Actually the young earth view was not typical among evangelical or conservative Christians 100 years ago. (Strictly speaking "fundamentalists" didn't exist until less than 90 years ago, until after the publication of the series of articles collected as The Fundamentals circa 1917, IIRC.) Even when the antievolution and fundamentalist movements were going strong in the 1920's, the vast majority of "experts" on the creation side were old earthers.
It was, however, in the 20's, or maybe just a bit before (I don't have my references out) that "flood geology," which would form the basis for the modern young earth view, was invented by a 7th Day Adventist named George McCready Price. But it would not be until the publication of Whitcomb and Morris' The Genesis Flood in 1960 that flood geology and the young earth view would be adopted by any appreciable number of conservative Christians.
IOW its a pretty recent phenomena. It's also interesting that flood geology, in it's inception, was not based on biblical literalism but rather on extrabiblical literalism. It's no coincidence that it's inventor was a 7th Day Adventist. While the Bible can be interpreted various ways as to the flood account, the writings of Ellen G. White cannot. White was the "prophetess" and founder of the sect, whose writings the most conservative members accept as inerrant. She wrote explicitly and unequivocally that fossils, and therefore the sedimentary layers that contain them, were deposited by Noah's flood. Of course the Bible has nothing to say about fossils or sediments.
Just curious, Race (and the other younge earthers here), did you know you've been peddling a doctrine derived from the teachings of (what most evangelicals and fundamentalists consider) a false prophet? Were you even aware that this doctrine was rejected by the vast majority, indeed near totality, of educated evangelicals for over a hundred of fifty years previously (all of the early 19th founders of modern geology, btw, were Christians, and most quite pious ones)?
That's quite interesting history of the creationist folks.
I can't help but note that while the fundamentalist/creationist people have been gathering momentum for decades, the influence of Christian denominations in secular life has been declining.
My theory is that these fundamentalist movements have been "dumbing down" members of Christian churches. It's much easier to lead those who have completely handed over any critical thinking to their leaders. So churches get "stronger", but at the cost of losing members who actually have a skill of evaluating information on their own.
I never followed Ellen G. White, she was not a fundamentalist, she was a cultist.
That statement is proved false quite easily.
RECENT CREATION
In his gospel, Luke, the beloved physician, recorded 75 generations from Jesus to Adam.26 Using the numbers found in the Old Testament, Theophilus and others 27 added up the number of years from the creation of the world. Theophilus concluded,
There are not two myriads of myriads (28) of years, even though Plato said such a period had elapsed between the deluge and his own time, . . . The world is not uncreated not is there spontaneous production of everything, as Pythagoras and the others have babbled; instead the world is created and is providentially governed by the God who made everything. And the whole period of time and the years can be demonstrated to those who wish to learn the truth. . . . The total number of years from the creation of the world is 5,695.29
Regarding the total number of years, Theophilus acknowledged,
If some period has escaped our notice, says 50 or 100 or even 200 years, at any rate it is not myriads, or thousands of years as it was for Plato . . . and the rest of those who wrote falsehoods. It may be that we do not know the exact total of all the years simply because the additional months and days are not recorded in the sacred books."30
Origen (b. 185), the great theologian of the Greek churches, defended "the Mosaic account of the creation, which teaches that the world is not yet ten thousand years old, but very much under that."31
And Augustine (b. 354), the great bishop of the Latin churches, wrote, "the Scripture . . . has paramount authority, . . . to which we yield assent in all matters."32 "That God made the world, we can believe from no one more safely than from God Himself."33
On the age of man and the earth, Augustine wrote, Some hold the same opinion regarding men that they hold regarding the world itself, that they have always been . . . . And when they are asked, how, . . . they reply that most, if not all lands, were so desolated at intervals by fire and flood, that men were greatly reduced in numbers, and . . . thus there was at intervals a new beginning made. . . . But they say what they think, not what they know. They are deceived . . . by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6,000 years have yet passed.34
Care to recent?? You stated that it is only a RECENT thing to believe in a young eqarth...
See? All you have to do is Believe what the Bibel says, and it all falls into place.