Wouldn’t it be great to go back to the “good old days”? If you said yes, you might want to read this book before making that wish. Most of us have a romanticized image of life in the early 1900’s. After all, wonderful inventions like cars, washing machines, telephones, ready-made clothes, and radios were being introduced to American homes.
But there was a dark side to this new way of life. Nasty smoke from factories floated over cities, families were crammed into tiny rooms of decrepit tenement buildings, sewage contaminated the water, and the stench of horse manure mixed with the misery of millions of flies and mosquitoes. Adult workers on assembly lines were required to work 12-16 hours a day. Even children, some as young as 8 years old, worked long days to help support their families. Rural life was not much better.
The author has published other books, including: The Bettmann Archive Picture History Of The World, The Delights Of Reading, and A Pictorial History Of Medicine. If you can, try to get your hands on this book from your library, or perhaps buy a used copy from Amazon. After reading it, I was very thankful to have been born when I was.
Always Reading 1 