I’m guessing you mean the 20th century in general rather than 1900-1910? Because not many of us are going to be that old.

It was… wonderful and fucking awful in equal amounts. The details have changed between then and now, but the ratio is probably about the same.

Absolutely amazing life back then! My parents were DIRT poor. They were always having the talk with me that we may have to move in with relatives. The only reason we had a home I believe is due to my father’s childhood friends. At age 7, I was exploring forests and creeks miles from my home, built forts in the woods, walked to the mall with friends and took samples from the Pepperidge Farm store samples as my lunch or eating at friends homes. I drank from friends outdoor water hoses, no one carried water around. I was expected home when the street lights went on. My mother did not have me until she was 40 and was the first woman to own a car in her community, so her and her friends traveled often. She wanted the same for me, so at 11 allowed me to take a Greyhound alone to visit and stay with my friend’s family that had moved to the middle of New York state. We visited, lake placid, thousand islands and learned to sail on one of the finger lakes. (Later in my 30’s found out, just like riding a bike, I remembered how to sail while visiting Mission Beach in San Diego). Back then all travel direction was using folded up maps that took a scientist to figure out how to re-fold properly.

Moved out at 17 with a group of guys. Lived in a massive apartment in a Victorian townhouse mansion near the university. At 20, friends with rich parents were buying massive mansions for 200K together in a seriously run down neighborhoods. I got a job working for Kinko’s and moved up to manager for DTP. I bought a 25K 2bdrm condo in a very old building in historic neighborhood that was a mix of rich and dirt poor. At 27, Sold it for a nice profit and invested in a condo that was just was just a developer’s paper dream condo building at the time. Located in a lot in the city business district. I somehow got a job working in a datacenter, NO DEGREE, but loved computers. I lived through the time before desktop computers and cell phones, so there were no courses on how to do anything. I started on Word, PageMaker versions 1.0 with Netscape browser. Then my roommate got a job working on Apple’s first business office in the city and he brought home a Mac Plus. I often chuckle that the only difference between Eliza app and Chatgpt is speed and access to everyone else’s data. Actually, I do not remember Eliza ever lying.

I do miss companies coming out with all the cool electronic devices. I wish I still had my Sony pager like slider that worked as a phone on data only networks, no need for a monthly cell plan when accessed with public networks. Or my slim phone with face cover switch plates that fit in my pocket, back then, I had all my important numbers memorized even though it did have an electronic phone book. All my older friends had expensive stereo racks with knobs and equalizers that I had little understanding but I knew which sliders to move to make it loud. All stereos had huge wood speaker boxes to sound decent.

I was still living on noodles with tuna but was introduced to curry which made cheap meals amazing. Got a job working overnight in a datacenter for a hospital. When I eventually bought and moved into my second condo, it had views of the river, the video billboard inside of the stadium and views the tallest tower in the city. My living room had a glass garage door that opened to a wrap around balcony. My mortgage was $700 a month for a 2 bed, 2 bath place that looks like it belonged in New York. But honestly it was far better because I could walk to hundreds of bars and new restaurants. Biked trails along the river. Always concert events in the city and the people were far friendlier than the many times spent in larger cities. It was always satisfying to pull out my phone photos when some big city dude joking about me being from a fly-over-city. My friends in Indianapolis were watching the home of a couple that owned a downtown building and invited me to stay with them for the weekend. Lenny Kravitz was performing in Meridian Park for free. We had to-go cups of liquor, roller blades and had a blast drunk skating around the park. Police never bothered us even though our group was just about every ethnicity. Sadly, looking back now, it was likely we were not bothered since we were a mixed group and fairly well dressed with expensive skates.

Now that I am an old GenX man I do have some advice, it’s not where you live, but how you live. Question everything. Listen to advice from trusted sources, but only take that advice after thorough research on how it applies to YOU. Beware, most advice is almost always FOR the person or companies giving it. My best decisions were going against the advice of friends and today going against the advice of companies. Their advice helped me define and verify my thoughts. My friends understandably do not want me to take risks, and neither do I. But big dreams and taking calculated risks were definitely easier when younger and in places that are not as popular. Make it work for you with what you have. Easier said than done these days. Beware of short term gains for long term loss, it’s been a game that too many Americans fall for and ONLY things that seemed to be offered today. Happiness is not what you have, but how you live and the friends you make.

I now live in Hawaii. Monetarily it’s expensive to feed myself and my pets. Will likely have to go back to getting roommates or sizing down. Shanty houses go for 1 million and condos start at 500k for 1 bedroom. The weather is worth it because being outside is free.

