know it did mine!
The year is 1909. One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!
Here are some statistics for the Year 1909 :

************ ********* ********* ******

The average life expectancy was 47 years.
Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower

The average wage in 1909 was 22 cents per hour.
The average 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 took place at HOME.
Ninety percent of all 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 were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.
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 adults couldn't read or write.
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."

Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.
There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A. !

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

IT STAGGERS THE MIND!

Attachments

See less See more
1 - 7 of 7 Posts
thats pretty wild. One of my neighbors just tuened 101 on July 5, she would have been born in 1908. She is in a nusing home and doing fairly well and still has her mind about her. I take care of her farm and house, have my cattle on her place, she was my first grade teacher. Never married, no kids, never drove a car (rode the school bus most of the time), lived in the same place all of her life. Her family had the country stor and post office in the holler, the post office was the " * route" or star route this was before there was a zip code. The old store building is still there and has quite a few nice antiques inside. The inside of her house is like an old museum and most of the things are in pristine shape.

G3
I'd love to sit down with a cup of tea and talk with that woman! What memories she must have! I wonder what part of her century she thinks is the "best"?
I'd love to just walk through the house and soak in the history! I wouldn't be surprised to find mercury dimes and wheat pennies in the couch :)
Charles is just a kid. I was thinking Indian head pennies, V nickels, and half dimes. ;)
Iddee said:
Charles is just a kid. I was thinking Indian head pennies, V nickels, and half dimes. ;)
haha that's true old man but they stopped making the Indian heads in 1908 and the liberty heads in 1912 or 13 :twisted:
Her uncle worked on the Panama Canal when it was being built, and there are some things from there. Her Mother collected buttons and has one room dedicated to it, hard to describe it, will try to take a few pics. Might just pm the pics not sure I want to post them for the world to see. Someone broke into her house last year, did not steal anything, they were looking through her filing cabinets for something. Made a mess of things but we decided not to tell her since she was in the nursing home.

here is a link to her birthday last year

http://www.farragutpress.com/articles/2008/07/8686.html

G3
1 - 7 of 7 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top