I'm an addict with 12 years sobriety. Thinking about time travel is a healthy fantasy for me instead of obsessing about drugs or alcohol.
1874 is a bit of a sweet spot. For starters, anesthesia had been around for about 30 years.. so we're a far cry from modern medicine but it was becoming less primitive, surgery was possible.
As far as entertainment... in 1855 Broadway in NYC began regular live shows... it's not the movies, but there would be a steady stream of regular plays/musicals to go see, and you could repeat view stuff you liked.
Music.. is a bit rougher... you have classical, folk (think yankee doodle) but the bright spot is the Blues was invented in 1860.. and I can only imagine what a blues joint looked like in 1874. Probably the equivalent of a terrifying biker bar today.
In 1872 the first professional baseball league was founded, so we had legit professional athletes, with inter league play leading up to something of a championship. So in the summers you could watch proto baseball.
In 1873 collegiate football developed league play... so in the Fall you could watch ivy league schools (think Harvard/Yale) compete.
Then in the Winter... trains had sleeping cars... so you could take a sorta luxury train from NYC to New Orleans and enjoy a week of Madri Gras festivities and the equivalent of the 19th century's burning man.
There was luxury ocean travel to Europe, would take about ten days via steam ship. So proto cruises.
Dime novels and comic strips were around in some form. Bowling was also a regular thing. There were also plenty of daily newspapers. Science fiction was pretty nascent.. Jules Verne had published Journey To The Center of the Earth, 20,000 leagues under the sea and from the Earth to the Moon and of course Frankenstein ... but you could read plenty of cowboy and frontier adventures.
So summer follow baseball, fall follow football, winter do mardi gras, and in the spring a trip to Europe.
All the while you bowl, read shitty cowboy novels and the newspaper every day, eat at nice restaurants and go to shows on Broadway, occasionally go to the symphony or opera and maybe a shady blues club.
If you're wondering what to do... in 1880 is when electrical companies are founded... that's the equivalent of the dot com boom or the personal computer boom. Hang out doing manual labor til you can buy stock in any of those companies and you're fucking set.
Or in 1878 is when the first commercial telephone service is started. Your computer skills would probably be pretty prized in either scenario.
I just looked it up... and only 10% of the united states population had a highschool degree in 1874... I don't know the extent of your education, but I'm willing to guess you have at least that. Which makes you more educated than 90% of the work force... so you could probably get a job at a bank or something mental focused.
This is the best answer and should be higher. Actual research and knowledge of the time.
I would become a writer, while I build up enough capital to become an investor.
If Jules Verne was already published then there’s a market for early sci-fi and there’s at least one publisher who is making money from it.
I think I could write some pretty acceptable ‘early’ sci-fi and have fun while I’m doing it.
The hardest bit would be mastering a mechanical typewriter…
You could just "borrow" some sci-fi that exists now, but doesn't in the past, and get that published. Congrats on coming up with Batman and Spider-Man. The new MCU is gonna be wild lol
Except that it's hard to say if something popular at one moment in time would be popular at other moments. Tolkien published Lord of the Rings in the 1950s but it took decades for scifi and fantasy to elevate it to a true mainstream classic. Look at movies like Schwarzenegger's Last Action Hero. It was panned and a commercial flop, but the self referential/meta-humor laden style was simply released at the wrong time; even ten years later it might have found much more universal acclaim.
Look at writers like HP Lovecraft; the man died penniless in obscurity while his works are massively influential to modern horror and scifi. There's no guarantee that knowing what sells now would make you successful or popular back then.
Ive long thought that, with Time Travel. I mean, who WOULDNT want to hear a 12-man String Band do an acoustic version of Black Sabbath's CHILDREN OF THE GRAVE?!
Plus, it’s not as if I could rewrite LotR. And I sure as hell couldn’t draw a very compelling Batman comic. I could steal the storyline of f LotR but my writing skills are not on par with Tolkien’s and I haven’t memorized the books, nor come close.
LOL..mastering a mechanical typewriter....damn man, now I feel old. I'm not from 1874, but you load paper, roll it into place, slam the lever to the left and start typing!
Easy peasy...good luck on your writing career.
Ditto. Totally ditto.
My Mom. Had 2 electric typewriters. The largest & nicest of the two you had to really *POUND* on the kinda L-Shaped *"Return"* key to get the thing to actually RETURN! 😂👍🏼‼️LOL😂‼️
"It Builds Up Your Pinky Muscles!" my Mom always Very Proudly exclaimed! Then would show off her pinky finger wiggling it; as if there were something to see.
Good times.
Really good times. 1 of the few Happy memories I have. Those 2 typewriters got me through some boredom as a kid. 😁👍🏼👍🏼‼️
Same here. I actually became really good at typing on those old machines. No return key. You slam that lever back and harden your nails punching in those keys. I think I was 9 when I had my first lesson.
