Life in 1915 vs. today: What are the differences?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Let us suppose that you were to hop in a time machine and go back to January 1, 1915 and grab someone off the street. Let us further suppose that the person you abducted was a middle-class person (insofar as that class existed then) from either England, Canada or the USA, and that this person is intelligent and relatively neutral in terms of their moral and political opinions by 1915 standards. For the hell of it we’ll say they’re female, just because I think women are complicated as hell and that makes it all the more interesting. :slight_smile:

You take this person into your time machine and zap them to 2001. Sadly, your machine breaks, so you must now teach this person to live in today’s world. We will assume you have unlimited financial resources to buy textbooks and unlimited time off work to guide them around this strange new world. We will also assume you have a friend who works for the government so you can give this person an SSN number and whatnot so nobody asks any questions like “Where the hell did THIS person come from?”

What would be different about today? Some things are obvious: jet airplanes, cars everywhere, TV, radio, color movies with sound. Some things are not so obvious and might be hard to define, though. Spoken English is different today, I would assume, but how different? How much would various social mores around sexuality, tolerance, sexual identity, profanity, etc. be different? Did women shave their legs in 1915? Is makeup different now? Would a well-bred woman even think having a job was tolerable? Would someone from 1915 even be able to figure out how to use a microwave in less than a few months? How much would the average person from 1915 know about math - was it taught differently then? (I’d assume 99% of math known today was known then but maybe I’m wrong.) How hard would it be to explain to our unwilling time traveller about the rise and fall of communism and fascism?

She’d be a fish out of water - but how much out of water?

  1. How fast could someone adapt to a new life here?

  2. What things were substantially different I might be forgetting about? Not just cars and planes.

  3. What might that person KNOW that people today generally would not? For instance, would they have a vastly superior classical education?

  4. How would their language differ? Would it be REALLY different or just a little?

  5. What changes in social attitudes would they have difficulty adjusting to?

This could be a neat discussion…

2

You shoulda seen the BBC/PBS special “1910 House.” They had a family live in a house set up to 1910 standards, and they tried to live as authentic a lifestyle as possible. Too much stuff to get into here…

3

No, no, it was “1900” straight up. Exactly 100 years (at the time). That was the first thing I thought of too.

And partially because of that show, the second thing I though about a 1915 middle class woman here is that she would be extremly uncomfortable with the amount of skin we walk around showing. But that once she got over that, she would weep with joy and kiss your feet when she realized she didn’t have to wear a corset or ten pounds of heavy wool in the summer.

I don’t think she’d have too much trouble learning to use a microwave. I mean, a lot less trouble than an equally intelligent person from 1320 or 44. Because by 1915 we had aquired the concept of progress, and she would be expecting 2001 to be full of strange technological wonders. That would make it much easier to adapt than for someone who expects the future to be like the past.

4

I think it was “1900 House” not 1910.

As for 1915, I think the initial shock would be the sheer number of people and their diversity, provided our time traveler ended up in a major city.

In 1915, you wouldn’t be seeing blacks and whites mingling together. You wouldn’t be hearing Spanish and Chinese spoken in the streets, unless you went to a particular neighborhood in the city.

I also think that our time traveler would be shocked at how people dress. We are far more casual than we were in 1915. We don’t wear hats very much. We don’t wear ties nearly as often. Women’s clothing is much more revealing.

There will also be many more older people on the streets than in 1915 as our life expectancy has increased as have our standards of medical care.

5

Women have the vote !

6

1915 would have been about the time “Birth of A Nation” would have been packing 'em in.

7

The biggest change from the woman’s point of view…?

Aside from clothes, the fact that women’s role in society in much less restricted. In 1915, it was extremely unusual for a woman to finish high school, higher education for women was tyically seen as a “waste”, and women professionals were a rare breed indeed.

Contrast this with the number of women in business, finance, medicine, and goodness! trades like plumbing.

In 1915 it was extremely difficult for a woman to support herself without help. Now we have women that have earned millions on their own, who are the chief breadwinners of their family not because they have to be but because they want to be, own and run businesses, and so forth.