More specific questions would help. The biggest changes I notice are related to Internet and communication. The fundamentals were about the same. More focus on convenience, less on doing things yourself. I mean the store didn’t sell bags of pre-grated cheese and pre-shredded lettuce - those things would have seemed stupid (well I mean they still are, but somehow they don’t seem like it).

I think the biggest difference was having/getting to discover things for yourself. No internet to look up whatever. We had to mail order cheat books for our video games if we got stuck. You had to actually watch the movie to see what happened instead of a highlight reel on youtube. For good or bad, it was different.

Something I’d like to mention, money was still mostly cash. I remember when credit cards became a thing. Getting credit and loans was rare. If you didn’t have the cash, you didn’t get it.

You could actually feel and count what you spent and realize how many hours of work it took to make. Now it’s just a fuzzy digital idea of how much youve earned and how much you owe.

Interestingly though… There was still the concept of “bad money, blood money, or filthy lucre.” If you thought someone was buying something with money they’d gotten from drugs, or whoring women or hurting people, you had the option of not taking it. Black balling that person and not dealing with them.

Now it’s so digital, and there is no concept of dirty money. The goal is get it anywhere and everywhere at all costs, and that’s wrong. The morality has gone out of trade and economics. And as crazy as that sounds, yes, there used to be morality in economics.

Certainly more than there is since the start of the new millennium.

Things were getting better and people still had some hope.

Well there were a lot more bugs and a lot fewer wildfires, for starters.

Everywhere smelled like an ashtray until the late 90s when smoking bans started picking up steam.

Two words: Pussy Everywhere.

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My lovely 3 bedroom detached house cost 4x my salary.
People treated gay people like they treat trans people now, but it started getting better, not worse.
Most people blamed the government when it underinvested in public services instead of blaming immigrants.
Unmetered internet was something that happened to other people unless you were at a university.

Back then it was boring, but the trade off was you could be someone without being the best in the world. What used to be “let me tell you about my friend” became “let me show you this internet video.” You didn’t have to be the top player in the world to be the top player at the arcade. You didn’t have to be a prodigy to have people think your art was cool. The internet moved the goal posts out of reach and we were all suddenly nobody, consumers, wannabe influencers at best. The technology thought to allow everyone to find an audience put us in our place and we’re all nobody now. You get zero views, zero interest, the famous get a billion.

I’m not going to sugar coat it. There were good things and bad things, just like in any era.

On the good side, the standard of living was higher, especially for younger people. Wages, though already stagnating, had not reached the unliveability stage yet, and unions were still common. Communities were stronger because people hadn’t holed up online yet and local media hadn’t collapsed. What existed in terms of an online world was more open and trusting. They didn’t even have encryption on the www before '95 if you can imagine? Politicians were as corrupt as ever, but the media in general were more accountable.

On the bad side, there were a lot more incurable diseases. The Cold War was fucked up. Just knowing everything you know and love could end in 20 minutes just because some idiot turns a key somewhere. The air was actually really dirty in a lot of places. I know there are a lot of parts of the world where that’s still true, but clean air acts did work where implemented. Also, bars were all smoky as fuck. I couldn’t go near one with my asthma.

I could go on, but I’ll end on a more positive note. I was thinking just the other day how astronomy has been going through a golden age of discovery all throughout my life. In my childhood, they were sending out probes to give us the first close up looks at planets in our solar system. Then in the 90s we got the Hubble Space Telescope, we discovered our first exoplanets (planets around other stars) and that there is a 2nd ring system in our own solar system: the Kuiper Belt. Then we found a moon of Saturn with active geysers, Pluto sent us a ❤️, and now we have the James Webb Space Telescope joining massive ground-based telescopes that are just bursting with discoveries across the board. I just can’t get enough of this stuff!

It was a fucking paradise. Especially in the school summer holidays. Endless long summer days (it didn’t get dark until 10 at night) and nothing to do but play with friends. I grew up in rural SW Scotland, so we had woods, forests, beaches, hills, rivers, streams, farmland etc. at our disposal. Our parents were all at work so we had total freedom - as long as we were home in time for dinner we’d be good. Our bikes were everything, we’d meet up and decide what we were going to do and where we were going to go. Sometimes it would be someone’s house for video games (Commodore 64 or Spectrum), or building a camp in the woods, or fishing a stream up in the Galloway Forest, or cycling to the nearest beach and swimming in the sea.