What’s So Special About the Last 100 Years?
Unprecedented Progress
Even though the Western world is attempting to regress, I try to remember the progress made in the last 100 years. Unprecedented change took place in many parts of the world in my lifetime.
Women became people, not property. Children were removed from factories and coal mines. The work week was shortened so that the working class might rest and restore. The workday was shortened so that we could go home to our families at the end of the day and a minimum wage was set. Safety in the workplace became important so that fewer people lost fingers, hearing, sight, or lives doing their jobs. many countries banned the hitting of kids in homes and schools giving children the same rights to be as safe as adults. Biracial marriages were legalized. Gay marriage was legalized. Abortions became safer. Birth control was improved and became available to everyone.
That’s not all. In fact, I’ve just begun.
Divorce was normalized instead of stigmatized. The sexual revolution gave women the right to enjoy sex and living together became an option. Interracial marriage was no longer illegal. Civil rights emerged as a legitimate concern and equality was at the heart of our social reforms.
Schools, businesses, and entertainment venues were desegregated.
Regulations were introduced and normalized in an attempt to protect citizens from being poisoned, endangered, or degraded. Unions were formed to bring balance to the workforce.
The age of serfdom was disappearing.
Antibiotics and vaccines saved scores of lives as the average lifespan was doubled. Highways and railroads were built all across America, a massive task that helped to unite our huge country. Real-time communication became possible with telephones. Travel has become unbelievably faster due to cars and airplanes. We landed on the moon. Science became the best way to understand our world. Mandatory public education was established. More people could read and the standard of living improved as a middle class emerged for the first time.
Clean water and modern conveniences have become the norm in many countries. Making life not only pleasanter but safer.
And, of course, the internet was invented.
Never before in such a short time had so many social injustices, religious taboos, unfair laws, and ruthless practices been rectified. Never! Nor had humanity progressed technologically in such a swift fashion. We are living in the most enlightened era in the history of humankind. Our forefathers were living in the Dark Ages compared to us.
The last 100 years proved that their dreams were narrow and limiting.
And, yet, we struggle to appreciate it. We struggle to remember how things used to be. We struggle to keep from going backward. To have lived during such a time period should have produced happier, healthier people who were hopeful and more open to change. Yet, that’s just not true. We take it for granted if we ever appreciated it in the first place. And, we’re willing to let it slip through our fingers, allowing this miracle of social progress to be lost to the children that we insist on bringing into a risky world.
I’m both honored and worried to live in this day and age.
As a woman, this narrow little wedge in history is the only 100-year time period where I could have a life, body, and mind that were my own. At no other time in recent memory would I have enjoyed the same freedom as a man. I’m thrilled to know that my daughter and granddaughter can have aspirations, choices, and personal autonomy.
There’s no guarantee, however, that the future will be as promising or as progressive. Things are moving in a disturbing direction. I have lived long enough to have witnessed many changes for the better. I will never take for granted the 20th-century world that I was lucky enough to inherit. I hope future generations will progress even further. that war will become obsolete and poverty eliminated.
I’ve cast my eye on the future where hope lives.
Teresa is ana author and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