8

On my website I have the opening chapter from a 1912 children’s book, Three Little Trippertrots, and I was surprised to see how many simularities there are between today and a middle class neighborhood of that time. (The book’s author lived near Newark, New Jersey). There are significant differences, of course, but it strikes me as being more similar than I expected.

9

1915 is an interesting year to pick, because it was on the brink of so many changes. Because of that, the woman would expect a lot of changes.

I think she’d be pleased, but not surprised, that women can vote. Women were working pretty hard to get the vote in 1915.

I think what would surprise her more is the modern attitude towards drinking. In 1915 the Prohibition Party was a serious political force. Even if she wasn’t a prohibitionist, she would have been living in a world where a lot of people were.

She would also be surprised to see women smoking openly. Women weren’t supposed to smoke back then.

I can steal a little from the movie “Time After Time” and say that one of the most shocking things for her would be World War II. Say it with me. World. War. Two. There was plenty of trouble brewing in 1915, but no one grasped how terrible it would be. There had never been such a widespread war before. Then you have to tell her there were TWO “world” wars. If you’re unkind, you’ll also tell her about nuclear weapons.

Back to a more positive note, I think she’d be thrilled about modern medicine. Penicillin hadn’t been discovered yet. Turberculosis was widespread, and an automatic death sentence. Childbirth was extremely risky.

At the same time, I think she’d be disappointed by modern medicine. She would be impressed that we could cure some cases of cancer. But then she would be surprised we couldn’t cure all cancer.

Then you’d have to try and explain safe sex to her. Not only would she be shocked by what you told her, she’d be shocked that people even discuss such things.

Onto more practical things, she would have to learn to drive. I think she could learn the mechanics of it as easily as anyone. But it would take a long time for her to learn to drive in traffic, with hundreds of other cars. You would also have to teach her a lot of things that modern people learn when they’re growing up. She would have never seen a stop sign, or a traffic light. She wouldn’t know the difference between the solid yellow line on the road, and the white dashed line.

Then you’d have to teach her to use a computer. I’ve taught modern people to do this, I don’t even want to think about teaching someone from 1915.

I think she’d be deeply shocked by the language used in television and movies. She would certainly be shocked by the violence.

She would also be shocked by the amount of make-up women wear. Ordinary women didn’t start wearing much make-up until the roaring '20s - when a lot of make-up meant some red lipstick and rouge on the knees! And I don’t think she’d like it at all when she saw men wearing make-up. You’d want to show her some videos by Marilyn Manson and Ru-Paul, so that everything she saw in the regular world would seem less shocking in comparision.

As far as I know, women in 1915 had never heard of the idea of shaving their legs. They didn’t shave their underarms either. Or wear deodorant. You might have trouble convincing her to wear that. She might get pretty defensive.

Be prepared to have her play with the thermostat when you’re not looking. She’s going to love that. And she’ll probably be flipping lights on and off when you’re not around.

You’ll also have to teach her how to shop in a grocery store. The first self serve grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, opened in 1916 (ha, she just missed it). Shopping carts hadn’t been invented yet. She’s not going to like or trust the UPC code. She’s also going to be overwhelmed by the size of a typical store. (Brief highjack - in high school in the late 1970’s, I knew a girl whose family had managed to move to the U.S. from Romania. She said she cried the first time she went into a grocery store. She said she didn’t know there was that much food in the world.)

10

So far these have been GREAT responses; thanks, guys.

I’m assuming here that the newcomer would have to be given a full course in world history, which would include World Wars I and II and the nuclear bomb (“Well, we killed fifteen million people, and then we decided to kill so many people they sort of lost count around 55 million, and then we invented weapons we could kill everyone with.”) The Cold War might be hard to get across. Hell, the collpase of colonialism would be a big deal. Of course, wouldn’t watching men walk on the frigging MOON just knock you out?

I suppose our new time traveller would need a globe or a world map to keep things straight, too. There are twice as many countries now.

