When I talk about history with students, often one of the hardest things for them to grasp is how different everyday life is in the past. This sounds pretty simple when written out like that — of course life is different in the past! But as we continue to discuss events in 1918, imagine an average day. How do people structure their day? What are they excited for, or worried about? What are they talking about with their neighbors? What have they got in their pockets?
While searching newspapers for something completely unrelated, I stumbled upon a "Lost & Found" column in the classified section of The Washington Post on Feb 2, 1918. What could I learn about normal life in 1918 from this column?
A Young Woman and Twenty Dollars
The very first entry features a 16 year old girl who had lost $20 on the way home from work. I'm always fascinated by the changing value of money, and this inflation calculator says that $20 would be worth $349.68 today. Wow! That's a lot of money for a teen.
While we don't know what her occupation was, it's likely that she wasn't new to the workforce. In the Progressive Era, child labor was a huge problem, and federal efforts to regulate or restrict it kept failing. In 1916, Congress passed a law meant to combat child labor by banning interstate sales of goods produced through child labor, but in 1918, that law was ruled unconstitutional. It wouldn't be until 1938's Fair Labor Standards Act that child labor was fully banned.
Losing Big Time
How do you lose a radiator?? For reference, it probably looked something like this:
Source: Model T Ford Club of America
That person must have been really absent-minded to lose a huge and heavy object like that!
Words, Words, Words
While these classified ads range from the amusing to the mundane, it's useful to note how the messages are worded. This one caught my eye in particular. Friends who do first-person interpretation of historical characters have told me before how hard it is to improvise in character. Especially the further back you go, the more that casual vernacular has changed.
Another Person's Treasure
It's also interesting to see the seemingly mundane things people have lost and are trying to find. That said, I've lost things that I've knit and was devastated afterwards! Cultural theorists like Erving Goffman have said that objects help us to create and perform identities. So the knitter might place value on their knitting bag because it helps them to assert their identity in one way or another.
The gold pencil also interests me, because I'm so used to pencils being made out of wood or occasionally plastic. It might have looked like this:
Source: Vintage Pen Catalog
Looking at these lost objects, and speculating about their owners, helps us to understand the attitudes and habits of the past. In turn, that helps us to better understand the causes, effects, and significances of major events. It also helps to humanize those living in the past -- it makes history more real.
What do you have in your pockets or bag? What could we learn about you by looking at those things?
100% of the SBD rewards from this #explore1918 post will support the Philadelphia History Initiative @phillyhistory. This crypto-experiment conducted by graduate courses at Temple University's Center for Public History and MLA Program, is exploring history and empowering education. Click here to learn more.
I try to limit what I carry to only a few items. Perhaps the most telling about me is my phone, because it's a Windows phone. It's no secret I dislike Apple products and refuse to buy them, but I did have an Android once before Windows phones came on the market. I really like the interface Windows uses, I like that the OS is very slim and efficient, and I like that it has great battery life. The app market was always pretty lacking, as most developers only make apps for Androids and iPhones, but Windows phone developers often make third-party apps that can access the databases of the major apps and do it better. And even though Windows has cut the Windows phone program, I'm still going to hold on to this phone for a long time, probably until it breaks. What does that say about me? Probably that I'm stubborn and that I like having a phone very few others have, even in the early days when it had major drawbacks.
This is such a great reflection! Thank you for sharing! :)
Also only slightly off-topic -- it's so fascinating that you would have a phone that... had its telephone function cut. When does a phone just become a mini tablet?? Haha
Haha it still functions as a phone....Microsoft just doesn't make them anymore
OH okay I just misinterpreted what you said. That's a relief! :P
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STOPInteresting stuff.
Are those clips from a Washington, D.C. newspaper? I wonder if different cities had their own distinctive Lost and Found practices or cultures. Not only big city to big city, but the contrast between big cities and small towns.
And how far back do lost of found listings in newspapers go? (I know they existed in the 1730s in Philadelphia.)