It's 1900 and I'm alive and living in Downtown LA or San Francisco?

[seabass]

WoW Great Video ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnDjmNNC9So&feature=player_embedded#!
I train Operator's to operate vintage street cars. like the electric car's that are crossing Market st..in the video.
Im there on Market St every day with students.

I LOVE MY JOB !
I cant wear my vintage hats on the job But who cares with a great job like this !

 

[Stearmen]

The Great Earthquake

I love shorpy.com but thought I'd post this as well as I really like this video

[video=youtube_share;pnDjmNNC9So]http://youtu.be/oubsaFBUcTc[/video]

A couple of interesting notes about this film. It was taken in 1906, you can tell by the license plates on the cars and there were only a couple of cars, they just circled round and were refilmed several times. Also the water on the roads showed that it had to be just days before the Great Earthquake. Many of these people literally had just days to live!

 

[Stearmen]

I LOVE MY JOB !
I cant wear my vintage hats on the job But who cares with a great job like this !

Wow, what a great job!

 

[Stanley Doble]

If he lived in a town or city it is very unlikely he would own a horse and carriage unless he was very well off. The exception would be someone whose business demanded it, such as the owner of a store, as most retail establishments delivered their goods by horse and wagon. If he had a horse and wagon for that reason it would be boarded at a livery stable.

It is far more likely he would walk, or use the horse drawn street car or omnibus. Hire a hack only on very special occasions. But mostly walk.

This is why stores delivered. Their customers arrived on foot or by streetcar, and it was not done to carry packages in the street unless you were a housewife or cook with a market basket for small provisions. Everything else was delivered.

In 1900 he would have summer suits and winter suits. In summer, the summer suits would hang in the wardrobe (not closet) and the winter clothes would go in the attic in a trunk. Vice versa in the winter. Very unlikely to have sport clothes or golf clothes as such. Golf was a sport for the rich, in fact nearly all sports were for the rich. If your man went on a picnic or to a ball game he would wear his oldest suit, with a straw skimmer and possibly a fancy shirt with stripes, and contrasting collar and cuffs.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Funny you mention San Francisco. Jack London hit it big as an author about that time and rented a brand new house on Russian Hill for $6 a month. This was the fashionable new section of town and your man may have lived in the neighborhood if he was doing well.

 

[Stanley Doble]

In 1900 San Francisco was the biggest city on the west coast, 9th largest in America with a population of 342,000, terminus of the main railroad to Chicago and points east, the Athens of the West, America's main Pacific port, and had been for 50 years.

Meanwhile Los Angeles was a cow town of 100,000 practically unknown outside California. This would change rapidly when the movies arrived about 1915.

 

[Stanley Doble]

As far as cleaning up the yard, etc you would hire a man to do that sort of thing. Your wife would have a full time maid and a cook as well. You would not employ a full time servant but hire men casually for different jobs. There would probably be a neighborhood odd job man you could get for small jobs. No labor laws, workman's comp, income tax or other impediments to casual labor. Also no permanent unemployment. There was plenty of work, if a man was without employment for more than a few weeks he was a bum or a cripple.

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

Che it must be fun working with the trolley's I wish every city still had trolley's. My grandparents lived next to a trolley station when I was a kid. I remember asking my grandfather what all the rails under the asphalt was for. It was a real shame what happened to the trolley lines across america after World War II.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

That's the day before Sunday, right?

A Saturday of errands -- ...

At that point, Saturday was just like Friday, he went to work. The only day off your man would have is Sunday.

 

[jamespowers]

As far as cleaning up the yard, etc you would hire a man to do that sort of thing. Your wife would have a full time maid and a cook as well. You would not employ a full time servant but hire men casually for different jobs. There would probably be a neighborhood odd job man you could get for small jobs. No labor laws, workman's comp, income tax or other impediments to casual labor. Also no permanent unemployment. There was plenty of work, if a man was without employment for more than a few weeks he was a bum or a cripple.

