Is history ever interesting?

RhumbRunner13

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This is an email from my cousin, I take no credit for its' entertainment value or accuracy!;)

Add your historical notes from around the world!

Subject: 100 years ago.

The year was 1902, one hundred years ago ... what a difference a century makes. Here are the U.S. statistics for 1902.

The average life expectancy in the US was forty-seven (47).

Only 14 Percent of the homes in the US 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 US and only 144 miles of paved
roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee was 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.

Airplanes hadn’t been invented.

The average wage in the US was 22 cents an hour.

The average US 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 US took place at home.

Ninety percent of all US 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.

The five leading causes of death in the US 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.

One in ten US 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 corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and the bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."

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

There were only about 230 reported murders in the entire US.



Rhumb:)
 
History is always interesting. The problem lies in the boring-ass motherfuckers who teach it.
 
Yeah.

RastaPope said:
History is always interesting. The problem lies in the boring-ass motherfuckers who teach it.

That was the same feeling I got when I read John Jakes' "The Bastard" series.

Rhumb:cool:
 
Everyone should know history, because if we don't...we are doomed to repeat it.
 
Cibo said:
Everyone should know history, because if we don't...we are doomed to repeat it.

So, all I need to do is have sex with Amber Benson, not learn anything, wait 10 minutes, then I'm doomed to repeat it?

I now have a plan.
 
RastaPope said:


So, all I need to do is have sex with Amber Benson, not learn anything, wait 10 minutes, then I'm doomed to repeat it?

I now have a plan.

Well if you don't learn anything from it...something is wrong with you. :p
 
Cibo said:


Well if you don't learn anything from it...something is wrong with you. :p

I can pretend, shh. Don't crash a guy's greatest dream down around his ankles!
 
Some history is boring, that's why the people who write the history books, spruce things up a bit. Maybe fudge the truth a bit, to make things better sounding.

Some of the numbers in what you posted, and I know those aren't your words, just don't add up. They're just downright wrong. Someone spruced things up, to make them sound better.
 
lobito said:
Some history is boring, that's why the people who write the history books, spruce things up a bit. Maybe fudge the truth a bit, to make things better sounding.

Some of the numbers in what you posted, and I know those aren't your words, just don't add up. They're just downright wrong. Someone spruced things up, to make them sound better.

I really questioned the 18% of households having "a domestic"!

Only thing I could think of was possibly "ranch hands" on ranches or "hired hands" on farms being considered as domestic help?

My mother was born at home in 1918, my father in a hospital in 1917.

Rhumb:confused:
 
I'll accept some supposition.....

......but not blindly!

This post, meant to be for entertainment, seems to have become somewhat contentious. I really dislike people who question statistics and numbers without supporting their hypothisis. So, Lobito, without actually challenging you to a duel, what do you find so terribly wrong with my sweet loving cousins' observations or my willigness to pass them on that would make you so negative? Was there some "politics" hidden somewhere in those lines?

If you want to argue, on a political basis that your opinion:"Some of the numbers in what you posted, and I know those aren't your words, just don't add up. They're just downright wrong. Someone spruced things up, to make them sound better." , then support yourself! I did "very little" research and found that the average wage in 1908 was 19 cents/hr not .22.

What would you like to see changed and what is your political agenda in wanting to do so?

Rhumb:confused:
 
RastaPope said:


So, all I need to do is have sex with Amber Benson, not learn anything, wait 10 minutes, then I'm doomed to repeat it?

I now have a plan.

Silly Pope, you are assuming SHE didn't learn anything.

Ishmael
 
RhumbRunner13 said:
I really questioned the 18% of households having "a domestic"!

Only thing I could think of was possibly "ranch hands" on ranches or "hired hands" on farms being considered as domestic help?
Since so much of America was rural then, if a family wanted to send their child off to high school in most cases they'd have to send them quite a distance away and the teenager often lived with families in town and worked for their room and board, so they'd probably also be classified as "domestics". And a lot of immigrants arrived here as "sponsorees" of established residents and worked their sponsorships off as domestic servants.

I imagine the numbers would also depend on whether the poll were taken in a city or out in rural areas and in what part of the country.
 
Scotch tape hadn't been invented yet. Grandma grew up wrapping presents with string.

If you had a package to mail, you could leave the package and some money in your mail box down at the end of the road, and the mail man would pick it up, take it back to the post office, weigh it and leave your change for you in your mail box the next day. Not likely that would happen these days.
 
RastaPope said:
History is always interesting. The problem lies in the boring-ass motherfuckers who teach it.

Do something about it and get off your ass and teach.


After you've taught for three years, then tell me where the problem lies.
 
WhiteRose said:

Since so much of America was rural then, if a family wanted to send their child off to high school in most cases they'd have to send them quite a distance away and the teenager often lived with families in town and worked for their room and board, so they'd probably also be classified as "domestics". And a lot of immigrants arrived here as "sponsorees" of established residents and worked their sponsorships off as domestic servants.

I imagine the numbers would also depend on whether the poll were taken in a city or out in rural areas and in what part of the country.

