I was wondering how “odd” someone from our time would seem to people in the year 1900? What would stand out the most? Lack of believing in their superstitions? Understanding/knowing where diseases like salmonella come from? Dramatic differences in hygeine? Trying to think of others…
Eugenics was starting to become “the next big thing” around then if I remember right. (Culminating in the Halocaust 40 years later)
You’d better study up on racism too, if you were nice to any colored back then you’d probably be lynched within a week, maybe at least tarred and feathered.
“The Jungle” by Upton Sinclaire, about the horrible meat-packing conditions in Chicago at the time either was just released/or about to be released. From what I read from that I wouldn’t touch any meat that didn’t come from a farmer’s market, or you’d probably have quite a few parasites going down w/ the chicken you just bought.
Oh, and no Model-T cars yet either, so better get yourself a horse and a buggy whip.
Depends on what you do and how you get transported. If you just get popped back with no prep, you’re hosed. Clothing, hairstyle, speech pattern, etc. would all give you away immediately. But with a little prep, you could probably blend in fairly easily. Pretend to be “Canadian” and keep your head down.
My biggest fear about that kind of time-travel would be the near-impunity cops had back then. I’d get tossed into a cell and beaten to death for my mouth in an instant, I’m afraid.
FWIW, this is the same advice you’re given when visiting Cairo.
You’re not that different, other than engineering and hardware innovations, most of the philosophical underpinnings of what we believe today were abroad in 1900 in some form or fashion. Atheism vs theism, women’s rights, debates about racism etc.
Are you confusing 1900 with the middle ages?
Your clothing and speech definitely would mark you as odd.
Racism was common, but there were plenty of white people who weren’t particularly racist in the sense they’d search out and harass Blacks. The races were much more separate, but the reaction to the races varied around the US. Most non-Southern whites basically just left Black people alone, and vice versa.
Your eating habits would have been considered strange. Vegetables and salads had not really caught on (except for potatoes and maybe carrots in a stew), so most of the diet was meat, and maybe bread. Of course, cooking the meat thoroughly would kill most disease, which is why most recipes would seem overcooked to you. And if you were a vegetarian, no one could understand that.
Ethnic cooking was rare outside the ethnic enclaves (my WPA guide to New York City from 1939 has to explain to readers what “ravioli,” “chow mein,” “shish kebab,” “tortillas,” “tacos,” “smörgåsbord,” and “minestrone” were, and that was 39 years later).
The fact that you’d want to take a shower every day would seem odd, too.
I don’t think so. My understanding is that it was pretty much unheard-of for people to bathe daily back then, especially to the extent modern 1st-world country people do. As in, daily shower with soap and shampoo.
With the disease thing, maybe?
If you wanted and could afford an automobile in 1900, they were available. National Motors Style A came out in 1900, for instance.
I have to say, you guys are painting a pretty bleak picture of 1900. You wouldn’t be lynched if you were polite to a black person, you wouldn’t die if you ate a piece of meat (athought, yeah, maybe stay away from the steak tartare), and you wouldn’t be beaten to death by the cops if you looked at them funny.
Are you trying to fit in, or just being your normal 21st century self?
Assuming you’re at least making an effort – dressing in period clothes, not trying to call attention to yourself by agitating for equal rights for blacks and women, etc. – you’d still come off as unusual in a variety of ways:
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You’re bigger and healthier than almost everyone you meet. Your strapping physique makes you look like an amateur athlete.
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You’re a complete boor. It was a more etiquette-bound time and you hardly know any of the rules. You’ll often find yourself being rude or offensive without intending to.
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You don’t know all sorts of basic things that an average adult would be expected to know. How to handle a horse, for example. Imagine how you would respond if you met someone today who didn’t know how to dial a telephone.
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Language has changed a lot over the last 100 years. Both in accent and word choice you’ll sound like you’re “not from around here”.
“The past is a foreign country.” – L. P. Hartley
If you think you’re going to wow them with cultural changes I think you’re being naive as most of where were are now culturally could readily have been predicted as a possible outcome by more sophisticated and savvy people of the time. I mean it’s only 108 years ago, that’s not a world away.
What would blow thier socks off is the advances in science and engineering. Modern people and their opinions, not so much.
Not so bad in the Northeast, though. Before the Great Northern Migration, the relatively few blacks that lived in inner cities were often in poor but nonetheless ethnically mixed neighborhoods. At least in Buffalo, relations were civil; you wouldn’t be called a “n****r lover” if you were nice to blacks.
Expressing modern-day values related to race and ethnicity, though, such as considering all cultures more-or-less equal (as opposed to a more primitive early anthropological standpoints, where non-WASP cultures were considered inferior in some way) would be seen as extremely radical. Looking down on immigrants was the norm then (“We must civilize those greasy Dagos, and turn them into real Americans!”, etc); today such beliefs, although still expressed, are shunned upon.
The political reform and progressive movements were gaining steam on the local and state level in the US. “Robber barons” weren’t idolized as they are now, but rather considered a menace by public officials. Political concepts such as socialism and communism didn’t have the stigma they earned in the post-WWII era. Advocating universal health care in the era might seem odd (since seeing a doctor was so cheap in the era), but some economic policies and concepts popular among today’s liberal crowd won’t seem that out-of-place by progressives in the era.
Some social norms of the day would be shocking to us. Children drinking alcohol (no drinking age, and some brands of beer advertised as “for the entire family”, “ideal for nursing mothers”, and so on), smoking nasty cigarettes and cigars, physical altercations considered more acceptable, unlimited access to handguns … you get the idea.
I think your handle answers your question pretty well…
Not as weird as your username would suggest.
People in 1900 were, on average, a lot more rural, which meant something different in the pre-tractor era. The main thing is that you haven’t lived around draft, pack, and slaughter animals your whole life, and you have a rather prissy approach to things like dung, corpses, and insect infestations. You likely have a different approach to tobacco: You view it as concentrated cancer, whereas they’re going to die before the first lumps or polyps appear. (Look at the third world: They smoke like chimneys but they aren’t dying of lung cancer. They’re dying of everything else before lung cancer can kill them.)
You also have a more cynical view of the government. Remember: These people would never have found out about all of the little pettifogging scandals that pepper the news these days. Hell, full-on State Communism had unapologetic supporters in the era before Stalin and Mao.
This would be shocking how?
Yeah, I was picturing trying as much as possible to fit in, at least appearance-wise. The accent I suppose could be explained away by claiming to be from somewhere else.
Interesting about probably being bigger, stronger, healthier…even compared to farmers or coal miners who worked very hard all day?
It wasn’t like it was a choice. The opportunity to bathe daily is mediated by the availability of hot water at the turn of tap. People did take daily sponge baths and would have bathed more often if they could. The oppy for daily bathing vs 1900 is mainly due to water and sewer infrastructure improvements not ignorance of the benefits of being clean.
That’s a little bit of an overstatement. There were vegetarian restaurants and vegetarian clubs (and, in fact, the International Vegetarian Congress met in Paris in 1900), and it was around 1900s that vegetarian recepies started showing up in womens’ and homemaking magazines.
Vegetarianism wasn’t common or popular, but it existed and had its adherants.
You’ve had food your whole life, especially meat that wasn’t tainted or mainly filler. Read The Jungle sometime: A human thumb was the most wholesome thing in the ‘Pure Leaf Lard’.
They did have newspapers wthat were filled with all variety of scandals. Most rural farming types were plenty cynical of politicians. I think any 1900 dirt farmer’s degree of cynicism with politicians abroad at the time could easily go toe to toe with modern attitudes.
Got nice teeth? What was the state of dental care those days?