Uh yeah. My family has lived in the bay area since 1872. None of them ever had that kind of experience. Yardwork is what they did on the weekends or maybe the wife would help out a bit during the week while the husband was at work. No cooks, no maids, no gardeners---the closest thing to a gardener was when one of the children cut the lawn or raked the leaves. lol lol In fact, the cook and the maid were one and the same person---the wife.

 

[mikespens]

I LOVE MY JOB !
I cant wear my vintage hats on the job But who cares with a great job like this ![/QUOTE]

Can't beat that Che! Nothing will keep you healthier than that. Bet you have some stories to tell too. Cheers!

 

[Edward]

WoW Great Video ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnDjmNNC9So&feature=player_embedded#!
I train Operator's to operate vintage street cars. like the electric car's that are crossing Market st..in the video.
Im there on Market St every day with students.

I LOVE MY JOB !
I cant wear my vintage hats on the job But who cares with a great job like this !

Dearly wish to travel to SF one day, go on the trams, see Alcatraz....

I can't see those trams without hearing Eddie Izzard in my head... lol

[video=youtube;zwyJk_TfvqQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwyJk_TfvqQ[/video]

 

[Stanley Doble]

Uh yeah. My family has lived in the bay area since 1872. None of them ever had that kind of experience. Yardwork is what they did on the weekends or maybe the wife would help out a bit during the week while the husband was at work. No cooks, no maids, no gardeners---the closest thing to a gardener was when one of the children cut the lawn or raked the leaves. lol lol In fact, the cook and the maid were one and the same person---the wife.

The questioner specified "solidly middle aged and middle class" and the date 1900. At that time house servants were common for the middle class and it was also common to hire a man for small jobs around the house. I agree that some men chose to do the gardening and other work themselves but this was far from universal.

It is also likely that the middle class family in San Francisco lived in a row of 4 story houses with no front lawn, or one the size of a billiard table, and a back yard 30 feet square. Before cars came in everyone depended on walking, or streetcars or horse drawn buses. Houses were much more crowded together.

See "The Rise of Silas Lapham" by William Dean Howells in which Lapham, on getting rich in the paint business, decides to build a mansion for his family. He begins by buying a 20 foot wide lot on the Back Bay. This was in the 1840s. I puzzled over that page for a long time then figured out that before modern transportation, that was a common size for houses in Boston. Later with the advent of horse cars and buses cities spread out a little more but houses, even for the well off, were built tight together on small lots.

 

[jamespowers]

The questioner specified "solidly middle aged and middle class" and the date 1900. At that time house servants were common for the middle class and it was also common to hire a man for small jobs around the house. I agree that some men chose to do the gardening and other work themselves but this was far from universal.

It is also likely that the middle class family in San Francisco lived in a row of 4 story houses with no front lawn, or one the size of a billiard table, and a back yard 30 feet square. Before cars came in everyone depended on walking, or streetcars or horse drawn buses. Houses were much more crowded together.

See "The Rise of Silas Lapham" by William Dean Howells in which Lapham, on getting rich in the paint business, decides to build a mansion for his family. He begins by buying a 20 foot wide lot on the Back Bay. This was in the 1840s. I puzzled over that page for a long time then figured out that before modern transportation, that was a common size for houses in Boston. Later with the advent of horse cars and buses cities spread out a little more but houses, even for the well off, were built tight together on small lots.

Ok, if you are talking specifically about San Franfreako then you might be right. Out here in the suburbs, even the rich did their own chores. My great grandfather had 300 acres out here back then and did fairly well. The dairy was right across the way and milk was easy to cart across. The children were the workers in many ways. That is likely why they had 13. Well, that and there was no TV back then. lol lol
The houses were much smaller in the city and that is why they went to the suburbs. The house had 13 rooms, two kitchens and a tennis court. It wasn't that bad a living.