The Year is 1905 - One hundred years ago

What a difference a century makes! Here are some of the U.S. statistics for the Year 1905:

• The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.
• Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. 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 U.S., 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 people, 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 U.S. was 22 cents per hour. The average U.S. 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 U.S. took place at home.
• Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had no college education. Instead, they attended so-called 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 was 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 that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.

The five leading causes of death in the U.S. 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 only 30!!!
• Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn't been invented yet.
• There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
• Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn't read or write.
• Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
• Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.
• There were about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.
• In 1905 mankind had just taken to wing for very short periods of time after that first fixed wing flight on the Outer Banks. Today we can hop a jet and be in Europe in 6 hours and 12 men have walked on the moon.

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Personally, I don't think our world will change in the next one hundred years as it did in the last century, nor should it. Entities, such as people, organizations, and even societies, change a variable rates. Often, there are peaks and valleys of prolific change and stagnation. This century, at least during our lives, should be used to reflect upon those changes in order to adequately give these changes the chance to affect us so that we may decide whether they were indeed appropriate or not. Hastely moving forward without serious contemplation about what has already occured has been—and will continue to be—a dangerous way to live. We must remember that all change is not good and that forward movement may actually take these entities a step or two backward.