When did the world become modern?

By that I mean when was the point, if you were to go back in time, that you would still feel in familiar circumstances but if you went back only somewhat further you would feel you were in an alien world?  

I've thought about this a lot over the years because I have an abiding interest and curiosity about the past.  I want to know what it was like to be alive in those far gone times, how was daily life lived, not merely in general terms but in the most minor details.

So, anyway, I've decided that today's world, at least today's American world, came into existence, picking a somewhat arbitrary year, in 1940, but probably a few years earlier, but by 1940 for sure.  And a lot of things we think of as happening post-1945, after World War II, would have happened sooner, television, for example, without the war, which seems to have set back civilian developments about a decade.

Okay, okay, I know that nobody would want to have a root canal done by a 1940 dentist, or have TB or polio treated by 1940 medicine and et cetera.  But that's not what I'm talking about.  Look at the kitchen in the Hotpoint ad.  It's from 1942.  It's got a refrigerator and electric stove and oven, but also a sink disposal and a dishwasher.  It's basically the same as a kitchen today.  The ad copy says postwar appliances will be better, but the important thing is that all those appliances already existed.  So did small kitchen appliances such as electric mixers and a variety of coffee makers -- drip, siphon, percolator.
Frozen foods also existed.  The Bird's Eye ad is from 1940.  Of course, all variety of canned goods were available, lots of the same brands as today.  Breakfast cereals the same as you can buy at Safeway today were also well established, as were candy bars, the same ones as we enjoy today.  You could buy Parkay margarine and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (cooks in seven minutes!) at the A&P or Jewel supermarket.  And speaking of Jewel, there was the then-famous Jewel Tea Man, who took orders over the phone from the Jewel catalog and delivered right to your door -- and not just food but all sorts of household items.  The milkman also delivered to your door not only milk and cream, but butter, eggs and ice cream.  The bread man brought fresh bread to your door, too, as well as pies and donuts, cakes and other goodies.  The local grocery store delivered:  call in your order in the morning and a local boy would bicycle it to your home after school and even help put away your purchases.  Mail was delivered twice a day, morning and evening, and the postman famously always rang twice to let you know you had mail.

Bathrooms were essentially modern, too, with hot and cold running water, flush toilets with the same Scott toilet paper as well as Kleenex we can buy today, not to mention Modess sanitary napkins.  They had sinks and showers and bathtubs, nice towels and bathmats, vanities and medicine cabinets, just like today.

But more important than all of this, important as it is, at least to me because I would want to enjoy a pleasant and

Happy suburban neighborhood c.1940. Safe and sane!

comfortable life, is the fact that, with whatever skills and education you have now, you could function in the world of c.1940, even in small details, and almost certainly find employment.

Let's take handwriting, for example.  I can write cursive because my mother taught me as a child.  Lots of people nowadays can't write cursive, it was not taught in school, and aside from a scrawled signature, they have no particular use for it.  Well, okay, if you can't write cursive and you found yourself in 1940, guess what, you could use a typewriter.  Maybe you've never even seen a typewriter, but you would recognize the same qwerty keyboard you use with your computer and you could easily figure out how to use a typewriter, maybe the return carriage lever being the only really odd thing you'd need to get the hang of.  So you could carry out correspondence in an adult, professional manner.  And that would mean you could get an office job.

And back to cursive -- If you can write it, you write it Palmer style, the method taught in the US from the mid-1920s until cursive faded away.  Before that, people were taught to write cursive in the Spencerian style.  That style survives in the Ford and Coca-Cola logos. It's much fancier than Palmer.  Imagine having to write cursive in a Spencerian hand -- legibly.  Everybody educated before 1925 could do it.  If you wanted an office job, you'd have to be able to write it.  But by 1940 or so it was fuddy-duddy stuff and you wouldn't need to worry about it.

 Also by 1940 there were dial telephones and telephone directories.  Yes, you'd have to dial "0" to get the operator to make a long-distance call, but otherwise making a call would be very much like today.  So you wouldn't be isolated, unable to contact others.

And also by c.1940 cars were not that much different from those of today.  Yes, yes, I know cars of today are vastly superior and all that. But what I mean is that, for example, you could climb into a four-door sedan, scan the controls and instruments and see they were pretty much like today's -- speedometer, gas gauge, horn, headlight switch, windshield wipers, ignition key and starter, even a radio.  The big difference would be a manual transmission, if you don't know how to use one.  But you could learn that.  And if you couldn't,

Notice the caption says these 16-year-olds drive!

Oldsmobile introduced the automatic transmission in 1939, so buy an Olds. Oh, and even high-school kids drove and had their own cars, at least the guys had their own, usually old cars -- jalopies -- that they fixed up.  Or they borrowed their parents' car.

And while their weren't any interstates the roads were paved and signed just as today, there were traffic cops, parking lots, drive-ins, motels and campgrounds, full-service gas stations everywhere that offered free roadmaps, roadside diners, even travel trailers you could tow behind your car as you saw the USA in your Chevrolet, visiting the national parks.

Anyway, you could drive to work, drive to shopping, drive on vacation, or just take a spin on a Sunday afternoon.

There were local and transcontinental bus lines if you didn't want to drive, public transportation in the cities (safe and clean!), and of course those wonderful passenger trains with dining and club cars, Pullman sleepers and observation cars.  There were commuter trains between city and suburbs (yes, they already existed), but there were also inter city and even inter-small town passenger trains. 

And, believe it or not, there were plenty of scheduled airlines operating planes like the DC-3 and DC-4 or the Boeing 247 and 307, or Lockheed Electras.  I've flown in a DC-3 and in the later version of the DC-4, the DC-6.  They were pleasant, comfortable passenger liners.  Some airlines flew sleeper versions of these planes, so you could take a night flight and arrive at your destination in the morning after a good night's sleep. Pan American's flying boats that  spanned the Pacific not only offered sleeping accommodations but also dining and lounge facilities.  At the exotic island stopovers, first-class hotel and meals were included in the air fare.  Taking a few days to leisurely travel from San Francisco to Macao via Honolulu, Wake, Guam and Manila in an airplane flying only a few thousand feet above the sea, so you could wave at ships and see whales, get up and walk around, dine at a table served by a waiter, sleep in a bed, take breaks at exotic locales.... 

Back to finding a job, there were plenty that you could probably do.  If you are a book keeper or accountant, you could do those jobs with the same skills you have today.  No Quickbooks or Turbotax, but you could use an electric adding machine and the type of accounting and tax preparation you would do would be the same as today.

You would have no problem figuring out how a cash register worked and so be a cashier.  A job as a waitress or waiter would be the same.  As would that of a bartender or short-order cook -- people ordered the same drinks and the same foods, more or less.  Ham and eggs or bacon and eggs, pancakes, waffles, cold cereals or oatmeal were standard breakfast fare. Hamburgers were popular lunch fare, as were ham sandwiches and BLTs, road beef and club sandwiches as well as fried chicken, chicken-fried steak,  hot dogs, potato chips, cole slaw, potato salad, etc. Steak for dinner or maybe a roast chicken or spaghetti. Desert would be apple pie with ice cream or maybe chocolate cake with coconut icing and a cherry.  Coffee after. Typical American fare then as now. No pizza, though, except maybe in a big eastern city like New York.  

You could drive a truck or a taxicab.  If you are mechanically inclined or like to noodle around with your lawn mower or dirt bike or fool with an old car, you could get a job as an auto mechanic and find the job much simpler and easier than it would be today, needing only basic tools.  And you could work on any engines, from chain saws (yes, they had them) to airplane engines (no turbines yet!).  All internal combustion engines, either simple side-valve or pushrod-activated overhead valve.  Rarely would you encounter an overhead cam engine.  All had manually adjusted ignition points and timing.  Simple, simple, simple.  You could open your own shop, work at a service station or a car dealership.  Lots of job openings.

Rules and regulations were much simpler and imposed far fewer costs -- no OSHA, no EPA, no race and gender quotas, no this, no that.  So opening your own business would be a lot simpler and require much less in start-up capital.

When it came to clothing, everyday wear was not so much different from that of today.  Women's casual dresses were a bit dowdy, and the patterns were a bit much, to my eye, but they were comfortable.  No corsets and bustles and wasp waists. No bloomers!  

Women's business attire was quite chic and, if I tossed away the hat, I could probably walk down a street in a city business hub today wearing a 1940 woman's suit and not get a second glance.  I particularly like the shoes women wore in those days, as stylish as those of today and not looking somehow odd, as those of only a few years before do to me.

The plane is an Aeronca, still lots flying.

Women wore slacks and shorts and loafers and tennis shoes, even blue jeans, although they favored those in baggy styles with the cuffs rolled up.  Hairstyles were a bit fussy, even complicated, but if you didn't choose to get too fancy, nobody seemed to mind.

I think you guys would be okay with 1940.

