What was life like in America in 1900?

1900: A Year in the Life of America. What was Life Like for Your Ancestors in 1900? by Genealogy.com. Expensive presidential campaigns, controversial military involvement overseas, prosperity, fast-moving technology, monopolies, immigration, natural disasters. Sound familiar? read more

Americans were optimistic in 1900. For most of them, life was better materially than it had ever been. This was a time of prosperity -- a new materialism, available leisure time, and vacations for the emerging middle class appeared. America was now the world's most affluent country. read more

Location, location, location. For my grandmother on my mother's side of the family it was a small farm in the middle of rural east Texas, one of her grandfathers had been a slave. read more

American farmers, however, entered the new century feeling victimized and left behind by events. Although the number of farms in the country had doubled between 1865 and 1900, the percentage of American involved in farming dropped from 60 percent in 1860 to 37 percent in 1900. read more