Could you survive?

[Amy Jeanne]

I am sorry that you read my message that way.

I have no problem with people choosing what they should buy. I also do not think someone having things that they aquired honesly is in any way bad.

My example was to show that someone with very limited income can still have things that would not even be able to be made in the '30s. More than one radio in a house was fairly extravagent in the '30s but today having electronics that are beyond anything that had been imagined then is so common today anyone can have it. As an example of something like that that anyone can have is cell phones. Not having a cell phone is a choice today because there are programs that give free phones to people who can't afford them. There is no way anyone in the '30s would have things like that.

I in no way meant that the choice some people make or their financial situation makes them any better or worse, only that someone with very little money today can have a lifestyle that would be beyond the means of most people in the '30s.

As far as your thinking that evictions are the main interaction that I have with low income neighborhoods, When I am helping with evictions I am there to keep people who are not being evicted from looting. I am there for protecting the property of all people involved. . I do most of my work with the Sheriff on programs with kids and seniors. I also do a lot of work helping people who want to get off the street get set up and avoid becoming homeless again. I actually stopped being paid by the Sheriff's office 10 years ago but I continue being a Deputy without pay so I can do more to help people in the community. That way I can keep some programs going even though the city cut funding. I can't spend as much time on it as I would like since I need to work in engineering to pay the bills.

I "got" what you were trying to say. Yes, people with lower incomes have a more luxurious life today than people with modest incomes in the 1930s. Not ALL, though. And those luxuries are things we take for granted because it's assumed everyone must have one (your example of multiple radios was good). It isn't good or "bad" -- it just is!! It's a fact! Times have changed!

As for time travel, I still have the same answer as a few years ago. I'd like to visit 1937 for a few days, but I wouldn't want to stay there. Knowing what I know in 2012 I'm fairly certain I wouldn't make it out of the 30s alive!!! And I still don't like the idea of vintage feminine hygiene products :/ But if you erased my life as a Modern Person and plopped me in 1937 fresh, I would do great!

 

[LizzieMaine]

More than one radio in a house was fairly extravagent in the '30s but today having electronics that are beyond anything that had been imagined then is so common today anyone can have it.

By the mid-thirties extremely inexpensive "midget radios" were being widely promoted and sold as a "second set" for the bedroom or kitchen -- some of these could be had for less than three dollars. They weren't the quality of the big set in the living room -- the common slang term for the cheap sets was "curtain burners" -- but they worked reasonably well on local stations, and were very popular in cities, where distance reception wasn't considered important. By the end of the thirties, these radios were extremely popular and not at all considered an extravagance.

In any case, I think one's answer to the question "could you live the life you've become accustomed to" depends to a great extent on defining exactly what kind of life you *have* become accustomed to in the modern era. A lot of us would either be continuing along the way we live now, or would be going back to things we were long used to in our past. For example, I doubt there's anyone here over forty who didn't grow up with a rotary phone -- and some of us even used party lines or manual exchanges as kids. Driving cars with standard transmissions, lighting a kerosene stove, using a manual typewriter, living without health insurance -- once you know how to do something like that, you don't forget it*no matter how many "luxuries" you might have access to in later life.

 

[kiwilrdg]

I'm fairly certain I wouldn't make it out of the 30s alive!!!

Good Point!!!!!!
At first I was going to tell you not to sell yourself short. I am sure any of us could adapt to living then, but to survive being sent to 1937 would mean living 75 more years to get to today. That would mean I would need to live to be 124. I guess I would not survive even if I managed to thrive.

By the mid-thirties extremely inexpensive "midget radios" were being widely promoted and sold as a "second set" for the bedroom or kitchen -- some of these could be had for less than three dollars.

A radio with similar functions can be bought at a dollar store today.
with a mean income change from $1,700 in 1937 to $31,111 in 2011 there is an 18X increase in income and the price dropped to a third of what it was. a $54 radio today would be a similar price. It would not be an extravagance, but it would not be disposable either.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Very little then was disposable. That's something modern people would definitelty have to get used to.

In 1939 my grandparents' income was $475 for the year, and they owned two radios: one was a 1928 Crosley they'd picked up used when they got married six years earlier -- second-hand radios could be had for practically nothing, especially the old metal-box battery-operated sets from the twenties -- and the other was one of those two-dollar jobs they got in trade when my grandfather did some work for the guy who ran the local drugstore. They kept the Crosley until after the war -- and the two-dollar set was still functioning thru my own childhood. So yes, definitely not disposable.