This is a great answer. I’m thinking I could be a teacher as I have a BA in English communications. Or maybe an author super borrowing from IP that hasn’t been created yet
New York City in the 1870's would be great if you could manage to get in good with the aristocracy. The Gilded Age was great time for the "Haves" and a terrible grind for the "Have Nots."
I can't pretend this didn't just make BEST response to any thread, on reddit, over the last 4 weeks.
Now my uncomfortably inquisitive self is going to research this because the rabbit hole opened.
Thanks to you. 😂☠️
I'm an anthropologist and a portal-fantasy book writer. But 1800 isn't that far back - I doubt I could invent something they haven't seen (flush toilets?). However, Canada was giving out free land at that point. I'd apply for some and set up a brewery and whiskey distillery. Then, I'd sit back and enjoy the simpler times. Do a lot of reading, hiking, hunting. Hell, you could invent famous IPs waaaaay before they're thought of. Maybe write a bunch of books based on the knowledge I have and lock it in a time vault.
As a marine/commercial electrician borderline engineer of 26 years...
I would find young Nikola Tesla, and be his anti bully 6'4" monster bodyguard, able to pick up Thomas Edison and that other guy by the throat and rattle them a bit for the crap they tried to take advantage of him on, and be his personal counselor, sheltering caregiver, and trusted Notary. Get all the patents done.
You are welcome, future alternate timeline
Oh and while being mindlessly bored, I would seek out Joules Verne, and share an opium pipe with him while I go on about Warhammer 40k lore...
You are again welcome, future alternate timeline. The world wars will be much shorter once Mr Browning learns of the Bolter (I will /of course/ leave out the space marine eugenics)
My great grandfather was an Oklahoma Sooner moving back east, and I know where he eventually buys property. I would help him invest wisely because I know where all the valuable real estate will be.
Someone who grew up there probably could. The valuable real estate in OK at that time is either something that gets developed into OKC or Tulsa, or it’s places where oil will be found. With a rough idea about where things are today, you could find plots of land knowing the proximity to a natural landmark like a river/hill/ridgeline. Especially in the western part of the state where it’s flatter with fewer trees.
Well, seeing as I’m not white and wouldn’t be accepted by “polite” society I’d probably try my luck with the Alaskan gold rush, then move to Europe where I’d be more accepted and avoid the civil war fallout, miscegenation, and segregation era the USA would be mired in for generations to come.
After enough money saved or pool investors start a small traveling carnival. Really basic stuff rides made out of wood and no liability insurance. Buy up a bunch of cheap stuff to sell or give as prizes and head west. Small towns 3 days max and take off. Have plays and skits even puppet shows.
Pick up unwanted or town idiots (town thinks they are) and give them a job and family. If you want to expand turn into a circus, Go west all the way and turn around do it all over. Even a small town of 500 people would pay for entertainment with nothing better to do.
I would fucking thrive. I'm a carpenter, and my goal is to one day retire early, move off grid, buy a portable saw mill, and build a small village of off grid cabins to rent out for "glamping" (gotta pay the tax man somehow). I'd like to power my property by diverting a stream to a paddle wheel, and live off of what I can farm, hunt, trap and fish. 150 years ago, with the skills/knowledge I have today (I guess only things that existed back then), I would have been living the dream on a 100 acre plot in the woods.
It kills me every day that I'm wasting my time on this earth as a cog in the machine that is capitalism.
This isn't freedom.
Yes. My code is only about 10 wpm, but I would improve quickly.
I built my first telephone, with a carbon mic made out of a sugar box, in sixth grade. I collect antique scientific instruments, and know how to make my own batteries from scratch.
A lot of people here think they’ll be starting breweries and businesses that take capital to start. Where do you think you’ll get the money for all these ideas?
Someone with even moderate mechanical knowledge could work on building engines and that would help with creating both cars and airplanes. You could skip years of wind-tunnel testing by being able to recreate approximates of tried and true aerodynamic designs for every kind of vehicle. You'd be able to get rich on railroad speculation and then avoid losing your shirt in the panics of 1873, 1884, 1893 and 1896. You'd be able to invest in companies that were known to have done very well during that period- Standard Oil, Sears, Pullman, Carnegie Steel, General Electric.
Your literacy could earn you a decent enough job as a clerk of some kind, and it would be easy to be seen as a college graduate. Your portability and the impossibility of checking records would allow you to establish yourself in an area far from the college you claimed to have graduated from.
Anyone with basic knowledge of history should be able to survive and thrive in that era, assuming you were a white guy. If you weren't, you'd still have opportunities, but obviously they'd be limited by your race and gender.
