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“Today we have electricity, indoor plumbing, and toilets. I suspect that you could learn to live without those too.”
I believe that during WW II we did indeed have electricity, indoor plumbing, and toilets- at least in most areas of the United States. SO I am not sure where you point is going.

I believe that during WW II we did indeed have electricity, indoor plumbing, and toilets- at least in most areas of the United States. SO I am not sure where you point is going.

Most Americans did not live in cities. The Rural Electrification Act was not signed into law until 1936. By 1940 only 33% of rural homes had electricity. Telephone line distribution was not amended to the act till much later in the 1950's. Just a piece of history.

I believe that during WW II we did indeed have electricity, indoor plumbing, and toilets- at least in most areas of the United States.

Oh really? Towns and cities, (mostly) yes...

So in 1935 Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the Rural Electrification Administration. A year later Congress gave the agency the money and power needed to promote rural electrification by providing low-cost loans to build transmission and generation facilities.

1930 Total population: 122,775,046; farm population: 30,455,350; farmers 21% of labor force; Number of farms: 6,295,000; average acres: 157; irrigated acres: 14,633,252 1932-36

1940 Total population: 131,820,000; farm population: 30,840,000; farmers 18% of labor force; Number of farms: 6,102,000; average acres: 175; irrigated acres: 17,942,968

OTOH 30,000,000+ hayseeds, hicks, rednecks, and s***-kickers in (what was to become) flyover country really don't (not then; not now) count, so yeah; most ever'body had terlets an 'lectricicals, an runnun water...and 40 acres & a mule.