Different times meant different values
By: Arnold Bornstein
Sometimes we lose sight of how much our lives are affected by our modern society.
It’s likely you have been told that you’re fortunate to be born in this country, contrasted with the quality of life in other parts of the world.
But what if you were born in this country in another era or century?
Perhaps imagining this will give you insight into how our current society does and does not help shape our lives.
This is assuming, of course, that you would be the same person regardless of the time period in which you’re living.
Suppose you, your family and friends were now living in 1906, in the New York City or Philadelphia areas, or somewhere in between.
Much of what we take for granted today didn’t really exist in 1906. Cellular phones, computers, television, national radio broadcasting, movies as we know them, plane travel, most kitchen appliances, air conditioning, affordable cars, many medical advances and a host of other things that you know about weren’t around a century ago.
In 1906, your president was Theodore Roosevelt, and he didn’t win with any women’s votes because women didn’t get to vote in this country until 1920.
The United States’ population was less than 86 million back then; today, it’s 300 million.
The San Francisco earthquake and the fire that raged after it killed nearly 4,000 people and destroyed 75 percent of the city in 1906. The Wright brothers got a patent for an "aeroplane."
In 1906, there were race riots in Atlanta and 3,000 blacks demonstrated and rioted in Philadelphia.
There were two major pogroms against Jews in Russia .
Jack London had another successful adventure novel, "White Fang."
George Cohan, of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" fame, had his show, "George Washington," open in New York, and George Bernard Shaw’s "Caesar and Cleopatra" premiered there, too.
A man named William Kellogg and his partner founded a corn flake company.
The American flag only had 45 stars then, since Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii wouldn’t become states for a few more years.
And there was gossip, of course: Architect Stanford White was shot to death atop Madison Square Garden, a building he had designed. A jealous husband, Harry Thaw, pulled the trigger in this tale that involved a reported affair.
What would your life have been like on a personal, everyday level in 1906?
For one thing, you wouldn’t be watching a professional football game on Sunday afternoon because neither pro football nor the television had come into existence yet.
College football was popular, and the national champion in 1906 was Princeton University with a record of 9 wins, no losses and l tie.
Horses and carriages were in use on city streets, and cars were bought primarily by the wealthy, because affordable cars namely the Model T didn’t come along for another two years.
I can’t vouch for all my research regarding what living was like in 1906, since sometimes the historical aspects I found seemed to contradict each other.
In any event, I think the following items give us a feeling of what life must have been like 100 years ago.
The average life expectancy was 47.
Only 14 percent of homes had bathtubs, and only eight percent had phones.
At 312 meters, the world’s tallest structure was the Eiffel Tower.
The overwhelming majority of births took place at home.
A number of women used the cleaning agent borax or egg yolks for shampoo, and only washed their hair once a month.
In the century that has come and gone, there have been two world wars, space and moon travel, incredible advances in medicine and science and social upheaval.
Old countries have vanished while new countries have been created.
There are now nuclear bombs and other weapons of mass destruction.
But be it 1906, 1806, or 2006, the virtues remain the same for humans: love, family, births, friendship, brotherhood and the pursuit of happiness and tranquility.
And if that is the one thing that is still the same in 100 years from now, those virtues would make 2l06 a very good year.
Arnold Bornstein is a resident of Greenbriar at Whittingham in Monroe.

