Life 100 Years Ago

I thought these were some interesting statistics about life 100 years ago:

• The average life expectancy in the United States was 46.
• Only 14 percent of American homes had a bathtub. Eight percent had a telephone.
• Sugar cost 4¢ a pound, coffee was 15¢ a pound, eggs were 14¢ per dozen.
• The cost of a three-minute phone call from Denver to New York City was about $11.
• Only 6 percent of American adults were high school graduates. Ten percent were illiterate.
• Ninety percent of doctors in the United States hadn’t attended college.

I like that last statistic a lot - so what was the prerequisite for becoming an MD? Just hanging out a shingle and calling yourself 'Doc'?

Also, if eggs were 14 cents a dozen, but a three-minute long distance call was eleven bucks, who the hell would have been able to afford to make phone calls? John D. Rockefeller could make calls to Andrew Carnegie, and that was about it, right?

I guess having a phone around the turn of the last century was like the equivalent of private-jet travel in today's world?


---JohnnyU