The Year 1907

[mcscajun]

My dad was born in 1907, and it’s hard to imagine how his life was back then. One of my sisters forwarded this to me over the weekend, and I've done some very minor editing to it; the gist remains. (I don't vouch for the factual accuracy of each and every item, either. I did remove one blatantly untrue claim about "iced tea"; it's a lot older than some people think. I've footnoted one or two other odd items.)



The year is 1907 - One hundred years ago. What a difference a century makes! Here are some of the U.S. Statistics for the Year 1907:

The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years old.
Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads; the maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!

The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour. The average U.S. Worker made between $200 and $400 per year. A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year; a dentist made $2,500 per year, a veterinarian $1,500 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home.

Ninety percent of all U.S. 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 in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars; Arizona, Oklahoma**, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30.

Crossword puzzles and canned beer hadn't been invented yet.

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

Two out of every 10 U.S. 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 one pharmacist was quoted as saying, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."

There were about 230 reported Murders in the entire U.S.A.!

I sent this to you and others all over the United States, possibly the world, in a mere few seconds! Just try to imagine what life may be like in another 100 years.

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Footnotes
* I can find no evidence of this but the following:

Immigration Acts, 1906 and 1910

Measures were introduced in the Immigration Act, 1906 to prevent other groups of people the government feared would place a strain on the federal government. On top of pre-existing rules meant to keep the insane or criminally minded out of Canada, this act was expanded to include former inmates of mental hospitals or jails, or anyone who'd been charged but not convicted of serious crimes.

Immigration laws were also strengthened in 1906 and 1910 to allow the government to deport unwanted immigrants, like those suffering from severe illness. A probation period of three years was additionally set in place for every immigrant coming to Canada in 1910. If immigrants committed crimes in Canada within that three-year period, they risked being sent back to their home countries.

Around the same time, Canada experienced a mild economic recession. A measure was introduced in which all immigrants to Canada would have to possess at least $25 upon landing as a way of proving to government officials that they weren't destitute.

http://www.canadiana.org/citm/specifique/immigration_e.html#1906

Twenty-five dollars was a whopping sum of money back then.

**November 16 - Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory become Oklahoma, which is admitted as the 46th U.S. state. The flag stars wouldn't have changed quite so quickly as to negate the above point.

[Orrex]

1. My now-deceased grandfather was born in 1908

He once recalled that one of his jobs, when he was a little boy, was to wake up early and find the still-hot coal in the stove and fan it into flame for the day's fire.

He told me this while he was drinking the tea that he had heated in his microwave, but the VCR was his favorite gadget. If he knew that I was referring to him online, I suspect that he'd be thrilled. His older brother, in contrast, never got the hang of instant replay and hid in the bushes the first time he heard/saw an airplane.

What a world of changes that generation must be experiencing (or must have experienced, as the case may be).

[mcscajun]

3. My dad never finished high school, but read extensively and was a list-maker.

If he were still alive today, he'd have to be pried loose from surfing the 'Net every night. :D He wouldn't have been online in the early days, because Dad was NOT an "early adopter"; no, not by a long shot.

He never trusted any gadget he couldn't open and take apart himself, or any multi-purpose combo item (sofabed, clock-radio, toaster-oven, etc.) reasoning that the combo was never as good as each item separately, and when one part of the combo broke, you had to lose the whole thing while it went to be fixed or replaced. So forget a TV/VCR combo. We never had a color TV, 'cause he was waiting for it to be "perfected". I bought my first color TV in 1972, when I had my first apartment.

[Burma Jones]

2. My Still Living Grandmother was born in 1907

May 1907 in fact......

[mcscajun]

4. Congrats to your grandmother, wherever she may be! 100 years old - wow!

:applause: