Our Lives, What Will It Be Like?

Essay by Margie1College, UndergraduateB+, February 2004

download word file, 3 pages 3.8

If our grandparent's lives had been written up in the 1800s, it would have been considered complete science fiction, but even then the term "science fiction" had not yet been thought of. Someone (I'm not sure who) once wrote, "Truth is stranger than fiction". To understand and relate to the changing technological world, I like to think back to what it was like for our own grandparents. Maybe only then can we realize the extent of change for our future to come.

To realize much of what we take for granted today did not exist for our grandparent's. There were no cars; no planes, electric heat and light were widely available. There was no air conditioning, no telephone network, no radio, no television, no rocket, no jets, no antibiotics, no copiers, and entertainment companies were still trying to master the silent film industry. When our grandparents were very young, The Wright Brothers were flying their first successful plane in 1903, Henry Ford was busy beginning the automotive industry, and only his previous cars were available to the very wealthy.

Around our grandparent's teenage years, they saw World War I breakout, and Chemical Warfare was used for the first time. By 1920 they might remember Congress passing the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote for the first time. Somewhere in this time frame they lived through a trade war that turned into the Great Depression. Social Security was enacted in 1935. Hitler was preparing for World War II, helicopters, airplanes, and jet engines were invented in 1939. In 1941 penicillin became widespread for use, and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. In 1946 the nuclear power industry was born. In 1951 the structure of DNA was first documented. In 1959 Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and...