Robin 'Roblimo' Miller wrote:
>>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
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
My grandparents came from Ireland and the treatment of the Irish was no
better than the blacks, Italians or any other immigrants but we didn't
cry about it for the next hundred years, we sent our kids to high school
and then the next generation sent theirs to college. We took over the
police departments and then the political machines Tammany Hall for one
instance. We worked hard, saved our money and made life better for our
kids than that which we found when we came into this world.
You can recite a litany of man's ill treatment to man all to the
detriment of the other fellow but what do you gain? Take the hand
you're dealt and bluff your way through. Life is fun, a challenge, one
good laugh is ten times better than sorrow. We cry when we have to, we
should spend the rest of the time enjoying the wonderous gift of life
that God has bestowed upon us.
Paddy
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