See, this is the sort of thing I was looking for. It never occurred to me, but you learn most of what you know about driving before you learn how to drive. The whole concept of traffic is ingrained in us from childhood. This is a great observation.

I wonder how this might apply to the proliferation of media today? The concept of “Celebrity” was perhaps not the same in 1915 as it is today, or of Andy Warhol’s fifteen inute theory, or Calvin’s theory that TV validates existence.

I knew about carts, but how are you defining “Grocery store”? Where did people buy groceries in 1915? They had to eat and city dwellers didn’t grow their own food. Were there just speciality (e.g. butcher, greengrocer, canned goods) shops? Or small stores?

11

I think that the operating word here is self-serve.

12

i’ll tackle the language question. you betcha the language is different. 1915 person would have to learn a whole slew of new words and idioms. my grandparents left russia in 1914, my mum was born in 1919, the russian i learned from them makes people who have come here in the last year laugh! they say i sound old and so very formal, i believe they may have even said “quaint.” not to mention, that you would have to explain, that a person who is gay now is not the same as a gay person in 1915.

from my own experiences, you would have to learn the word for televison and all the terms that go with it. computers, common everyday appliances, blenders, microwaves, just take a look around your kitchen. bathrooms, hot tubs, showers, living room, not a parlour, cd player, vcr,dvd, air conditioning, washing machines and dryers, etc. idioms and metaphors have changed: pump up the volume, like… you know…, whatever…, cool beans, snafu, far out, heavy, etc.

13

She would be amazed at all the appliances that have been invented to cut down on a woman’s labor at home and that men are now taking part. At the grocery store it would not just be the amount of food, but the kinds of food available. We complain about the hot-house tomatoes, but she’d be amazed you could get anything but canned tomatoes most of the year. Orange juice to her was something you’d get during a season and then you had to squeeze the oranges yourself. Paper towels, paper plates along with Saran wrap, plastic bags, aluminum foil and aerosol products are all things she never imagined. She’d wonder how much ice it was taking to keep everything so cold. Oh, and how she’d love the new sanitary napkins and the birth control products. Walking down one of the aisles she’d see someone using their cell phone. And then she’d get to the check out and see bar codes used and people paying with credit cards. She’d be glad we had frozen meals, because that visit would have worn her out too much to cook.

14

Try to break it to her slowly. Set your time travel machine in Amish country. Slow but sure. Pepper the good news with the bad. A woman from that time would love the automatic washing machines of today. Let her know that there are choices available to her, in many areas. IMHO a woman would be better equipped mentally and emotionally to accept the changes.

15

Very little I can add to the already excellent responses. But: We get our impressions of the past from mostly from tv and movies. Thus we may have a good idea of what 1915 looked and sounded like (or not, depending on how accurate the tv show or movie is). But these media cannot convey an impression of what it smelled like.

So: Ms. 1915, soap is comparatively inexpensive here in 2001, and most everyone has hot running water. Hence, a strongly ingrained social custom is daily bathing.

I suppose I would have to find a more tactful way to bring this up, tho. Any ideas?

16

If you want to read one man’s take on the subject, try “Time and Again” by Jack Finney. An excellent time-travel novel in which, at one point, our modern hero returns to the present-day with a woman from the 1880s, and we get to see her deal everything discussed here.

I won’t give up any spoilers, except to say that if you’re at all interested in what life was like back then, this book is a great read (Finney also gave his hero a camera and samples of his shots are in the book; they’re all from about that time in NYC).

As far as this thread is concerned, another consideration would be her beliefs. She may be very religious, and would be shocked at seeing athiesism proclaimed loudly these days (hint: please don’t, on the first day, take her to a Marilyn Manson concert). She may have the beliefs of her middle-class, so she could espouse the usual talk about Jews, blacks, the Irish, Chinese and other races and nationalities.

I wouldn’t be so sure that she would approve of women getting the right to vote and to work, although I’m sure she would appreciate the lighter clothing, the lack of corsets, and the range of fashions to delight the eye. But she also may be very conservative in her beliefs about raising children and the role of women in public life. God knows what she would think of Madonna!

