: 100 Years Ago.....It May Be Hard to Believe

The average life expectancy in the United States was 47.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the United States had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three minute call from

Denver to New York City cost $11.

There were only 8,000 cars in the US 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 twenty-first 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

$2500 per year, a veterinarian between $1500 and $4000 per year, and a

mechanical engineer about $5000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the United States 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 cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee cost 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 prohibiting poor people from entering the country

for any reason, either as travelers or immigrants.

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.

Drive-by-shootings-in which teenage boys galloped down the street on

horses and started randomly shooting at houses, carriages, or anything else

that caught their fancy was an ongoing problem in Denver and other cities

in the West.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was thirty. The remote desert

community was inhabited by only a handful of ranchers and their families.

Plutonium, insulin, and antibiotics hadn't been discovered yet. Scotch

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

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

One in 10 U.S. adults couldn't read or write. Only 6 percent of all

Americans had graduated from high school.

Coca-Cola contained cocaine instead of caffeine. (The good old days)

Punch card data processing had recently been developed, and early

predecessors of the modern computer were used for the first time by the

government to help compile the 1900 census.

Eighteen percent of households in the United States had at least one

full-time servant or domestic.

There were about 230 reported murders in the U.S. annually. This doesn't

count the 30+ lynchings.