 

[kiwilrdg]

A Crosley that is made today is a similar price adjusted for inflation and I will be surprised if the one I bought will last more than a few years (but it has some pretty slick features if I decide to be a modern geek rather than a vintage tinkerer)

 

[TomS]

Driving cars with standard transmissions, lighting a kerosene stove, using a manual typewriter, living without health insurance -- once you know how to do something like that, you don't forget it*no matter how many "luxuries" you might have access to in later life.

Isn't that the truth!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Another difference, I think, is that a lot of what people today consider "necessities" are actually *conveniences.* We hear people all the time say they "couldn't possibly live without their i-Phone" or whatever the trendy doodad of the moment is, but honestly -- *could they?* How much of the information communicated thru these gadgets is truly and honestly *essential* to one's daily functioning, and how much of it is simply stuff that could just as easily be transmitted over a wired phone, or even face to face when you happened to see the person next?

To use the example of my grandparents again, they didn't have a telephone until 1950. They didn't *need* one -- everybody they needed to be in close contact with lived right on the same block, and it was easy enough to yell out the window if you needed to talk to your neighbor, or if the person you needed to talk to lived further away there were always kids in the street who could run a message from house to house if something important came up. Neighborhood life was like that -- it was about interdependence, not independence. And if the message you needed to convey wasn't urgent, if it was gossip or chit-chat, it could wait until you saw the other person next time at the post office, the bank, or the grocery store.

A person from the modern era transported back to the Era would have to alter their mindset about the importance of instant communication, but this would hardly be a matter of survival. It'd simply be a matter of readjusting one's attitude toward a convenience, and people might be surprised at how much more relaxing it would be not having to have live in a sense of constant simulated urgency about matters that are rarely of any great importance at all.

 

[kiwilrdg]

I think everything that would be lost would be replaced by something just as good, or better.

Facebook "friends" replaced by penpals
text messages replaced by friendly conversations
web searches replaced by reading
tweets replaced by radio news bulletins
cake mixes replaced by a a stocked pantry
video games replaced by playing real games
Reality TV just gone, we dont need to replace everything

Sounds good. If the rest of the world would go for it I sure would.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Even discussion boards such as this one had equivalents in the Era: many cities and towns had a newspaper feature called the "Confidential Chat" or some such thing, in which readers would write in questions or comments to which other readers would submit replies. Readers would use "handles" on these pages, just as discussion-board habitues do today, and discussions would go on for days and days, with dozens of different people contributing their thoughts, just as we do here. The only real difference was that it wasn't instantaneous -- which is a good thing, because it made people think before writing.

The Boston Globe's "Confidential Chat" lasted from 1922 until 2006. I wonder if the Lounge will last that long?

 

[St. Louis]

Oh, I am so sorry to hear that the Confidential Chat ended! I'm originally from Boston, and the CC was the first column I turned to in the Globe.

I have so loved reading this thread, all the way back to the beginning. I tend to write long posts, so I'll try not to write an encyclopedia, but there's so much here ... I could easily find work in 1937 as a teacher, because hiring standards weren't so "paper-ized." That is, certifications were easier to earn, and there were fewer bureaucratic hoops. In some ways (not in all) that was an advantage, because it meant that some highly skilled, mature people could become teachers; today's certification requirements practically ensure that only young college grads can get teaching jobs. Still, I would miss my academic way of life very much, and I'm fairly sure that I wouldn't be able to enter the academy (even if I had some way of forging credentials) as the daughter of immigrants.

As to the modern technology: even though I find myself checking my email a bit too frequently, and even though about 60-75 percent of my current work life is spent in front of a computer screen, I'm sure I wouldn't miss it. Twice a year some friends and I occupy a small antebellum frontier village in Illinois (in my other hobby life I do antebellum reenacting) and we all agree that we never think about technology from the moment we arrive. It's always astonishing to me, in fact, how much time is released back into your day when there's no computer--no TV--no cell phone--no ipods. We have no electricity or running water in the village, and we don't allow any modern stuff. Still, it's amazing how comfortable and easy the life can be. Hard work, yes, but not much stress ... and the cleanliness standards are so much lower! (I'm counting that as a good thing, btw.)

One other thing to add: I avoided facebook for years until one of my brothers made me join. At first I thought it was relatively enjoyable, and then, much to my naive chagrin, I realized that the thoughts & ideas expressed on FB are precisely the same ones people utter in real life. Just faster. Not better, just faster.

