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What St. Louis looked like in the 1900s
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In those days, cities were filthy because of industrial pollution and horse faeces everywhere.
I can’t imagine living in a city where you couldn’t see the sun through the coal smoke. Crazy.
Traveling to Europe aboard one of the old steamships in a First Class cabin had to be an ordeal unless you were super-rich. There is a romanticization of this era that makes it seem like it was like ‘Downton Abbey’ for everyone. There was a book written years ago that debunked many of the nostalgic notions about the late 19th/early 20th century. As well, the earlier times depicted in Jane Austen’s romances probably weren’t easy.
The complete title of this book is: The Good Old Days: They Were Terrible!
On a serious note, I think much of the rose-tinted longing for this era comes from the fact that we could have maintained/improved this urban structure. Rather than transforming it into parking lots and sprawl, we turned it into parking lots and suburban sprawl.
It’s true that once you read the book I mentioned, you’ll never look at this time period or sentimental films like “Meet Me in St. Louis” in quite the same way again.
Life was crazy back then, and it’s almost satisfying to know where most of this stuff is and identify everything. It would have been nice if the “palaces” had stayed. I love how cool that looks.
The fact that so many of these really solidly built old mansions and buildings didn’t last all that long is amazing. Several Vanderbilt mansions in New York City didn’t last even a century, and I’m sure that some of the old ones here in St. Louis are either completely gone or abandoned hulks waiting for some urban explorer to video.
We need our twice monthly reminder STL was a bustling big city that is a husk of its former self.
St. Louis is still one of the largest metro areas in the United States.
Quality of life was probably also absolutely shit for 95% of the population
St Louis 1900 showing a row of Ford Model T cars? The model T wasn’t produced until 1908.