Week 26 - Technology 

What technology changes did your ancestors see?
What technology changes have you seen?

One of the offshoots of my genealogy hobby was an interest in history. When you truly try to understand the lives of your ancestors you have to understand what life was like back then.

The first aha moment came for me back in 1978. While in Denver I went to visit my great Aunt. During the visit Aunt Edith got out some old family pictures. I still remember her talking about riding the bus to school. When I question her, she explained it was a horse drawn bus. I had no idea there was such a thing.

I have done extensive research of the lives of John Roberts and his wife Miriam Irish. They were born in Maine in the late 1700's. Around 1815 the family moved "west", first to West Virginia, then to Ohio and finally to Iowa. 3 moves, each into the wilderness. With only manual tools they cleared land, built shelters, and grew/hunted/gathered sufficient food to feed a large family. Their granddaughter Miriam Donegan Fonder wrote extensively about settling in Iowa. She spoke of the tools her father made. She spoke of her mother spinning wool into yarn, weaving yarn into cloth and hand sewing the cloth into clothing.

When my great-great grandparents Vincent and Rhoda McDowell moved from Kansas to Colorado, they traveled in a covered wagon. Their son, Frank McDowell was a teamster. A newspaper article that I found described injuries he sustained while on the job. As the picture shows below, he actually worked with a team of horses before he evolved into a truck driver.

I personally don't remember not having a TV. That being said, my family's early black and white TV is a far cry from today's 52" flat screen high definition models. I also don't remember the wringer washing machines, but my mother hung all the wash on the line because until the middle 1970's she didn't have a dryer. My sisters and I washed many dinner dishes and there was no dishwasher in our house. We also didn't have central heat and air.

I take for granted many items that were luxuries for my parents and grandparents. washers, dryers, microwave ovens, dishwashers. Technology improvements in my grandparents and parents generations were generally things that made their physical lives better, automobiles, planes, clothes washers, dryers, dishwashers, sewing machines, etc.

Technology improvements for the younger generations, seem to make their life styles better. Music, TV, VCRs, cell phones, computers, etc.

Look how music has evolved. When I was a kid, we had a record player. My parents had some 78 rpm vinyl records, but mine were 33⅓ and a few 45 rpm singles. By the time I was graduating from high school, audiophiles were flocking to reel to reel tape decks. The less well heeled kids moved to 8 track tapes and then to cassette tapes. I never had an 8 track player but when Bruce and I were first dating in 1974, he had an 8 track player.

The Walkman debuted in 1979 the first portable wearable audio device. It revolutionized work out routines. But when Sony introduced the first compact disc (CD) player in October 1982, it spelled the end to the cassette tapes and the Walkman. Around 1980 I received a promotion at work. I rewarded myself by buying a CD player for my car.

Enter the MP player in 1997. It wasn't until Apple released the iPod in October of 2001 that MP players really took off. I have never owned an iPod, but around 2005 Burt bought us matching Phillips MP3 players. In June of 2013 Burt bought a new Buick Encore, he plugged the MP3 player into the USB and listed to his tunes on the car's audio system.

So what is the greatest technology impact of my lifetime. It is probably the Internet - it has revolutionized how people communicate and obtain information. Just one example is genealogy. As more and more records are digitized and put on-line, I can search, access and keep copies of records I would never have found otherwise.