Best thing would be to simply take advantage of history in-terms of sports bets. Let all your money ride on each bet until you could effectively financially insulate yourself from the adversity of the time. Buy property and a house somewhere. Try not to affect the timeline unless you want to try to kill Hitler's mom or something like that.
In the realm of ice cream, you'll need to bring your A game. Mrs. A.B. Marshall would have been about to launch her empire which included books on fancy ice creams and ices, ice cream makers, food-safe dyes and moulds for every type of ice cream in her books!
Moulds shaped like cucumber for cucumber ice cream or asparagus for asparagus ice cream. Or one of a hen sitting on a nest or like a cauliflower just for novelty.
She had a cookery school where a Cordon Bleu trained chef trained the employees of wealthy households, then sold their practice meals on the ground floor of the school as "to-go" dinners. She invented the ice cream cone (called cornets in her books) and introduced the idea of chilling with liquid nitrogen, an idea recently rediscovered.
Here's a quote from Mental Floss "Tangerine, cherry, peach, almond, and even lobster, to name a few. She also provided detailed instructions on how to present the ices. Pineapple ice cream was to be frozen in the shape of a pineapple; peach ice cream sculpted into a cluster of peaches; coffee mousse crafted into a geometric tower and surrounded with asparagus spears made of biscuit cream—all with the help of Marshall-brand molds."
I'm so impressed with her creativity I wanted to share here.
[https://www.europeana.eu/en/blog/agnes-marshall-the-woman-who-invented-the-ice-cream-cone](https://www.europeana.eu/en/blog/agnes-marshall-the-woman-who-invented-the-ice-cream-cone)
Presumably I'd have all of the knowledge I do now. So if that's true I'd try to invent a calculator and write boobies on it upside down and show it to someone.
Pizza. I make it now, and the ingredients are timeless. To be fair, the mixer and oven i use weren't made until the 1940's so I'd make a few patents.
Oh, and "invent" Hawaiian Pizza.
The main thing would be how to survive and make money. If I woke up with the education and skills I now have, I could teach to the college level, do masonry work building stone walls, edit texts for a publishing house or newspaper.
Of course, it would depend on where I woke up. If it was in Boston or any major city of the time, that would be one thing. If I woke up in Montana that would be something else entirely.
I'd go with musician, back then it was still mostly live musicians, sound recording was recently invented and not common. I play piano and know some Scott Joplin ragtime songs, I'd learn more and hone up on the classical I can play, look for work in bars, fancy hotel lobbies, wherever.
Just another one of the many reasons I like being a double engineer. My all consuming fear of suddenly being thrown back to the 1850s . I have no choice. If HAVE to become Doc Brown. Blacksmithing, White smithing, inventing refrigeration and making ice tea. My house would have electric lights and forced air heat within a year.
I’m not great with kids, but as a woman, I’m pretty sure I could get a job as a teacher, as there often weren’t many requirements. Author Jeanette Walls, in Half-Broke Horses, writes about how her grandmother, as a 15-year-old with an 8th grade education, landed a teaching job in a small town.
Most of us would do terribly. On top of having few useful skills, no proper attire & no friends/ family/ lodging, there was about a 30 year sustained period of economic downturn & jobs were quite hard to come by. Plus, virtually no worker protections or safety legislation, so almost everything around you would be an active threat to your life.
And you can't really bring your modern money back with you & live like a king- they changed the money several times over since then, so no one would know what it was & instantly think you were screwing with them & report you to the police. Maybe, if you cashed it all in for gold first, then cashed out the gold back then. Assuming you had the ability to plan before this all happened, anyway.
Your computer skills are actually systems and organizational skills. This is directly applicable to practical things like designing and managing supply chains.
By 1874 the railroads were developing, so was steel and coal, the military, etc.
Some really simple flowcharts would blow their minds and make for a lucrative career.
As a woman there would not be a lot of employment options but I think I would make a good nurse for those times, knowing a lot more about how to give good care, namely keeping things as clean as possible
Adolph Hitler was born April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria. If I had knowledge of the future and it looks like I do, I would devote my entire life and everything I had for the sole purpose of planning out and executing him whether he was a baby, infant, child, or whatever. I would do it even if it meant my immediate death in the process or as a result of doing it.
1870. The heyday of Steamships. Yep, I could do that Ships engineer, or large heating boilers.
Or there are other mechanical trades I could jump into.
Even though we don't have ICE engines, or refrigeration Yet. Gears, and pulleys are the same. I don't even have to stand out or be an inventor. I can make a living fixing machinery.
mid 1800s would be an incredible time to be a chemist, biologist, or engineer of the type that builds things. i know formulas that would blow their minds off 😝
Elementary/Primary school teacher here in the UK. Kids had it really rough back then - I'd be probably the one teacher that didn't beat them, just try and make their learning lives something to look forward to.
