During one visit with my 95 year old grandmother, we asked her if it was hard to live though so many technological advances. Here is her response:

“We had electricity, but it wasn’t quite like today. We had electric lightbulbs. Usually one in the ceiling. That would be your light for the whole room. You may have had a light by your bed or in the dining room above the table, usually in the center of the ceiling. There were not all these other lights all over like we have now all these table lights.

“I remember my grandmother’s house. On the walls, she had gas lamps. They would light it and put a glass globe over it. The street lights on our street originally were gas. A man would come around in the evening and light the gas lamps. I remember the gas street lamps being lit like that. Of course, it wasn’t long before they changed them all to electricity. Those weren’t as picturesque.

“Our first telephone was provided, by the state, because we needed one for my father’s job. Otherwise you just didn’t have one. It was a black one with a receiver on the table that you hold. You talk into this cup-like thing that stood on this black box. It was two pieces. They were all black and all dial phones back then. No push buttons.

“We didn’t have air conditioning until we moved to our house outside the city. It would get so hot in the summer. I remember having trouble with the heat. The doctor said to my husband – she’s got to have an air conditioner. I would almost pass out, and I had these little kids to take care of, and the sweat would just be rolling down.

“Of course I would sweat at work too. At first, Curtis publishing was not air conditioned at all. We would go to work and sit there with the sweat rolling down. They had salt tablets on the wall next to the water tower. You could take a salt tablet with a drink of water because you would be getting dehydrated. Sometimes they would have to send you home early because you just couldn’t do any work in that heat in mid-town Philadelphia near the river. It was unbearably humid. You can’t stop to fan yourself because you needed your hands to do your work. I was going through these magazines and using my calculator and my type writer. You just had to put up with it, but sometimes you just couldn’t. Thank God for air conditioning.

“I was happy when I left Curtis and went to the Bulletin. That was an air conditioned building. What a change it was! It was such a pleasure going to work in the summer then. Nothing else was air conditioned back then. Our home wasn’t, the L train wasn’t, the streets weren’t; but when I got into work and walked into that building, it was such a blessing. I was glad to go to work just to get cooled off. It was really a great change for me. That was wonderful, and I felt sorry for all those people who had to work in the heat. Of course there are still people today who have to work in the heat. Especially the outdoor workers.

“Here’s another big thing. At first we had ice boxes. That was the only way you could keep things cool. We had this big wooden cabinet thing that sat in the kitchen. The ice man would come around. You’d pay him a dime for a block of ice. He had these big tongs that he used to carry the big block of ice into your home into the ice box. That would keep things reasonably cold. Before that you’d have a window box. In the winter time you’d put it outside your window. The cold of the winter would keep things kinda cold too. Once we got rid of the ice box, we put in the refrigerator. That was a big change for my mother having to keep all the food cold. We were suddenly able to buy things like ice cream. It had a little compartment where ice cream would fit. We didn’t have to go up to the bakery each time and bring it back. All those things were like miracles to us, yet it all happened during my lifetime.

“Heating systems changed. We used to heat our house with coal, before that it was wood. Then we went to oil, which was okay. We had oil when we first moved in here (c. 2001). Then it went to gas. And now it’s electric, which has its own built in air conditioning. It filters the air as well as cools it and heats it.

“Radio of course was new around that time. That was amazing in itself. Then we got television, which was really a big change for the whole country once it took off. A group at the University of PA developed the computer. That first one took up a whole room. When the space age began, things got to miniaturization. That really changed the computers too. It changed everything. There have been a myriad of changes. Our computers were basic. They started with dos, and I had to work when we changed to the computer age. I had to wait in the morning for it to warm up or we would get all kind of funny signals on it. It was very basic. Computers were pretty big back then. So were the TVs.

“My first television I bought for my parents. My father used to listen to the baseball game over the radio. He would lean over with his ear to hear the play-by-play description. I thought, that’s such a shame. I was working at the Bulletin at the time. I saved my money and bought them not just a television, but a console model like a piece of furniture. It had a 17 inch screen, which was big in those days. It would be considered small now. It was black and white – that’s all they had. They didn’t have color back then. I got them the television for Christmas. My father was able to sit back and watch the game in progress. They did not have the close up views like they do now, right in the players’ face. It was just a steady standard fixed camera that surveyed the whole thing. You’d watch the game in progress. He was thrilled with it. My mother enjoyed the morning shows like the Arthur Godfreys hour, the variety shows. She would get up early and do her house work early, then she would sit and watch the morning shows. At night time, they had really good shows on because that was THE entertainment in those days. They had good comedians with really good shows and good musical shows. Jack Benny and Bob Hope were very popular. Red Skelton was on in those days.

“Just being able to converse with Australia, halfway across the world, and see them on the computer is amazing. We never dreamt that could happen. Being able to see the person you were talking to was unimaginable back then.

“These technologies were all for the better. It was not hard to go through.”