17

I think our entertainment, more than anything else, would baffle her. Never mind the language and sex and violence. How about all the bug-eyes monsters? Imagine trying to explain how, say, The Phantom Menace was made to somebody with almost no concept of special effects.

18

An interesting book to read in this context is “Only Yesterday” by Frederick Lewis Allen. It is a social history of the 1920s… written in 1931. The Prelude (“May, 1919”) describes a ‘typical suburban houshold’ of the year 1919. Even by 1919, of course, there were vast changes compared to 1915 in the USA, due to the Great War.
Changes. I suspect that the biggest things to get used to are the most subtle, in that they are so ingranied in the fabric of our existence that we are barely aware of them. Things like…

…the crowds.
Most of us now live in cities; there just weren’t six billion people in the world then.

…quick communication.
We see a far greater range of ideas each day than people did in 1915.

…widespread colour printing.
This is often advertising, of course, and it jingles and glitters and pervades our city world in a way that it just didn’t in 1915. Packaging and billboards, for instance, Not to mention clothing.

I think that colour printing didn’t become widespread until after the Second World War; I have seen plenty of early-twentieth-century books whose colour ‘plates’ are carefully protected by sheets of translucent paper. And even black-and-white pictures seemed to be expensive or difficult and were provided in limited numbers. So there just wasn’t the riot of colour one sees outside today.

…visibly cleaner skies.
That’s not to say that there is less pollution on an absolute basis; it’s just harder to see. I have a hard time imagining what Steam-Age cities looked like: were there constant clouds overhead from the soot of the steam engines?

…opennes about the body.
Several people have already alluded to this. But fashion is just the outer effect of this change. The body just isn’t ‘unmentionable’ to us in the way that it was to people in 1915. I credit the cultural shift in mid-century, whose most visible turning point was the appearanve of Elvis. We Euro-North-Americans started to dance. (I got this from Michael Ventura’s essay ‘Hear That Long Snake Moan’. It’s in one of his books, either Letters at 3 AM or Shadow Dancing in the USA.)

BTW, I would have chosen early 1912 as a starting date, just before the Titanic launched. Nothing yet disturbed the Victorian faith that European Christian civilization was morally-destined to take and rule the world (remember the Scramble for Africa in the 1890s, and China as the ‘sick man’ of Asia). The First World War, which had already begun in 1915, was the beginning of the end of that…

19

Having seen the Gay Pride parade in Toronto today, I’d have to agree with you there… :slight_smile:

20

I agree with kniz about her wonder at modern appliances, but I think that after using them for a while, she would ask if they were really that time-saving. Our standards of cleanliness have changed since 1915. She might be surprised at how much time we actually spend using the “convenient” washer and dryer, to clean clothes that probably don’t seem that dirty to her. In 1915, most people would drag their rugs out to the yard to beat them clean, but they didn’t do that nearly as often as we vacuum. I think one of the frustrations that the 1900 house people encountered was that they were using 1900 cleaning methods, but their cleaning goals were still of 2000.

Another thing that will amaze her is how small the world is now – as in, how quickly you can get from one place to another. You can leave NY in the morning, and be in London at night! And not even that late at night, either.

I think our popular music would seem incredibly loud and busy to her. The popular songs of the 1910s strike me as very, um, sparse. Even something we think of as soft rock, let’s say Neil Diamond, for example, would probably sound like a cacaphony. I wonder if that is something you could ever get used to, if you were raised with singing around a piano as your musical entertainment. She might also be dismayed that the average 2000 person couldn’t manage a waltz, and she would wonder why formal dancing wasn’t popular.

Oh, but she would like recreational sports. By 1915, a young lady from the middle classes probably played some sports. Active games would probably be a better description – tennis, croquet, ice skating, maybe golf, etc. I think basketball was being played at the more progressive girls’ schools by 1915. Even if skimpy modern dress shocked her at first, she would probably enjoy the freedom it allows for activites. That might be a good way to encourage her to give modern dress a whirl, by presenting it in an athletic setting. She would most likely already accept somewhat less restrictive dress if it was associated with a sport.