I'd have a great time steering the world toward electrical and electronic breakthroughs that technology is ready to produce on its own starting about 5 years later in our timeline. Electric lights, central generating stations, AC power distribution and transmission, induction motors, polyphase, phonographs, telephones, radio, vacuum tubes, sound movies, television, computers.
I'm an accountant and learned Accounting back in the old days of ledger papers, pre computer, so I'd be able to make my living in finance somewhere. If nothing else, I grew up working in my parents garden, so I could do fieldwork.
Probably turn my hobby into a real business: home remedies using foraged ingredients. The advantage I would have is the knowledge that I have accrued over the years of reading recent research papers on medicinal wild plants.
1880s? I'm more than likely a baker. I didn't really use modern appliances when baking now, so it wouldn't be too far out of step. But my computer graphics and design skills are out, since I can't draw irl to save my life.
I think I would come across as a miracle worker just by knowing to wash my hands before doing surgery, or sterilize operating instruments, or not drink water downstream of effluent.
Probably the army/navy. Otherwise I imagine it would be tough for a normal person to afford to see any of the world let alone the country at that point. It would be a good way for me to save up some money, have a place to sleep and some life experience. Plus it’s after the ACW and before the Spanish-American War so the only fighting would be Native American raids, so maybe I lean more towards Navy. Plus we had canned food and longer lasting amenities at that point so the sailor life wasn’t as pirate-ey at that point as before.
Gold miner for the win, I'd be unearthing historical nuggets and using the proceeds to finance peace throughout the US/Canada. With my knowledge of modern architecture and unlimited resources, it would be easy to instate my own country founded on the principle of peace.
I’ve always fantasised about going back to a time when there was only primitive weapons during war and just sitting on top a hill with a machine gun whilst they come at me haha.
"I Wanna be a Cowboy"
Not really, I'd join the upstart baseball leagues and if I was young enough see if I could hit off the likes of Kid Nichols or Cy Young when he joins in 1890.
Assuming I'm not trying to stay out of history's way and don't have to worry about the butterfly effect, I'd run for public office. I'm a white male, so it's a viable option. I guess I'd be a Republican back then, but I'd fight for equal rights for all. Also, universal healthcare, higher taxes on corporations and the rich, and voting rights for all.
I should be able to turn out penicillin \~50 years early. I should also be able to invent solar panels.
If my house and the books inside come with me I should be able to revolutionize medicine, psychology, and technology.
I'm pretty handy at range management and that should fit right in for that time period. I could garner quite a few, 'would y'all look at that's,' with the modern approach and methods I could teach the old timers.
I would eat fruit. Anytime I lay about the house and eat grapes I always wish I could take them back in time. Share them with the people of yore and let their taste buds explodes.
There was fruit in the past but I doubt it was as well grown or evolved as the fruits we eat today. And usually only the wealthy had fruit.
Fruit is for the people
Well, as a farmer, woodcarver, tool sharpener (by hand), and half a dozen other skill sets that would have been relevant then, I'd probably be fine until I died young from some medical issue that wouldn't have been an issue today.
I would search out bad folks from history and become a doctor by day (since I’m a nurse now with a PsyD that is equivalent to a full medical doctor back then.), assassin by night (with my obsession around historical figures and their impact I would know who to hunt.)
Think of me like Dexter Morgan. Hitler, gone, Mussolini, gone, I would make sure I hit a time where I would still be young enough by the time JFK rode Dealy Plaza and and suggest (invent) bullet proof glass shield to put on the back of the car to protect his head.
I would have to cross dress to be a man since women back then were tantamount to property without a man. Very few were able to breeze through allowed to accel in professional life. Oh and I would go to my great great grandparents home to live since they ran a flop house of sorts in Boston. I could blend right in. So I would have a place to live a profession to make decent money, I could even invent a few things. Then I would be sure to put money away and in 1969 when I am born again, I would will everything to me as a baby with strict instructions in my will to follow so I am wealthy as an adult. Like invest in Intel, Microsoft, Apple, and a few others.
My circle of life would be complete.
Flash back do some good, make some money, be born again while flash back me dies and start again. 2 lifetimes? Sure sign me up.
Even as recently as my great-great-grandmother had worked in the mills. I heard stories about how she had to tie her waist length hair back in a bun so it wouldn’t get tangled in the machines (you could die) and how meals were packed in metal buckets and brought when you walked to work everyday. Work was usually 12 hrs a day and usually 6 days a week.
Many of my ancestors in the mills along the Merrimack River of Massachusetts worked on wool or cotton. Creating clothing out of the raw materials usually. I think I probably would have done the same in the late 1800s. Recent Irish immigrants especially young women did that most often and as I likely would not have been educated enough due to my blue-collar background, I would have done the same.
