Virtual History: Life 100 Years Ago

Hi, I'm Hannah and I'm Josh, welcome to

life

100

years

ago. Let's talk about what

life

was like in the 1920s, one of the most interesting and important decades in American

history

. A decade is 10

years

. 10 decades equal a century like that. that we'll talk about life a century ago, people often talk about things in decades, so you'll hear them say things like the '20s or the '80s, now that we're in the 2020s, let's have a little fun and look at what it is. changed and what stayed the same in the last hundred years there were many incredibly important technologies developed or first used in the 1920s things that we take for granted today were completely new to children 100 years ago one of the biggest changes was how people around the 1920s was really the first decade of the automobile, the most important automobile was the model t, it had already been manufactured by Ford Motor Company before the 1920s, but during the decade there were millions of them, it was the first cheap and affordable car for most Americans if you have cars everywhere you need roads but cars still had to share the roads with carts and horses things could get complicated as seen in this picture as it progressed decade, more roads were paved to make them safer for cars.

With gas stations to keep cars running Here's an orange log cabin gas station and gas station in the West Texas desert. Another important safety invention of the 1920s was the traffic light, which helped keep drivers safe as streets became busier and faster. Here is an opportunity. from the first beaumont traffic light that traffic light was powered by electricity a new and rapidly growing technology in the 1920s electricity changed people's daily lives soon power stations like this one in orange were built everywhere to supply power to cities in addition of the light bulb that many other electrical appliances changed the way people lived the vacuum cleaner and the refrigerator are good examples appliances like the vacuum cleaner allow people to clean weekly or even daily in a way that had not been possible before the refrigerator Electric allowed people to keep food safe for longer periods of time and made leftovers possible children of the 1920s were some of the first to eat lots of leftovers they also had the first automatic ice machines ice was a big thing too There were new inventions for fun and entertainment before television came along.

The radio that came out in the 1920s allowed families to listen to musical stories and the latest news right in their living room. Live events, including a circus in 1925, were recorded and played on the radio. Here's a photo of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum's Dolly. Bailey Circus preparing for its debut on the radio Children all over the country heard their song The industry was booming in the 1920s and big changes occurred everywhere Ports like Orange sent goods all over the world on large ships The United States was even more important than it had been. This was because after World War I, much of Europe was destroyed.

American ships carried American products everywhere. This was so important that the US Navy was one of the largest in the world. Navy ships were in every ocean, making sure American ships could go safely wherever they wanted. What did those boats carry, but let's talk about what they took from Orange. For a long time, lumber had been the biggest business in the area in the decades before the 1920s. Orange was one of the most important logging cities in the world, but in The Orange of the 1920s was running out of trees, the huge forests found throughout Southeast Texas and Louisiana had been cut down, permanently changing the environment, while many of these trees had been replanted, they were Since it took a long time to grow oranges, a new industry was needed. and the Spindle Top oil well was right next door the oil industry became huge oil was what made all the new technology like the model t work the more cars and machines there were the more oil people needed the terrain of southeastern Texas had a lot of oil oil pumps like the one you see here were dug out of the ground, trucks then took them all over the country or to ports to be shipped all over the world, just like the logging industry, the oil industry changed the environment forever and the economy, things they did. in the 1920s continue to affect us today major changes occurred in the government of the United States in the 1920s two amendments or additions to the constitution were passed both took effect at the beginning of the decade the 18th amendment made the alcohol was illegal this was called prohibition many people thought this would make America safer and healthier especially for children but there were many problems with that idea as not everyone was treated equally by the law some people still They could get away with drinking while others couldn't.

Drinking was not safe in the late 1920s people were ready for prohibition to end and at the beginning of the next decade the law was repealed. The 19th Amendment was the next big change: it allowed women to vote in national elections for the first time. In American

history

, this had a huge effect on who was elected and how the government functioned, as there were now 26 million new voters. Part of the reason the 19th Amendment was passed was because World War I required women to work in jobs they didn't have before. recovering from the war was a big problem, Veterans Day, yet a national holiday was created to celebrate the end of World War I.

It was originally called Armistice Day even though the war was fought several years before the official treaty ending the war was ineffective. Until 1920. Most children in the 1920s would have known someone who served in the army during the First World War. There were many changes at the beginning and end of the 1920s, but things in between were very stable, so stable and productive, in fact, that they were called the Roaring Twenties, this was a time when America became the richest country in the world, like everything else. Children's lives changed greatly in the 1920s, a new law required all children to go to school and the public school system we know today was created.

Before the 1920s, not all children had formal learning, especially children who lived in the countryside. Thousands of new schools were built across the United States. In the 1920s, buses that in some cases were just horses and buggies provided transportation. There were also people dedicated to making sure. children went to school called truancy officers going to school meant that children's routines were more structured they had to get up to get to school on time they were assigned specific grades they had to handle homework outside of the classroom beyond from simply learning schools also changed the The way children played team sports were more formal programs and opportunities for physical activity.

Life at home depended a lot on what the parents did, but in general children were much better off in the 1920s than they had ever been before the 1920s. It was really dangerous to be a child for many years. children were dying from common diseases like in the 2020s, the 1920s began in a pandemic, although they did not have the best medicine, they discovered three important things to help stop the spread of the Spanish flu: wear a mask, wash your hands hands and quarantining when I felt sick sounds familiar, new hospitals were built across the country and new medications were developed that made childhood much safer.

Orange got a new state-of-the-art hospital. Another big thing that really helped the kids was indoor plumbing. The safest children in the 1920s were often the first in their families to have indoor bathrooms and toilets. Most children of the 1920s and their families lived a good life. New technologies combined with a good economy resulted in better living conditions for everyone. This prosperity was about to change. Right at the end of the decade that began the great depression, the lives of children in the 1930s would be very different and in many ways worse than in the 1920s, today, a hundred years later, we remember the 1920s as a time of great change and innovation in many ways.

The world we know today, with its cars, water, electricity and media, began in the 1920s. Think about all the changes that have occurred since then and think about what the world would be like in a hundred years.