As I was sitting with my daughter sharing sliced bananas and cherries while listening to Sesame street singing about Mangoes and healthy food choices, I started to think how the I much better the produce tasted in California when I was a child or even in Denver then it hit me, you live in ALASKA! You might have gone your whole life without ever tasting a banana 100 years ago. You might not even know what a mango was! Teaching children about healthy eating and including fruits like mangoes would have seemed preposterous to the average individual 100 years ago. Just imagine trying to explain the obesity epidemic in our country today and the need for weight loss surgery to someone during the great depression for example!
I remember my grandmother explaining to me how children received oranges in their stalkings on Christmas, because they were considered such a luxury in winter. I never received them in my stalking.
Above is a photo of my maternal great grandfather and one of his cars in 1925. I remember being told that horses still had the right of way on the roads back then, especially in Oklahoma. I also posted a photo of myself in Egypt when I was 18. I remember reading and being taught about Egypt and its history in school and how much it fascinated me and lead me to eventually travel there. One hundred years ago, most of those excavations hadn't taken place yet and if they had, they hadn't made it into the text books, much less the school curriculum at the average one room school house. The second photo is of Alexandra, Egypt 100 years ago. The first photo is of Los Angeles a little over 100 years ago.
100 Years Ago...
A lot of this is applicable to our grandparents, and even some of our parents.
It May Be Hard to Believe That A Scant 100 Years Ago...
The average life expectancy in the United States was forty-seven.
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 eleven dollars.
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 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.
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, were an ongoing problem in Denver and other cities in the West.
The average speed limit was 10 miles per hour.
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 hadn't been invented.
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Some medical authorities warned that professional seamstresses were apt to become sexually aroused by the steady rhythm, hour after hour, of the sewing machine's foot pedals. They recommended slipping bromide, which was thought to diminish sexual desire,into the woman's drinking water.
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.
Coca-Cola contained cocaine instead of caffeine.
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.
There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!
The average wage in 1907 was 22 cents per hour.
Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn't been invented yet.
Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write.
Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.
There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE ! U.S.A. !
If you were living in Los Angeles
a hundred years ago:
You would take the streetcar to work.
Another streetcar might kill you when you got off.
You would work six days a week.
If you were a bank clerk you would work Saturday nights.
If you were really, really lucky you might get a week’s paid vacation.
Perhaps a 10-year-old would be piloting the elevator in your building (don’t worry; the building wouldn’t be higher than five or six floors).
You would shop Downtown (even, perhaps, for groceries).
If you were black, you would live near the railroad tracks.
If you were black you could be a policeman or a fireman, but not police chief or fire chief. You would have to sit in the balconies of the theaters. You could be a lawyer or a doctor or a minister or a porter.
If you were white and had a fancy title or owned a business, you might live on Ninth Street or on Adams.
If you lived in Hollywood, you might be raising flowers or fruits.
If you lived in the San Fernando Valley, you
definitely would be raising something or growing something or tending to some kind of animal.
If you spoke Spanish in your home, you would be called a cholo.
A cop could arrest you ‘on suspicion’ and then try to figure out what to charge you with.
You could be arrested for speaking to a crowd without a permit.
You might be treated with radium and milk for breast cancer.
You could walk through the Third Street tunnel and sing songs in harmony with your fellows.
You could take Angels Flight to your mansion on Bunker Hill.
If you were a police officer, you might have to work from 3 a.m. to 6 p.m. You wouldn’t have a union or even an officers’ association.
Likewise, a streetcar conductor would work from 5 a.m. until 11 p.m. (well, on the Fourth of July at least).
You would be surprised that a black man could invent a motorized roller skate. (If you were black, you might not be surprised.)
You could go to see a “coon show,” or even be in one if you had some blackface makeup (or already had a black face).
The last course of any dinner would be a cigar. Fancy dinners attended by big shots would be closed to women.
You could see Lillian Russell, Sarah Bernhardt or Booker T. Washington — in person.
All ladies would be women, but not all women would be ladies.
You would have to buy textbooks for your schoolchild at jam-packed Downtown stores.
The schools would be overcrowded.
If you were a woman you could join a club and try to do good things for your community and your country. You could also work six days a week in a department store.
If you were a married woman, you would always use your husband’s name, with Mrs. in front of it.
You would take the Pacific Electric to Venice or Long Beach as often as you could, unless you already lived there.
If you lived in Venice, you could get fifty dollars in gold for having a baby there.