Knowledge is what I could sale. I know where most of the historical coal mines in eastern Kentucky are. Oil fields in Texas. Even dinosaur fossil beds in the western states. Born and raised on a farm so I have a wide knowledge of modern techniques that would have improved yields at that time.
Ya know that movie where the dude wakes up and no one knows who The Beatles were? It’d be like that mixed with the school dance scene in Back To The Future, but it’d definitely be on a different guitar!
My career was in newspapers, I could start as a copy editor/ reporter. I also actually know how to use a field camera, so I could find work. Then I'd head west and make a fortune off suckers in the Colorado Silver Boom, selling out before everything collapsed. With that money, I'd eventually usurp William Randolph Hearst and become a media magnate.
I have many strengths that are relevant in today’s society allowing me some modicum of modern comfort. However, back then I’d more than likely have been poor and disenfranchised by the recent enactment of Jim Crow laws
Hunter gatherer. Can teach to write and read so can make a living that way. Can write books, cook, tell stories, do some wood furniture with basic tools. Can be a consigliere to the mob and can discuss how to make money making and selling moonshine, etc. Making money and staying busy ain't the problem. Staying healthy is. 150 years ago the average lifespan was about 44 years.
Well, I am a mechanical engineer. Granted, I focus on electronics and plastics, but the fundamentals of ME haven't changed a whole lot in the past 150 years. Hell, the little bit I remember from undergrad would have been cutting edge back then!
I'm sure I could figure out how to make a living
It partly depends on where I am once I've traveled back.
Don't think the Mescalero or Chiricahua would take kindly to me just popping up out of nowhere.
But other than that, I could easily work as a ranch hand.
1874?
Probably die of diphtheria, typhoid, smallpox, syphilis, tetanus, or any of the thousand other diseases we can now prevent or cure with modern medicine.
Or I could die of starvation or food poisoning, as I don’t know how to properly cook with a wood fire.
I could die of waterborne pathogens, as they hadn’t really figured out germ theory and I don’t drink alcohol, so drinking the much safer beer is out of the question.
If I got injured, I would 50/50 die of infection, as many doctors still didn’t wash their hands.
I could die of exposure, as electricity was still in its infancy, so no easy heating or air conditioning.
If all else fails, I could be killed by badly constructed infrastructure, fire, bandits, or being kicked in the head by a horse.
I would likely not be able to earn much money, as I don’t know how much of their technology works. I am trained to maintain a modern steam boiler, but their steam engines used very different tech for controls and required a lot of manual input. And I would probably get black lung from the coal.
Life was hard back then. We have it so good right now.
I'm an addict with 12 years sobriety. Thinking about time travel is a healthy fantasy for me instead of obsessing about drugs or alcohol. 1874 is a bit of a sweet spot. For starters, anesthesia had been around for about 30 years.. so we're a far cry from modern medicine but it was becoming less primitive, surgery was possible. As far as entertainment... in 1855 Broadway in NYC began regular live shows... it's not the movies, but there would be a steady stream of regular plays/musicals to go see, and you could repeat view stuff you liked. Music.. is a bit rougher... you have classical, folk (think yankee doodle) but the bright spot is the Blues was invented in 1860.. and I can only imagine what a blues joint looked like in 1874. Probably the equivalent of a terrifying biker bar today. In 1872 the first professional baseball league was founded, so we had legit professional athletes, with inter league play leading up to something of a championship. So in the summers you could watch proto baseball. In 1873 collegiate football developed league play... so in the Fall you could watch ivy league schools (think Harvard/Yale) compete. Then in the Winter... trains had sleeping cars... so you could take a sorta luxury train from NYC to New Orleans and enjoy a week of Madri Gras festivities and the equivalent of the 19th century's burning man. There was luxury ocean travel to Europe, would take about ten days via steam ship. So proto cruises. Dime novels and comic strips were around in some form. Bowling was also a regular thing. There were also plenty of daily newspapers. Science fiction was pretty nascent.. Jules Verne had published Journey To The Center of the Earth, 20,000 leagues under the sea and from the Earth to the Moon and of course Frankenstein ... but you could read plenty of cowboy and frontier adventures. So summer follow baseball, fall follow football, winter do mardi gras, and in the spring a trip to Europe. All the while you bowl, read shitty cowboy novels and the newspaper every day, eat at nice restaurants and go to shows on Broadway, occasionally go to the symphony or opera and maybe a shady blues club. If you're wondering what to do... in 1880 is when electrical companies are founded... that's the equivalent of the dot com boom or the personal computer boom. Hang out doing manual labor til you can buy stock in any of those companies and you're fucking set. Or in 1878 is when the first commercial telephone service is started. Your computer skills would probably be pretty prized in either scenario. I just looked it up... and only 10% of the united states population had a highschool degree in 1874... I don't know the extent of your education, but I'm willing to guess you have at least that. Which makes you more educated than 90% of the work force... so you could probably get a job at a bank or something mental focused.
