but their own milk, eggs, meat, and vegetables. Rural folk made do. In the summers families enjoyed the bounty of the land. In the winters they drew from the larder or the root cellar. Except for store-bought dresses and suits for special occasions, or the rugged ready-made garments that were becoming available in the catalogs, they wore homemade clothing, buying fabric and notions from country stores, catalogs, or itinerant peddlers. News about technology came from the Sears catalog, ubiquitous reading material in outhouses across America. In 1920 it featured .22 caliber rifles for $4.25; an upholstered, curly-backed rocker for $5.95; women’s middy blouses for $0.98; and a treadle-powered sewing machine for $29.95.
Farmers worked the land with draft animals. Only in the cities had auto exhausts replaced manure as the hazard of the streets. Speed limits in most cities were still twenty miles per hour. A few who happened to live near the railroad tracks could watch the speedy trains bridgingthe land; to most the whistles of the trains were as remote as the contrails of jet planes to a later generation.
Nights were quiet time. The wireless wasn’t in many homes yet, although Westinghouse had broadcast early results of the elections in November. Victrolas were a luxury that plain folk considered showing off. It wasn’t unusual for a family to spend a summer evening outside, on the porch or in the yard, sitting on rockers or swing benches, staring at the stars. With no city lights, no highways with nightly columns of trucks and cars, and electric power unavailable beyond the fringes of the cities, families could enjoy the glories of dark skies that revealed the Milky Way not as an occasional lucky sight but as a regular evening spectacle.
The stars were a nightly wonder. Some accepted the canonical explanations of the Bible and thought of the heavens as one more impenetrable miracle of Creation. Others contented themselves with the thought that pretty soon scientists, using those big new telescopes out in California, would know what it was all about.
From the vast prairie land of the Midwest and the sharecropped farms of the Mississippi River Valley, the travelers rode on into the industrial belt of the eastern states, the largest single concentration of heavy industry in the world. The United States prided itself on superlatives—the most railcars of coal extracted from a mine in a day, the most tons of steel produced, the most feet of rail rolled. Corporations, armed with their new public relations departments, eagerly joined the chorus of hyperbole, issuing press releases to announce the largest electrical network ever built, the biggest turbine, the largest milling machine.
Some Europeans saw the American habit of superlatives as a sign of collective insecurity, but to Americans there was a comfort in the concrete symbols of achievement. From the lonely farmers on the boundless prairies, to the factory workers of the mill towns, to the men of untold wealth who were not ashamed to describe themselves as capitalists, Americans held up industrial might as a challenge and a response to the alleged sophistication, cosmopolitanism, and grandeur of Europe. The United States was on a roll. Business was booming. The smokestacks were going full-time. Although no one bragged about it, the United States could also claim the smokiest skies and dirtiest rivers in the world. What another generation would see as threats to health and the future were symbols of progress and prosperity in 1920.
In this America of the biggest, the grandest, and the greatest, science was on its way to a new, elevated status. Already hucksters, journalists, teachers, and advertisers were cavalierly tossing off the claim that “Science tells us” or “Science teaches us” as a preemptive answer to arguments. Einstein had not yet visited the United States, but already his name had entered the common vocabulary as a synonymfor genius. The mysteries of
Farmers worked the land with draft animals. Only in the cities had auto exhausts replaced manure as the hazard of the streets. Speed limits in most cities were still twenty miles per hour. A few who happened to live near the railroad tracks could watch the speedy trains bridgingthe land; to most the whistles of the trains were as remote as the contrails of jet planes to a later generation.
Nights were quiet time. The wireless wasn’t in many homes yet, although Westinghouse had broadcast early results of the elections in November. Victrolas were a luxury that plain folk considered showing off. It wasn’t unusual for a family to spend a summer evening outside, on the porch or in the yard, sitting on rockers or swing benches, staring at the stars. With no city lights, no highways with nightly columns of trucks and cars, and electric power unavailable beyond the fringes of the cities, families could enjoy the glories of dark skies that revealed the Milky Way not as an occasional lucky sight but as a regular evening spectacle.
The stars were a nightly wonder. Some accepted the canonical explanations of the Bible and thought of the heavens as one more impenetrable miracle of Creation. Others contented themselves with the thought that pretty soon scientists, using those big new telescopes out in California, would know what it was all about.
From the vast prairie land of the Midwest and the sharecropped farms of the Mississippi River Valley, the travelers rode on into the industrial belt of the eastern states, the largest single concentration of heavy industry in the world. The United States prided itself on superlatives—the most railcars of coal extracted from a mine in a day, the most tons of steel produced, the most feet of rail rolled. Corporations, armed with their new public relations departments, eagerly joined the chorus of hyperbole, issuing press releases to announce the largest electrical network ever built, the biggest turbine, the largest milling machine.
Some Europeans saw the American habit of superlatives as a sign of collective insecurity, but to Americans there was a comfort in the concrete symbols of achievement. From the lonely farmers on the boundless prairies, to the factory workers of the mill towns, to the men of untold wealth who were not ashamed to describe themselves as capitalists, Americans held up industrial might as a challenge and a response to the alleged sophistication, cosmopolitanism, and grandeur of Europe. The United States was on a roll. Business was booming. The smokestacks were going full-time. Although no one bragged about it, the United States could also claim the smokiest skies and dirtiest rivers in the world. What another generation would see as threats to health and the future were symbols of progress and prosperity in 1920.
In this America of the biggest, the grandest, and the greatest, science was on its way to a new, elevated status. Already hucksters, journalists, teachers, and advertisers were cavalierly tossing off the claim that “Science tells us” or “Science teaches us” as a preemptive answer to arguments. Einstein had not yet visited the United States, but already his name had entered the common vocabulary as a synonymfor genius. The mysteries of
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