Witnesses to the nineteenth century
February 10, 2018 8:11 AM   Subscribe

Interviews with various septuagenarian, octogenarian, nonagenarian and centenarian Americans in 1929 1, 2 (mlyt)
posted by fearfulsymmetry (7 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
It won't be long before the last living people to witness most of the 20th century are being interviewed in this fashion.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 9:05 AM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]


My god, it's amazing to watch people born in the 1820s, '30s, and '40s describing their lives—one guy used to vote the straight Whig ticket! Thanks for the post.
posted by languagehat at 9:29 AM on February 10, 2018 [3 favorites]


Hopefully this time around, interviews will be of a more diverse group of people.

I enjoyed watching this.

There was something reassuring for me about hearing from an old farmer of a different era describe how the more things change, the more they stay the same. That the world may be bigger and there may be telegraphs and electric lights, but the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. That the world is no better than our fathers had and not very much better than our grandchildren will have.

I especially loved hearing about stagecoaches and horses & buggies and foot-backed travelers, and seeing 10-20 sailing vessels on the Hudson at a time (never less than ten).

And the dancing.
posted by aniola at 10:19 AM on February 10, 2018


There are old rural people in Maine whose speech is still similar in some ways - "Was you?" and "Yessuh!"
posted by Gnella at 1:57 PM on February 10, 2018


This is remarkable. This sent me straight to Wikipedia to learn about Rebecca Latimer Felton, the first woman to serve as a US senator (for one day, which, since Wikipedia tells me she was a pro-lynching white supremacist, was one day too long). I wish there were more diverse interviewees in terms of race/cultural background, but geez, this is fascinating.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 4:24 PM on February 10, 2018 [1 favorite]


These are fantastic. Try setting the speed of the first video to 0.75x (only works in youtube, not MF). Sounds a lot more realistic!
posted by oh hey at 11:32 PM on February 10, 2018


I loved these. The Catskills farmer was my favorite.

Documentation is important work.
posted by delight at 8:05 PM on February 12, 2018


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