Women also dressed to be sexy; after all, this was the era of the pin-up, the Petty Girl and the Varga Girl, copies of which would soon earn immortality as the nose art on Army Air Force combat planes in the coming war.  Silk stockings were giving way to less expensive nylons and bust-enhancing bras were becoming popular, especially when worn under a tight-fitting sweater.  This combination was so popular, in fact, that it caused the coining of the phrase "sweater girl" to denote a sexy college co-ed.  

Oh, and, um, they did have condoms back in those days.  Latex condoms were mass produced and inexpensive, regulated by the Food and Drug administration. The makers of Trojans used automatic testing equipment to ensure each one was defect-free. The Roosevelt administration's surgeon general urged their use and figuring that boys and girls will do what comes naturally no matter what, opened hundreds of outlets that gave away condoms for free.

To my eye, men's fashions seem even less dated.  I suppose things like tie width and pattern, as well as lapel width, have changed, such things do, but I think a man today could wear a 1940-era suit and take the same city walk as above and attract no attention.  Aside from the shoes, the dress style of a late 1930s Princeton man, looks quite contemporary to me.  A guy from today could show up in in 1940 and hit a men's clothing store, glance around, and know what to buy to look well dressed.  But in 1910?  How about 1870?  Oh, and about those white shoes the Princeton boy wears, we still speak of white-shoe law firms, don't we? 

By 1940, ordinary middle-class people had enough leisure time and income to enjoy recreation that cost money to do.  You had to go someplace like a bowling alley, tennis court, ski resort or golf course, pay to do it, even pay for special training, buy or rent equipment, maybe even pay for overnight lodgings.  All of those things are as we do them today and we could enjoy them then, just as today.  Of course, gear is better now, but still, if, for example, you're a skier and were to find yourself in Sun Valley in 1940 you would recognize what the equipment was and be able to use it to hit the slopes.

Aside from movies, many of which you can still watch and enjoy  today, the radio provided the most popular form of personal entertainment, offering the same sorts of programs as we enjoy today -- detective dramas, cop shows, situation comedies, variety shows, murder mysteries, costume dramas, soaps, cooking and home-improvement shows, news and commentary, etc.  Live broadcasts from famous ball rooms featuring the latest singers and bands were popular.  And television was just ready to go when the war stopped everything for some years. Of course, you could buy your own records and listen to whatever you liked in your own home.  Books were popular and everyone read the latest novels, much as today they watch the latest cable series, and there were book-of-the-month clubs that would mail you inexpensive editions of all the latest titles.  There were tons of magazines, many still with us today.  Many homes had pianos and sheet music sales were still considerable, so if you can play, you would find the era most congenial to your talents.

Interior of a TWA Boeing 307 Stratoliner.

Look, I know all of this is subjective, based on my own tastes and views of what's historically important, but I've thought about this a lot over the years and often wondered how far back in time I realistically could go and hope to have a life I would enjoy, based on my abilities and proclivities.  How about you?  Do you know how to handle a team of horses?  Would you like to sit on a stool and add and subtract figures by hand, writing them down in a careful Spencerian hand, at an accounting firm?  Do you want to cook meals over a hot wood stove that needs constant careful attention?  If you have to go to the bathroom at night do you want to pull a chamber pot out from under the bed and do your business in it, then have to carry it outside to the outhouse to dump it, then clean it, the next morning? Do you like the smell of kerosene, refilling lamp reservoirs, carefully cleaning the delicate glass chimneys of soot, replacing wicks?  Oh, and how about accidentally brushing past a kerosene lamp some night and knocking it over and having it shatter, showering you with flaming fuel, not only brutally burning you but burning your house down as well, and maybe the whole block?  Do you...?  Can you...?  Would you...?  Not me!  My time machine's wayback dial enters the red no-go zone at about 1935 and stops dead at 1930.

Why do I imagine moving back to the past, and think about it in such detail?  Do you like the present?  Are you okay with all the...the...the...you know-- you do know -- ?  Haven't you thought of escape, maybe emigrating?  But to where?  It's all everywhere.  So, in reverie at least, I turn to the past.  Sure, I know that those years were full of their own problems but compared to today, I'll take theirs. I'm speaking as an American, of course, and traveling back to an earlier America.  I don't care about Europe or Asia, then or now.  I'm just your typical parochial Doofus americanus and I'm quite happy to be one.  Now excuse me while I climb into my time machine, shaped like a 1935 Auburn Boattail Speedster, and skeedaddle. 

B'bye!

 

C'mon, hop in! Let's all go for a drive back to 1940!