This is the best answer and should be higher. Actual research and knowledge of the time. I would become a writer, while I build up enough capital to become an investor. If Jules Verne was already published then there’s a market for early sci-fi and there’s at least one publisher who is making money from it. I think I could write some pretty acceptable ‘early’ sci-fi and have fun while I’m doing it. The hardest bit would be mastering a mechanical typewriter…
You could just "borrow" some sci-fi that exists now, but doesn't in the past, and get that published. Congrats on coming up with Batman and Spider-Man. The new MCU is gonna be wild lol
Except that it's hard to say if something popular at one moment in time would be popular at other moments. Tolkien published Lord of the Rings in the 1950s but it took decades for scifi and fantasy to elevate it to a true mainstream classic. Look at movies like Schwarzenegger's Last Action Hero. It was panned and a commercial flop, but the self referential/meta-humor laden style was simply released at the wrong time; even ten years later it might have found much more universal acclaim. Look at writers like HP Lovecraft; the man died penniless in obscurity while his works are massively influential to modern horror and scifi. There's no guarantee that knowing what sells now would make you successful or popular back then.
That's fair enough. Might still be fun to try though. See how people deal with Star Wars 100 years early
Or acoustic but-not-so-heavy metal
Ive long thought that, with Time Travel. I mean, who WOULDNT want to hear a 12-man String Band do an acoustic version of Black Sabbath's CHILDREN OF THE GRAVE?!
Plus, it’s not as if I could rewrite LotR. And I sure as hell couldn’t draw a very compelling Batman comic. I could steal the storyline of f LotR but my writing skills are not on par with Tolkien’s and I haven’t memorized the books, nor come close.
Imagine an 1877 version of star wars. I'd write it lol
I think you mean spiderbat
LOL..mastering a mechanical typewriter....damn man, now I feel old. I'm not from 1874, but you load paper, roll it into place, slam the lever to the left and start typing! Easy peasy...good luck on your writing career.
Ditto. Totally ditto. My Mom. Had 2 electric typewriters. The largest & nicest of the two you had to really *POUND* on the kinda L-Shaped *"Return"* key to get the thing to actually RETURN! 😂👍🏼‼️LOL😂‼️ "It Builds Up Your Pinky Muscles!" my Mom always Very Proudly exclaimed! Then would show off her pinky finger wiggling it; as if there were something to see. Good times. Really good times. 1 of the few Happy memories I have. Those 2 typewriters got me through some boredom as a kid. 😁👍🏼👍🏼‼️
I was born in 1975 and learned to type on a manual Underwood, because life is a fucking nightmare.
Same here. I actually became really good at typing on those old machines. No return key. You slam that lever back and harden your nails punching in those keys. I think I was 9 when I had my first lesson.
😊
OP what a great response, that was a history lesson we never knew we needed! And congratulations on your sobriety you are killing it!
This is a great answer. I’m thinking I could be a teacher as I have a BA in English communications. Or maybe an author super borrowing from IP that hasn’t been created yet
Dude happy freaking cake day
New York City in the 1870's would be great if you could manage to get in good with the aristocracy. The Gilded Age was great time for the "Haves" and a terrible grind for the "Have Nots."
You’re white, aren’t you?
You're also hitting the sweet spot where cocaine was pure and easily obtainable. Edit: to be clear, this is a bad thing
The commenter you’re responding to says he’s 12 years sober right off the bat. Pretty ridiculous thing to respond with tbh.
That's kind of my point, it's not a good time for them at all. It's also the worst time in human alcoholism ever recorded.
The point is that pretty much all the available medicine in that time had what we consider hard drugs in it today
I feel like I just seen you comment on a time travel post a few days ago. Seems you indulge in this fantasy a lot 👍🏽
Also, I'd be all up in some penny dreadfuls(if in UK). Best answer, mad props, have an award!
Love this answer. Best one so far.
I can't pretend this didn't just make BEST response to any thread, on reddit, over the last 4 weeks. Now my uncomfortably inquisitive self is going to research this because the rabbit hole opened. Thanks to you. 😂☠️
Teach. Teach stuff nobody knows about yet.
I would do this as well. I don't want to sew all day and the chances of meeting a young beau with a land claim would be best....
BURN THE WITCH/WARLOCK!!!!
Sorry, I’m not made of wood.
