Statistics For 1902/2002

The year is 1902 , one hundred years ago ... what a difference a century makes.

Here are the U.S. statistics for 1902....

* The average life expectancy in the US was forty-seven (47).

* Only 14 Percent of the homes in the US 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.

* There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 144 miles of paved roads. The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

* Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.

* The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

* The average wage in the US was 22 cents an hour.

* The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

* A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

* More than 95 percent of all births in the US took place at home.

* Ninety percent of all US 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.

* Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

* Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.

* The five leading causes of death in the US 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.

* The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was 30.

* Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented.

* There were no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

* One in ten US adults couldn't read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

* 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."

* Eighteen percent of households in the US had at least one full-time servant or domestic.

* There were only about 230 reported murders in the entire US.

Just think what it will be like in another 100 years. It boggles the mind.

YOU KNOW YOU'RE LIVING IN THE YEAR 2002 WHEN:

1. Your reason for not staying in touch with family is because they do not have e-mail addresses.

2. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

3. You call your son's beeper to let him know it's time to eat. He e-mails you back from his bedroom, "What's for dinner?"

4. Your daughter sells Girl Scout Cookies via her web site.

5. You chat several times a day with a stranger from South Africa, but you haven't spoken with your next door neighbor yet this year.

6. You check the ingredients on a can of chicken noodle soup to see if it contains Echinacea.

7. Your grandmother asks you to send her a JPEG file of your newborn so she can create a screen saver.

8. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.

9. Every commercial on television has a web site address at the bottom of the screen.

10. You buy a computer and 6 months later it is out of date and now sells for half the price you paid.

11. Leaving the house without your cell phone (which you didn't have for the first 20 or 30 years of your life) is now a cause for panic, and you turn around to go get it.

12. Using real money, instead of credit or debit, to make a purchase would be a hassle and takes planning.

13. Cleaning up the dining room means getting the fast food bags out of the back seat of your car.

14. You just tried to enter your password on the microwave.

15. You consider second day air delivery painfully slow.

16. Your dining room table is now your flat filing cabinet.

17. Your idea of being organized is multiple colored Post-it notes.

18. You hear most of your jokes via e-mail instead of in person.

19. You get an extra phone line so you can get phone calls.

20. You disconnect from the Internet and get this awful feeling, as if you just pulled the plug on a loved one.

21. You get up in morning and go on-line before getting your coffee.

22. You wake up at 2 AM to go to the bathroom and check your E-mail on your way back to bed.

23. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :-)

24. You're reading this.

25. Even worse, you're going to forward it to someone else.

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