And I think the US was still well over 90% agrarian populous?
What a strange and different world our grand parents grew up in, no?

Rhumb:cool:
 
*nods* Grandma (born in 1909) is a blast to sit and chat with. She's so full of stories from "way back in the old days", and walking through a history museum with her is so funny. She keeps saying, "Oh, we had one like that on the farm." When you're looking at household objects used by people back then they seem so one-dimensional, but it makes it so much more colorful and interesting to hear real stories about using them.
 
RhumbRunner13 said:


I really questioned the 18% of households having "a domestic"!

Only thing I could think of was possibly "ranch hands" on ranches or "hired hands" on farms being considered as domestic help?



Nope, this is actually true. I've been working on a 16mm film that I started by sitting down with my grandmother and chatting about when she was a girl, etc. "Uncle Harry" was treasurer of the Moxie Company (which was pretty big back then -- still love the stuff myself) but her family wasn't exceedingly well off for the 1920s; she told a kind of funny story about how their hired woman's daughter, after begging to go along with them to a dance, had snuck off with the local smooth asshole, and as a result was sent away to live with relatives.

It was pretty common for a white-collar family to have a hired girl who cooked, did laundry, etc., probably right up to the Depression.


Oh, and I agree that history itself is fascinating. Personally, I think it's the people who try to inject their views retroactively into history who tend to make it a mess. The older I get, the more I gravitate toward dryer stuff, just because it tends to avoid bias-

-M@
 
WhiteRose said:
*nods* Grandma (born in 1909) is a blast to sit and chat with. She's so full of stories from "way back in the old days", and walking through a history museum with her is so funny. She keeps saying, "Oh, we had one like that on the farm." When you're looking at household objects used by people back then they seem so one-dimensional, but it makes it so much more colorful and interesting to hear real stories about using them.


Aren't grandmas awesome? I'm really loving this film-

-M@
 
RastaPope said:
History is always interesting. The problem lies in the boring-ass motherfuckers who teach it.
History is always interesting. The problem often lies in the lazy-ass kids who don't want to take the time to learn it.

I'm so sorry you had bad teachers. Most of us who teach, though, are highly educated and skilled. We teach as a labor of love, because we're called it in much the same way people are called to religion. We have to do it cuz we're called to it; we certainly don't get paid anywhere near what people who are comparably educated make out in the business world.

Fuck you and your smart-ass stereotypes.
 
Aw hell,

cymbidia said:
History is always interesting. The problem often lies in the lazy-ass kids who don't want to take the time to learn it.

I'm so sorry you had bad teachers. Most of us who teach, though, are highly educated and skilled. We teach as a labor of love, because we're called it in much the same way people are called to religion. We have to do it cuz we're called to it; we certainly don't get paid anywhere near what people who are comparably educated make out in the business world.

Fuck you and your smart-ass stereotypes.

I think I was one of those lazy ass kids! I hated history, thought it was a complete and total waste of time! Then I got to be 25 and realized i had lived through the 60's and Viet Nam and was reluctantly part of history. From then on history started to live for me, for I realized that my father, me, and my son, are history. I wonder when the little shit will find his history important?

Rhumb:cool:
 
RastaPope said:
History is always interesting. The problem lies in the boring-ass motherfuckers who teach it.


You've probably had the wrong ones.

My history master brought everything alive to us all and showed us that things weren't separate items on a long time-line.

The interconnection between historical events made the whole subject fascinating...

:)
 
Re: I'll accept some supposition.....

RhumbRunner13 said:
......but not blindly!

This post, meant to be for entertainment, seems to have become somewhat contentious. I really dislike people who question statistics and numbers without supporting their hypothisis. So, Lobito, without actually challenging you to a duel, what do you find so terribly wrong with my sweet loving cousins' observations or my willigness to pass them on that would make you so negative? Was there some "politics" hidden somewhere in those lines?

If you want to argue, on a political basis that your opinion:"Some of the numbers in what you posted, and I know those aren't your words, just don't add up. They're just downright wrong. Someone spruced things up, to make them sound better." , then support yourself! I did "very little" research and found that the average wage in 1908 was 19 cents/hr not .22.

What would you like to see changed and what is your political agenda in wanting to do so?

Rhumb:confused:

Don't worry Rhumb, I took the post as entertainment. Especially the above one with the part where you said "without actually challenging you to a duel". That made me chuckle, that was entertainment.

I didn't say anything above to offend anyone, and I don't really care to be challenged on what I said. They are my opinion. My response was based on what I've read, seen or heard, and conclude that some events in history can't possibly have happened several different ways.

Have a nice night, I know I will.
Lo
 
no, history is never interesting. it should be thrown out and burned just like education, decency, and sexual relations. none of it maters.

and just because none of it matters, i won't retell the tale of how the Europeans used stallions in their calvalry divisions durring the First Crusade or how the Persians used mares then, also, nor will i tell you that the Persians' mares happened to be in heat when they rode out to the first full on calvalry battle of said conflict, causing the Europeans' stallions to chase down and mount as many mares as possible, heedless of their rider's commands, forcing the Persians to retreat.

it simply isn't interesting in the slightest.
 
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