The Year Is 1904 .....Very Interesting

[Sandy73]

The Year Is 1904 .....Very Interesting

Maybe this will boggle your mind, I know it did mine! The year is 1904 ...one hundred years ago. What a difference a century makes! Here are some of the U.S. statistics for 1904:

The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47years.

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 residents, 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 an 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 $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 in the U.S. took place at home.

Ninety percent of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."

Sugar was 4 cents a pound; Eggs,14 cents per doz; Coffee, 15 cents per pound.

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

Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering t! he country for any reason.

The 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 30.

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented.

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

Two of 10 U.S. adults couldn't read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated high school.

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

Eighteen percent of households! in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic.

There were only about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.

... And I forwarded this from someone else without typing it myself, and sent it to all of you in a matter of seconds! Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years ... it staggers the mind to think about it !!!

 

[fuzzykitten99]

I remember hearing this stuff when I was 14. I had to do an interview of the oldest person I knew and it was my grandma's uncle Tom. He was 98 at the time, and died April the following year, 1 month before his 100th birthday. He was born March 1895. My grandma's dad was his twin brother.

He told he he remembers when the first Ford rolled off the assembly line, when they first got electricity in their North Dakota farmhouse, and their first working toilet, sink, and faucet indoors. He said that he remembered when you had to pay extra to get a radio in your car. He said that computers were something only dreamed about, or read in science fiction novels such as From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Vern. He said he remembers when the TV was invented and they only had 2 channels to choose from. He said that you could buy 10 new cars back then for the price of one new car now (meaning 1994). He said that manufacturers of cars did not want to put seatbelts in the cars because they felt it implied that the cars were not safe.

This was the coolest interview I had ever done. There was more stuff that he told me but this was the most I remember for now.

 

[Captain_Steel]

two things:

If the average wage was 22 cents per hour those eggs were damned expensive at 14 cents. That'd be like $10 a dozen nowadays.

Funny how more people died of diarrhea back then than heart disease. Montezuma's revenge I believe they call that, after a sluaghtered Indian chief.