Home of the Range-A telephone but no toilet
Try to image what it was like to live on a prairie farm in the 1930s. What conveniences do you take for granted which would have been missing from a farm back then? I recently came across the following statistics from the 1930 census. Interestingly, many more farms had a telephone and a radio than had water piped into the house or electricity, other than the small amount they produced themselves with a wind generator.
Imagine trying to stay clean with all that dust, but no shower, no running water at the sink, and no indoor toilet.
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Claudia
(last edited Sep 18, 2013 06:49PM)
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Sep 18, 2013 06:48PM
Interesting points. I was reading about the changes the telephone brought to our culture... As far as language went, people were upset about it the way they are now about texting... letters became a lot less formal, as did spoken conversation off the phone. Certain phrases, such as "waiting for a ring," became common. People had crazy expectations. They thought they could call the operator and have him or her (they only became predominantly women because the men tended to get drunk and insult customers) call them back when their bread was scheduled to have risen, or the train was supposed to arrive (and even have the operator keep track of whether it was on time). They thought they could place the receiver in the baby's cradle and have the operator monitor whether the child woke up while mom took a walk...
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Claudia wrote: "Interesting points. I was reading about the changes the telephone brought to our culture... As far as language went, people were upset about it the way they are now about texting... letters became ..."With technology, communication has become more immediate but less thoughtful. What's worse, modern thinking is probably headed in the same direction.