I love the clothes, music, furniture, and daily politeness of 1937; I would probably not want to return. Oh, and as a relatively shy person, I think I'd like the fact that the world's population was about 2 billion, as opposed to 7 billion today.

 

[Stanley Doble]

A side note on the "curtain burner" radios. These were the first low cost home radios you could plug in rather than buy batteries for. The tubes available at the time required a lower voltage than house current so the manufacturer made the power cord out of resistance wire. This reduced the voltage to the tubes but it meant the cord got hot when the radio was on. As long as the cord got plenty of air, all was well. If the radio was on a table next to the window, and the window curtains got draped around the cord, it was possible for the cord to get hot enough to start a fire.

They were also called "hot tail" radios in South America.

These radios were made in the early thirties, I think the last ones were made in 1934 or 35. After that the tube companies came out with different tube designs that did not require the lower voltage.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Some of the modern conveniences we have now, were available in a different form. When no one had cell phones there were phone booths on every corner. Now there is hardly any demand, and they have gradually disappeared. But in 1937 if you lived in a town or city there was usually a phone booth handy.

What I still can't get over is how cheap long distance is. When I was a kid a long distance phone call was a big deal, usually it meant someone was dying or very sick.

To change the subject a bit, what can you think of that is either no longer available or hard to get, that was common in 1937?

Let me start the list, in addition to phone booths, how about fresh air and clean water you don't have to buy by the bottle? Fresh fruit and vegetables that have flavor and vitamins. Meat that isn't full of antibiotics and hormones. Radio that is worth listening to, and movies that are worth seeing.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Fresh fruit and vegetables that have flavor and vitamins. Meat that isn't full of antibiotics and hormones.

You can still get those today, but they're sold to you at designer prices by a smarmy bearded twentysomething who includes a lecture with every tomato. In the Era, you just went to the First National or the A&P and picked them off the top of the pile.

 

[David Conwill]

To change the subject a bit, what can you think of that is either no longer available or hard to get, that was common in 1937?

'32 Ford roadsters. Although I occasionally hear the unsubstantiated allegation that there are more on the road today than were built in 1932.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Replacement washing machine wringer rollers. As recently as the '80s you could get them in any good hardware store. For that matter, it's increasingly difficult to find "a good hardware store" and not some overmarketed suburban big box.

 

[Flicka]

Let me start the list, in addition to phone booths, how about fresh air and clean water you don't have to buy by the bottle?

That's still available here -- water I mean. Just turn on the tap.

Mine would be time. Letting things take time and living slow. Slow cooking, slow washing, walking where you need to go and taking the time to mend things rather than buting new. Now we're rushing and we don't even know where we're going.

 

[scottyrocks]

There is a popular thread here called something like 'things that have disappeared since the golden era,' or 'vintage things that have disappeared in your liftime' (I probably mangled those). But yes, there are many things we used to have that don't exist, or exist to a much less extent, today.

 

[sheeplady]

That's still available here -- water I mean. Just turn on the tap.

We've got tap water you can light on fire in some parts of the U.S. Now, there is some argument if it is naturally occurring or due to hydrofracking, but regardless, we're talking flames. If you search Youtube for "lighting water on fire" you'll get many hits. I don't want to post a video as most are political.

 

[Shangas]

Adding to my previous posting, it has occurred to me that in 1937, Australia was still using British-style pre-decimal currency; pounds, shillings and pence. That might take some getting used to! Other things, like entertainment, dressing, daily living, food, etc, should not be a problem.

I don't know if anyone here has adressed this issue, but I'm of Chinese ancestry on both sides. My two grandfathers both immigrated to the Straits Settlements, ca. 1920s, during the Republican era in China. I imagine race might present some challenges to us time-travellers of non-European ancestry...unless we get to pick where we get to go to in this little game. I might say the Settlement in Shanghai, but Shanghai in 1937 was not the safest place to be...

 

[Flicka]

We've got tap water you can light on fire in some parts of the U.S. Now, there is some argument if it is naturally occurring or due to hydrofracking, but regardless, we're talking flames. If you search Youtube for "lighting water on fire" you'll get many hits. I don't want to post a video as most are political.

Oh, wow. Our tap water is high quality, but then it comes from Lake Mälar and the water there is so clean a former mayor would make a show of scooping a glass from it downtown and drinking -- it's actually technically OK (although I wouldn't do it because I'm a germophobic).

One BIG bonus with 1937 would be fewer cars. I don't like cars. Never had one and likely never will (public transportation or bicycle all the way, whee!)