THE YEAR 1905
Maybe this will boggle
your mind, I know it did mine!
The year is
1905, 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 47 years.
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 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 prohibiting
poor people from entering the
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.
Eighteen percent of households in
the U.S had at least one full-
time servant or
domestic.
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