What was life like in 1913

Britons were masters of the universe. London, with its population of seven million, was the capital of the largest empire the world had ever seen.

It was also a city of immigrants, with bright, young students from all over the Empire studying law or engineering. Plans were in train to build a tunnel under the Channel to link Britain and France, itself a major power. Travellers to Berlin admired what was still the provincial capital of Prussia, a million-strong city, pulsating with nervous, restless energy.

It was growing into a technological powerhouse, a city of turbines and electric trams. Yet its most familiar symbol, chosen as the cover of an English guidebook, was the spiked Prussian helmet, while its grand central avenues seemed made for parades. The country was struggling towards parliamentary independence, but the Kaiser, egged on by Prussian nationalists, was in the saddle - literally, because he used a saddle as his office chair. Italy, surprisingly, was also a major continental power and keen to demonstrate it.

In January , 10, Italian troops marched through Rome to celebrate victory in Abyssinia in the first armed combat that saw bombing from the air. Meanwhile the share of people over 65 tripled, from 5 percent to 14 percent. Since the term applies to a group of youngish people who hang out together, their invention required an insulated environment where teens could behave, well, teenagery. As the U. The movement to prevent kids from being forced to toil in mills encouraged compulsory education for teenagers.

In , just 28 percent of American youths between the ages of fourteen and seventeen were in high school. By , 47 percent of this age group was attending high school. As young people spent more time in school, they developed their own customs in an environment away from work and family, and the possibility of a distinct teenage subculture became possible.

The second key development in the creation of the teenager was the invention of cars. This might have been followed by a deliciously awkward family dinner.

But cars emancipated romance from the stilted small talk of the family parlor. If you think Tinder and dating apps are destroying romance today, you would have hated cars in the s.

The fear that young men and fast cars were upending romantic norms was widespread. Keep away from the fellow who owns an automobile He'll take you far in his motor car Too darn far from your Pa and Ma If his forty horsepower goes sixty miles an hour say Goodbye forever, goodbye forever. In the last years, perhaps nothing about daily life has changed more than the commute.

Half of all families lived on farms in , which means work was typically a walk away. Many city-dwellers also lived close enough to factories to arrive at the office on foot. Others went by horseback. In lieu of parallel parking spots along Main Street, there were hitching rails up and down central boulevards, where one might park a mule.

Horse use was peaking. In the first section on Europe he is understandably reluctant to pass over the River Somme on his journey from London to Paris without at least a nod to the future.

But what Emmerson is more concerned to show is the almost infinite range of possibilities still latent within the global cultural and political landscape of Nobody knew quite what lay ahead. Was the day of imperialism over or just beginning? How would only the second Democratic American president since the civil war deal with the appalling racial divisions of Washington? Was Buenos Aires, with its rampant nationalism and eyes on the Falklands, the future powerhouse of the southern hemisphere or a gilded sham?

What would the segregationist policies of the new South Africa do to the Empire? For the poor, living conditions were appalling. But for many people in Ireland at the time, life was good. They were living well and they enjoyed being part of the British Empire.

In the tenements, most families had just one room. An outside toilet was shared. Records show that in one tenement house in Henrietta Street in Dublin was home to people. Hunger and disease was part of everyday life.