A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board

[AIMster]

The good old days... Gone forever....

And good riddance!

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Old-Days-They-Were-Terrible/dp/0394709411/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205152157&sr=8-2

Be careful what you wish for!

The gory details:

The book is divided into eleven categories of topics: Air (animal and garbage miasmas, heat, windblown dirt, industrial pollution), Traffic (horsecars, the El, street hazards, snow, electric trolleys), Housing (crowded townhouses and apartments, tenant abuse, squatters, slums, slum children), Rural Life (kitchen toil, polluted wells, summer bugs, winter cold, bums, overworked farm children, burdensome mortgages, cruel Mother Nature, loneliness, rural flight), Work (dismal working conditions, on-the-job accidents, sweatshops, child labor, abysmal standards of living, strikes, dehumanizing technology), Crime (muggings, juvenile delinquents, corrupt police, prostitution, crooked politicos, unfair application of the laws, punishment, lynchings), Food and Drink (spoiled meat, adulterated dairy products, poor eating habits, unhealthy diets, saloons, alcohol abuse), Health (urban epidemics, inadequate disinfection, quack doctors, septic surgery, crowded hospitals, cruel insane asylums, drug addiction), Education (untrained teachers, corporal punishment, unruly students, under-funded schools, dismal classrooms, uninspired teaching methods), Travel (steerage, emigrant trains, indigestible railroad food, filthy Pullmans, commuting, harbor accidents), and Leisure (gambling, indiscriminate hunting, brutal spectator sports, dangerous city parks, filthy beaches).

Bettmann has absolutely nothing nice to say about anything. Even something so seemingly innocuous as butter takes a hit:

"... it was often rancid, and either a mixture of casein and water or of calcium, gypsum, gelatin fat and mashed potatoes ...Bleaches were blended into the mix to give the product the appearance of real butter."


Best,

AIMster