Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Depends on where you lived and what was available. A traveling circus was a big event. County fairs or festivals were also big events. If there was a theater available, there was the possibility of a stage play. These plays were like watching a TV show or movie. A Vaudville show could also be a big event since it included comedy, music, dance, short plays, and a magic act. They could go to a local club for music, dancing, and card playing. At home some families played their own music together, read books, and or engaged in artistic hobbies like painting or carving.
This has turned into a very interesting thread, but I believe it focuses too much upon the role of the electronic media alone; the personal vehicle played at least as big a role in what has been described as "getting the farmer out of the mud".
My paternal grandfather (b:1885-d:1975) grew up on a typical family farm in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The anthracite coal industry was at its height during those years, and the nearest of the "mine patch towns" were only about 8 miles away. People there raised some of their own food in gardens, often kept chickens and a single cow, but the arrangement wasn't very efficient, nor sanitary, or esthetically pleasing.
So, sometime between 1910 and 1920, my Granddad hit upon the idea of peddling his milk in those communities; the arrangement lasted about twenty years, until a combination of societal changes and advancing age led him to downsize in anticipation of retirement.
Labor arrangements were a lot less institutionalized as well. Extra help was always needed in the summer months in time before mechanical combines, corn pickers and hay balers, and the wives and teenagers of the families who labored in the local foundries were eager to make a few bucks. Most of them were of Italian or Slavic extraction, and their tastes were a little different from the more-established families of mostly-German extraction -- which leads to a short story.
One day the dairy herd got out of the pasture and into a patch of wild garlic, which "tainted" the milk for a day or two. Luckily somebody hit upon the idea of turning the milk into "garlic butter", which turned out to be a one-time hit in the ethnic neighborhood.
His sister, my great-aunt Margaret, was another strong-willed individual; she obtained a degree, as what was called a "day student", from what was, at the time, referred to as a "Teachers College" (about 17 miles down-river, but easily accessible via what were called local "accommodation" trains and "interurban" trolleys) then was hired by the Public School system of the City of New York, where she was to remain for her entire working life. But she also built a "pre-cut" house (they go back a lot further than some people think) on the farm, and in the Thirties, a lot of the people she befriended during her career got to see how the "other half" lived.
And we weren't all that provincial; to cite one instance, Duke Ellington himself, and all "his boys", gave a concert at a local ballroom (West Side, in nearby Berwick), which had developed quite a reputation as a mecca for swing-era jazz, back in the summer of 1940.
Electrification didn't come to the small "hollow" in which my Granddad farmed (and both my Dad and I grew up) until around 1937, but my Dad got a "College Prep"-level education at a well-reputed public high school before serving in the military (luckily, without combat duty) during the Second World War. He decided to continue farming, but over the years it became increasingly apparent that economic trends inveighed against too much success in that endeavor.
The rural area in which I grew up is a lot more "suburbanized" today -- thanks in part to a nuclear power station which shows some signs of being one of the first to be rebuilt and upgraded after the anti-nuclear spasm of the Seventies. I'm old enough to recall when the hodgepodge of chicken coops, pig- or calf-pens, and the occasional pit-privy (though seldom used, even when I was a kid) would have caused a hissy-fit among today's well-sanitized aesthetes.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 06-14-2015 at 12:19 PM..
Yes they do, but they also spend a lot more time walking around other people. You're not forced to use your car to go anywhere, like people are here. Unless you've been to a typical American town (not NYC or LA) you have no idea just how little opportunity for interaction there is compared to Europe. Although on the other hand I found people in some parts of Europe to be much more reserved / less outgoing / less willing to just chit-chat with strangers than the Americans.
In a hell of a lot of places here in the UK, you have to use your car.
London excepted, public transport isnt as good or convenient as you might imagine.
In fact a huge problem for the past few decades here is the dying town and city centres, which are being abandoned for retail use for huge car friendly retail parks and shopping malls in the suburbs and edges of towns.
Maybe its another story in Europe where its culturally different and maybe the weather is far better suited for strolling back from the boulangerie or charcuterie with a brown paper bag stuffed with groceries, but lugging 3 or 4 packed plastic carrier bags from Tesco or Asda onto a packed standing room only dirty bus through dark, wet, cold and windswept streets, isnt quite as appealing as it sounds. Believe me, its not something you want to have to do regularly.
British cities and towns are just as suburb ridden as US ones, thats where most people live too.
Oh, hell yes. No way in the world would I ever have told my parents, "I'm bored." In fact, because there was always something that needed to be done, I usually made it a point not to be seen.
Yes they do, but they also spend a lot more time walking around other people. You're not forced to use your car to go anywhere, like people are here. Unless you've been to a typical American town (not NYC or LA) you have no idea just how little opportunity for interaction there is compared to Europe. Although on the other hand I found people in some parts of Europe to be much more reserved / less outgoing / less willing to just chit-chat with strangers than the Americans.
There is a saying: "One hundred miles is a long way in Britain; one hundred years is a long time in America."
In most cases, a European's daily life is not as geographically spread out as is more often an American's.
In a hell of a lot of places here in the UK, you have to use your car.
London excepted, public transport isnt as good or convenient as you might imagine.
In fact a huge problem for the past few decades here is the dying town and city centres, which are being abandoned for retail use for huge car friendly retail parks and shopping malls in the suburbs and edges of towns.
Maybe its another story in Europe where its culturally different and maybe the weather is far better suited for strolling back from the boulangerie or charcuterie with a brown paper bag stuffed with groceries, but lugging 3 or 4 packed plastic carrier bags from Tesco or Asda onto a packed standing room only dirty bus through dark, wet, cold and windswept streets, isnt quite as appealing as it sounds. Believe me, its not something you want to have to do regularly.
British cities and towns are just as suburb ridden as US ones, thats where most people live too.
Looks like Britain is getting Americanized...
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