If you lived in San Pedro or Wilmington you might decide being a part of L.A. would be better than watching your trees die of thirst.
You could go to an ostrich farm and see them pluck the ostriches.
It's very unlikely you’d be one of the 20 people murdered in a year within the city limits.
Ghouls might dig up your grandparents’ bones. No, strike that; your grandparents were probably neither born nor buried in Los Angeles — unless you were of Mexican (or French) descent.
If you were a teacher, you couldn’t get married and keep your job (unless you were a man, and then you probably wouldn’t be a teacher; you would be on the School Board).
You would get the flu in December or January, but you would call it the grippe.
If you were Chinese, there would be about 3,000 other people like you living in or near the Plaza, and most white folks would think you odd, dirty and smelly. You would probably be a man and, if so, you would wear your hair in a pigtail. Some would feel you couldn’t open a laundry outside of Chinatown. But you’d be allowed to march in the Fiesta parade — because then you’d be considered colorful.
You could have plenty of fun on the boats at Westlake Park — even if you were Japanese.
Your local minor-league baseball team would be called the Looloos.
If you were president of the Protective Savings Mutual Building and Loan Association, you would pack heat.
You could get two years in the clink for stealing seven cents from a church poor box.
You could take your whole family swimming in fresh mineral water. (Unless you were a "Negro," a "chink," a "cholo" or a "Jap.")
You’d be shocked that the donor of Griffith Park was charged with trying to murder his wife. But you’d be happy that she survived and divorced him.
If you were a man living in Hollywood, chances are you would vote to outlaw the sale of beer and wine except at drug stores. If you were a woman living there, you couldn't vote.
If you lived in Watts, you’d be surrounded by nature.
If you died, chances are your final illness would be diagnosed as tuberculosis.
Alaska 100 years ago;
More than a century ago, when rumors of three of the largest gold nuggets ever found in Alaska brought hoards of eager prospectors to Nome, two Roman Catholic priests arrived there to find urgent need for social welfare and health provisions for the bursting community. The priests had heard of the Sisters of Providence and the 29 hospitals, schools, orphanages and other establishments created by the organization since its founding in Montreal, Canada, in 1843.
It was clear Nome needed courageous help, and they found it by persuading the Sisters of Providence to establish a hospital there. Four women began the journey across the rugged Northwest terrain.
"They came from Montreal," said Karina Jennings, strategic communications program manager at Providence Alaska Medical Center. "They went by horseback, train and boat. On June 10, 1902, they got to Nome."
But when the boat arrived, due to an outbreak of smallpox, the sisters remained quarantined aboard the vessel for three days. Once they were allowed to leave the boat, they stepped into Nome with little fanfare.
"They went to a church because they didn't know what else to do," Jennings said. Once they had settled, however, the women purchased a two-story building for about $5,000 and established the Holy Cross Hospital, where they could provide shelter, care and safety to those in need. To fund the hospital, the sisters set out on foot, dog sled and on horse to the mines surrounding Nome, selling "tickets" for care. On the ticket it read, "Let a few dollars of your wages go to Holy Cross Hospital, and when you get sick or injured, you will find in its wards the best treatment you can get in Alaska."
The city of Nome also has invited Sister Kay Belcher and other sisters to visit the city this month to celebrate the historical founding so many years ago. There are only three Sisters of Providence left in Alaska, though they still work and volunteer at Providence Alaska Medical Center.
The history of the Sisters in Alaska is a rich one. In 1904 they established a school offering academic classes and, for $4 a month, children could even take music lessons. In 1906, the hospital outgrew the building and with the generosity and help of the community opened the second Holy Cross Hospital. In 1910, the sisters purchased St. Joseph Hospital in Fairbanks for $10,000 and later were caring for an average of 300 patients a year. But by 1918 the mining industry troubles forced many of Nome's residents to leave and the sisters remaining in Nome moved on to join the Fairbanks hospital.
About 19 years later, by the time Anchorage had seen solid growth with the construction of the Seward to Fairbanks railroad, the Sisters of Providence announced they were building a two-story, 52-bed hospital in Anchorage. It was 1939 when the new Providence Hospital opened on Ninth Avenue and L Street, just down the road from the airstrip, now known as the Park Strip.
On Oct. 26, 1962, the new Providence Hospital opened at Goose Lake, only two years before the devastating 1964 earthquake. This is the site where it remains today as the Providence Alaska Medical Center.
Cairo museum turns 100 years old! read more here!
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