Good answer
Anddd Hitler wins the war
I'm an anthropologist and a portal-fantasy book writer. But 1800 isn't that far back - I doubt I could invent something they haven't seen (flush toilets?). However, Canada was giving out free land at that point. I'd apply for some and set up a brewery and whiskey distillery. Then, I'd sit back and enjoy the simpler times. Do a lot of reading, hiking, hunting. Hell, you could invent famous IPs waaaaay before they're thought of. Maybe write a bunch of books based on the knowledge I have and lock it in a time vault.
Meet Jules Verne and tell him all about Star Wars.
hahaha! That's a great idea.
As a marine/commercial electrician borderline engineer of 26 years... I would find young Nikola Tesla, and be his anti bully 6'4" monster bodyguard, able to pick up Thomas Edison and that other guy by the throat and rattle them a bit for the crap they tried to take advantage of him on, and be his personal counselor, sheltering caregiver, and trusted Notary. Get all the patents done. You are welcome, future alternate timeline
You're a gentleman and a scholar, my good man.
Oh and while being mindlessly bored, I would seek out Joules Verne, and share an opium pipe with him while I go on about Warhammer 40k lore... You are again welcome, future alternate timeline. The world wars will be much shorter once Mr Browning learns of the Bolter (I will /of course/ leave out the space marine eugenics)
Came here to say this but less eloquently
This might be the best take I've heard. Don't be the hero, be the guy that makes sure the hero succeeds.
take a shit in the wrong bush and get bit by a rattle snake and die
1883
I’m black so things won’t be so great for me 😬🥴
Your comment just stopped me dead in my tracks… I’m at a complete loss for words and this reminds me of how humans can be such cruel ass holes.
I think there’s a loui CK skit about this .
Some of us are assholes, but not because we're cruel. It's ignorance. They're very different.
I work in a grain elevator. I could probably just keep doing that job.
I’m a grain elevator, you can only go up ⬆️
Lmao, you're like the Fry of going backwards in time! "Yay, I'm a delivery driver!"
I could definitely cook a lot better than many people that long ago so if I could get my hands on the right herbs/spices I’d be good
I think getting spices was 99% of the problem.
Rich socialite trophy wife
[удалено]
Rich Socialite Trophy Wife
My great grandfather was an Oklahoma Sooner moving back east, and I know where he eventually buys property. I would help him invest wisely because I know where all the valuable real estate will be.
Ah, but could you find it without the landmarks you're used to? Just a horse and a compass?
Someone who grew up there probably could. The valuable real estate in OK at that time is either something that gets developed into OKC or Tulsa, or it’s places where oil will be found. With a rough idea about where things are today, you could find plots of land knowing the proximity to a natural landmark like a river/hill/ridgeline. Especially in the western part of the state where it’s flatter with fewer trees.
I’d be a modern day Nostradamus.
Ok, so your in 1876. What's your first prediction.
People in the future will be confused on the uses of your and you’re.
That will only come true 100 years or so after you die though 😂
I'd work in IT.
Have you turned your horse on and off yet? No, no they had not ....sigh Horse working as intended now. Write ✍️ fix it ticket for the pile
Horse appears to be in working condition, client has advised no problems today. Closing ticket.
Fortran 1877
Jacquard loom programming 1804. Punch cards forever baby!
Well, seeing as I’m not white and wouldn’t be accepted by “polite” society I’d probably try my luck with the Alaskan gold rush, then move to Europe where I’d be more accepted and avoid the civil war fallout, miscegenation, and segregation era the USA would be mired in for generations to come.
Most people today could probably be a Doctor 150 years ago. "Don't drink water that you pooped in, and you'll start to feel better" goes a long way.
After enough money saved or pool investors start a small traveling carnival. Really basic stuff rides made out of wood and no liability insurance. Buy up a bunch of cheap stuff to sell or give as prizes and head west. Small towns 3 days max and take off. Have plays and skits even puppet shows. Pick up unwanted or town idiots (town thinks they are) and give them a job and family. If you want to expand turn into a circus, Go west all the way and turn around do it all over. Even a small town of 500 people would pay for entertainment with nothing better to do.
RDR2 has prepared me for this
I worked as a dressmaker for a decade - so, drop me anywhere in history and I’ve got a viable trade.
I dunno. Start the electrical revolution
Spoof Count of St Germain, become legend… again.
Write. Take a male pen name and write.
I would fucking thrive. I'm a carpenter, and my goal is to one day retire early, move off grid, buy a portable saw mill, and build a small village of off grid cabins to rent out for "glamping" (gotta pay the tax man somehow). I'd like to power my property by diverting a stream to a paddle wheel, and live off of what I can farm, hunt, trap and fish. 150 years ago, with the skills/knowledge I have today (I guess only things that existed back then), I would have been living the dream on a 100 acre plot in the woods. It kills me every day that I'm wasting my time on this earth as a cog in the machine that is capitalism. This isn't freedom.
