If you think you're living in the fast lane in 2000, you should have been around in 1900. Travel was wild since there was whopping 144 miles of paved roads in use by 8,000 motor vehicles. You could race through most cities at an unheard-of speed of ten miles per hour without getting a ticket unless you ran into a horse-drawn milk or ice wagon. Think how much fun it would have been to drive from New York to California, picnicking along the way and camping out since there were no motels or roadside rest stops. You would need a super-sized fuel tank since there were no gas stations either.
Life expectancy was about 47 years, 14% of American houses had bathtubs and 18% had a least one full-time servant. A three-minute telephone call from Denver, CO to New York City was eleven dollars. The American flag had only 45 stars since Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska were not yet states. Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa and Tennessee had a combined population of 1.4 million.