What Life Was Like 100 Years Ago Compared to Now
A dollar went a whole lot farther.
This year has brought us sloth pool floats, a couple known as J-Rod, and masked celebrities singing in monster costumes, but all of these concepts would sound totally foreign a century ago. Back in 1919, Americans drove their Model T's to see silent movies and dealt with new-fangled inventions toasters and zippers. It's safe to say a lot has changed since then.
The Eiffel Tower was the tallest structure on Earth.
From its debut at the 1889 World's Fair in Paris until the completion of the Chrysler Building in 1930, Gustave Eiffel's wrought-iron marvel represented the peak of human engineering. It's still the tallest landmark in the City of Light today at 984 feet, but pales in comparison to the current global record holder, the Burj Khalifa, which stands at 2,722 feet.
"Teenagers" didn't exist.
Yes, young people between the age 13 and 19 walked the Earth, but no one called them teenagers until the '40s, when high school enrollment became standard. Back in 1910, only 19% of 15- to 18-year-olds attended secondary school, and a mere 9% graduated.
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Woodrow Wilson was president.
After William Taft lost his reelection campaign in 1916, the Democratic governor of New Jersey took the Oval Office. He's best known for his foreign policy and leadership during World War I, when he urged Congress to "make the world safe for democracy."
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The "Great War" had just ended.
At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies that signaled the end of a four-year global war that killed 14 million people and wounded 21 million others. Peace wouldn't last very long; World War II started two decades later in 1939.
There was no NFL.
American football initially attracted fans on college campuses in the late 1800s, with professional teams like the Canton Bulldogs and Dayton Triangles soon taking off. They waited to establish a formal league until 1920 to curb bidding wars over players and the illegal recruitment of active college athletes.
Kids played with Raggedy Ann and Lincoln Logs.
Teddy bears — named after President Theodore Roosevelt — were another favorite, with tinker toys, electric trains, and erector sets also filling toy boxes across the country.
People were reading L. Frank Baum.
The iconic writer released his 13th book in the Oz series in 1919, The Magic of Oz. P.G. Wodehouse also published My Man Jeeves that same year.
Mary Pickford was the picture of beauty.
Called "America's Sweetheart" and the "girl with the curls," the silent film star attracted a huge fan base. All of that hair was typical of the "Gibson Girl" archetype that women emulated during the turn of the century. A few years later, the bobs of the Jazz Age would reign supreme.
Molasses made headlines.
Boston suffered an usual and deadly disaster after a large storage tank filled with 2 million gallons of molasses burst and flooded the streets at an estimated 35 miles per hour. North End residents later claimed that the air smelled sweet for decades afterwards.
Birth control was brand-new.
Social reformer Margaret Sanger actually coined the term "birth control" a few years earlier, publishing the periodical The Birth Control Review and book What Every Mother Should Know in 1917. She helped established a woman's right to contraception, but not without many legal battles and a 30-day jail stay for being a "public nuisance."
People took street cars to get around.
Subway systems had already launched in New York and Boston, but competing companies also operated elevated trains and electric streetcars in major cities. Combined with growing automobile traffic and the continued use of horse-drawn carriages, the roadways were a crowded place to be.
Groceries were a lot cheaper (kinda).
Back 1919, the average price of bread was 10 cents, butter cost 68 cents, and eggs went for 63 cents. However, a middle-class family only took in about $1,500 per year and saved less than $100 of that annually.
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Model T's were the most popular car.
Henry Ford introduced the affordable automobile for the everyman in 1908, and it soon dominated the streets. A decade later, about half of the cars the United States were T's, also called "flivvers." The automaker's big news in 1919: It would begin offering electric starters in addition to the standard hand crank.
The World Series was a scam.
Accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds, eight members of the Chicago White Sox were later banned from the sport for life.
Alcohol was officially illegal.
Prohibition officially went into effect in 1919 with the passage of the 18th Amendment. The temperance movement cited concerns about the effects of alcohol on political corruption, spousal abuse, and public health, among other consequences. As of 1933 you could (legally) toast to its end.
RELATED: What It's Really Like to Give Up Alcohol
People spent a lot more on clothes.
Taking up an average 17% of total household expenditures, people doled out over $200 annually on their outfits. Post-war trends for women included "tubular" silhouettes that would morph into the flapper dresses of the '20s.
The movies were silent.
With the first Oscars still a decade away, people flocked to theaters to watch silent movies. Stars like Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbank even founded their own studio in 1919 with D.W. Griffith.
RELATED: 30 Classic Movies on Netflix That'll Make You Feel Extra Nostalgic
Irving Berlin dominated the radio.
The prolific songwriter capitalized on the popularity of ragtime and penned plenty of love ballads as well. His 1919 hit "Mandy" later appeared in the 1954 movie White Christmas.
"Arts and Crafts" decor reigned supreme.
Emerging at the end of the 19th century, the Arts and Crafts movement overtook Victorian decor. Prominent adherents include furniture maker Gustav Stickley and architect Frank Lloyd Wright of the Prairie School. Art Nouveau also gained popularity during this time.
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Women still couldn't vote.
The public contributions of women to the war effort helped out the suffrage movement. Almost exactly 50 years after the Seneca Falls Convention, President Woodrow Wilson would urge Congress to pass the 19th amendment, which was finally adopted in 1920.
Caroline is a writer and editor with almost a decade of experience. From 2015 to 2019, she held various editorial positions at Good Housekeeping, including as health editor, covering nutrition, fitness, wellness, and other lifestyle news. She's a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism and dreams of the day Northwestern will go back to the Rose Bowl.
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