Life Used to Be Miserable: Things I Learned From the Book "The Big Change"

I read FrederickLewis Allen's book The Big Change.

Written in 1952, it's a fantastic read about how American culture changed from 1900 to 1950.

My big takeaway: Life back then used to be pretty miserable compared to today. Here are nine things I learned.

1. Things you would never think about today were luxuries in 1900. Like food:

3. Work was pretty awful in 1900:

4. And long:

5. Even when we did awesome stuff, people didn't want to believe it:

7. The car was dismissed as a rich person's toy:

9. Then the Great Depression pretty much destroyed everything:

Go buy the book here. It's great.

For more:

• What I learned fromAntifragile
• What I learned fromThinking Fast and Slow
• What I learned from Risk Savvy

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The article Life Used to Be Miserable: Things I Learned From the Book "The Big Change" originally appeared on Fool.com.

Contact Morgan Housel at mhousel@fool.com. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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