> One hundred years ago man was far more kinder to man. We left doors largely
> unlocked and when we saw a stranger we greeted him. Offered him a chair and
> food and drink.
>
Ummm.... my wife is black and might disagree with you about how
wonderful things were 100 years ago.
Also, 100 years ago in the U.S., there were no problems with illegal
drugs because marijuana, cocaine, and opium derivatives (including
Bayer's patented pain reliever, Heroin), were all readily available and
were sold openly, either on their own or as ingredients in products such
as Lydia Pinkham's tonic, Coca-Cola, and so on. In other words, people
back then used drugs. Lots of drugs. The illegalization of what are now
called "controlled substances" didn't begin until 1911.
Public hangings were common -- and not just for blacks. People starved
to death in this country. Routinely. Medical care was better than it had
been in the 1800s, since the idea of sterilization had taken hold -- in
large part because the women's auxiliary of the First Unitarian Church
in Baltimore talked a wealthy church member named Johns Hopkins into
putting up money for a "scientific" medical school in the mid-1800s, and
the germ theory was taught there -- and spread. But still: no
antibiotics, and few of the other life-saving drugs and surgical
procedures we now take for granted were available.
Your local public library -- likely funded by Andrew Carnegie -- was the
closest thing you had to the Internet. (If you were white; non-whites
suffered from a major "print divide" because they weren't allowed to use
most public libraries.)
Outside of major cities, almost everyone used outhouses. Indoor plumbing
didn't become common in rural areas and small towns until the Rural
Electrification Project in the 1930s. (The REA was the kind of
government-funded do-gooder project we shun today.)
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/ will tell you about the
Triangle Factory fire. Public revulsion at the deaths it caused led to
unionization and better working conditions. My maternal grandmother,
Annie, had a cousin who died there. Jews were often treated little
better than blacks back then. There were no workplace safety rules, no
disability insurance policies, no social security. If you got hurt or
died on the job, too bad. There were plenty of immigrants waiting in
line to replace you.
A big reason people left their doors unlocked back in the good 'ol days,
100 years ago, was that someone was almost always home. Most people
lived on farms. Children commonly got 4 - 8 years of schooling, then
went to work in the fields or for local businesses. Grandparents stayed
with their families. Those old, tiny cracker houses you see in Ybor City
and the older Florida towns often had 10 - 12 people living in them --
all sharing the same outhouse. Plus, there were a *lot* of crippled kids
to sit on the porches and watch the place. Polio epidemics cropped up
every few years until mass vaccination in the 1950s. And yeah, it was
live vaccine and a few kids died or got crippled from taking it, but no
one sued over what was considered the greatest medical miracle of the
time. Vaccine developers, especially Doctors Salk and Sabin, were
considered national heroes.
Prostitution was normal. Indeed, for many young, unmarried women 100
years ago, it was the best career available. Venereal disease and
pregnancy were known risks, but if you go look at the Triangle Factory
website, you can see the alternative. I grew up out west, where women
commonly came as whores, eventually married customers -- and started
movements to ban saloons and "dance parlors." Famous Ambrose Bierce
quote about California politicians asking for your vote on the basis
that they'd been born there (unlike most candidates, who had moved there
from somewhere else): "The miners came in forty-nine, the whores in
fifty-one. And when they got together, they made the native son."
(If you don't know who Ambrose Bierce was, you're missing some of the
funniest and most warped writing ever done on this continent. Go down to
the Carnegie Library and check out "The Devil's Dictionary." You'll love
it.)
Anyway, I think life has gotten better over the last 100 years.
If nothing else, tires last longer and cars need tuneups less often. And
- WAIT - most of us have cars now, while hardly anyone did back then.
- Robin
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked
Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages
posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 20:16:38 EDT