A Look Back at 1923
A Look Back at 1923
Selections from the 1923 The World Almanac and Book of Facts
Somewhere along the line I acquired this 1923 The World Almanac and Book of Facts, published by The New York World, headed by Joseph Pulitzer.1 The Almanac offers a fascinating snapshot of the United States (and a bit the world) from a century ago. Today I share ten images from the Almanac that I find particularly thought-provoking (you can click on the images to enlarge them).
You are invited to share your thoughts on 1923, 2023 or even 2123!
The advertisements are fascinating and clearly show how technological innovation leads to new jobs. Above, Electricity Needs You!
The Almanac says that in 1923 the U.S. already had more than 12 million cars on U.S. roads. Be a Traffic Manager!
What is this? A new energy technology to replace coal and wood? Introducing natural gas. Coal has always been dirty.
I find this data on U.S. fire losses to be amazing — $333 million in losses in 1921 would equate to more than $5 billion in 2023 dollars. Fire in 1923 was a much bigger source of loss than hurricanes.
Imagine that, airplanes flying over water. I wonder if future readers looking back at 2023 from 2123 will look the same way at space travel.
U.S. marginal federal income tax rate = 65%.
More than 1 million child laborers aged 10 to 15 or about 8% of all children of this age.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that people of Japanese ancestry were ineligible to become U.S. citizens on account of race.
About 2,500 men died each year mining coal. The Almanac even includes a statistic for the amount of production per death.
1923 was a very different time than 2023. It is a safe bet that 2123 will be just as different than 2023.
Thanks for reading!
You can browse it online here. “The World” refers to the New York newspaper of that name, not actually the entire world. The focus is mainly on the United States.
Amazing what can be learned by reading. In 2021 John Robson did a series of posts on his Climate Discussion Nexus blog analyzing the max temps from several dozen canadian towns titled “1920 or 2020”.
Of course, in all cases you can’t guess which trace is which because of course there is no rise in max temps.
Of course, there is a rise in minimum/night time temps but only the truly climate/insane could be bothered by a slightly warmer evening, or a canadian winter day that is -30 instead of -32c.
The entirety of “Canada’s north warming 4x faster than the globe”.
Decision based evidence making, once again.
Nonsense on top of BS, climate alarmism.
But I repeat myself.
Great year in 2023, massive numbers of narrative balloons to puncture in 2024.
Rest up, all the best Roger.
We already know about 2133 from Star Trek. Just imagine: they had these amazing handheld voice communication devices called “transponders.”