That era begins with a lifestyle not much different than the previous 5000, with horse travel and sailing ships being the fastet travel. Most things were done with human manual labor. In 1830 there were almost no roads in the modern sense, just trails. You were born in a town, never travelled more than about 50 miles from where you were born, and died there. Homesteading in a different place, say moving from New York to California, risked your life on a year long journey.
In the next 110 years, steam power replaced horses and human labor, revolutionizing travel and creating modern industry. Electricity continued replacing human labor, and oil and rail made the world much smaller. By the end of that century in 1945, was the beginning of the atomic age, the jet age, worldwide communications, computers, and the beginnings of space travel.
From 1945 until now, the changes are nowhere as great. We have far more in common with a person from 1945 than a person from 1945 has with someone from 1845.
Agreed.
I look back to the time when my great grandparents were in their prime, and except for all of the cool electronic technology and futuristic transportation we have today, there's really not that much difference in our day to day lives.
Nice post.
In conducting genealogical research I came across a relative that was born in 1866 and died in 1954, the same time period you wrote about. He was a farmer that lived in Missouri his whole life.
At birth, his county was the definition of rural, having only been settled by pioneers a couple of decades prior. In his teenage years, they finally got a branch of the railroad to run through the nearest town which brought ‘luxuries’ to them. Before that, covered wagon transports made the 100 mile journey to the nearest rail station. They still owned a horse and buggy into the early 1930’s when they finally got an old car.
While his own day to day living as a farmer may not have changed that much, with the exception of farming technology, to think he was born just after the Civil War and died just before the space age is remarkable.
You might like to read the Victorian Internet. It agrees with your premise, but starts with the telegraph.