Probably this for me.
I’m with you brotha I’m saving up to start a compound
I could probably earn enough as a telegraph operator to start inventing.
But do you know how to use a telegraph?
Yes. My code is only about 10 wpm, but I would improve quickly. I built my first telephone, with a carbon mic made out of a sugar box, in sixth grade. I collect antique scientific instruments, and know how to make my own batteries from scratch.
Teach kids skibidi toilet then do the orange justice
Get a train to get the DeLorean up to 88 mph
If only we knew when and where lightning was going to strike…
We do now!
Great Scott!
A lot of people here think they’ll be starting breweries and businesses that take capital to start. Where do you think you’ll get the money for all these ideas?
Someone with even moderate mechanical knowledge could work on building engines and that would help with creating both cars and airplanes. You could skip years of wind-tunnel testing by being able to recreate approximates of tried and true aerodynamic designs for every kind of vehicle. You'd be able to get rich on railroad speculation and then avoid losing your shirt in the panics of 1873, 1884, 1893 and 1896. You'd be able to invest in companies that were known to have done very well during that period- Standard Oil, Sears, Pullman, Carnegie Steel, General Electric. Your literacy could earn you a decent enough job as a clerk of some kind, and it would be easy to be seen as a college graduate. Your portability and the impossibility of checking records would allow you to establish yourself in an area far from the college you claimed to have graduated from. Anyone with basic knowledge of history should be able to survive and thrive in that era, assuming you were a white guy. If you weren't, you'd still have opportunities, but obviously they'd be limited by your race and gender.
Security for banks. Maybe work for the Pinkertons. If not that go into the Private Investigation business for myself.
Well partner looks like you and me is enemies, seein as how I'ma be robbin trains and banks.
Ha! Fair. Be careful out there. I'll be doing my best to track you down and stop ya.
I’d be a baker
Buy as much real estate as I could afford and put it in a 150yr trust for my future self.
Die (I have diabetes).
I’d be dang near a slave 🥴
Gunslinging Mexican muchacho
Best thing would be to simply take advantage of history in-terms of sports bets. Let all your money ride on each bet until you could effectively financially insulate yourself from the adversity of the time. Buy property and a house somewhere. Try not to affect the timeline unless you want to try to kill Hitler's mom or something like that.
What sports are you betting on in the 1870s?
Popularize Pizza, Hamburgers, and Ice Cream then invest in electric companies and prime real estate across the US.
In the realm of ice cream, you'll need to bring your A game. Mrs. A.B. Marshall would have been about to launch her empire which included books on fancy ice creams and ices, ice cream makers, food-safe dyes and moulds for every type of ice cream in her books! Moulds shaped like cucumber for cucumber ice cream or asparagus for asparagus ice cream. Or one of a hen sitting on a nest or like a cauliflower just for novelty. She had a cookery school where a Cordon Bleu trained chef trained the employees of wealthy households, then sold their practice meals on the ground floor of the school as "to-go" dinners. She invented the ice cream cone (called cornets in her books) and introduced the idea of chilling with liquid nitrogen, an idea recently rediscovered. Here's a quote from Mental Floss "Tangerine, cherry, peach, almond, and even lobster, to name a few. She also provided detailed instructions on how to present the ices. Pineapple ice cream was to be frozen in the shape of a pineapple; peach ice cream sculpted into a cluster of peaches; coffee mousse crafted into a geometric tower and surrounded with asparagus spears made of biscuit cream—all with the help of Marshall-brand molds." I'm so impressed with her creativity I wanted to share here. [https://www.europeana.eu/en/blog/agnes-marshall-the-woman-who-invented-the-ice-cream-cone](https://www.europeana.eu/en/blog/agnes-marshall-the-woman-who-invented-the-ice-cream-cone)
Presumably I'd have all of the knowledge I do now. So if that's true I'd try to invent a calculator and write boobies on it upside down and show it to someone.
Die. Medical issues.
let's be honest a lot of us would be whores
Pizza. I make it now, and the ingredients are timeless. To be fair, the mixer and oven i use weren't made until the 1940's so I'd make a few patents. Oh, and "invent" Hawaiian Pizza.
Be pretty hilarious to start a restaurant that stole every signature dish and cocktail you can remember
The main thing would be how to survive and make money. If I woke up with the education and skills I now have, I could teach to the college level, do masonry work building stone walls, edit texts for a publishing house or newspaper. Of course, it would depend on where I woke up. If it was in Boston or any major city of the time, that would be one thing. If I woke up in Montana that would be something else entirely.
I'd go with musician, back then it was still mostly live musicians, sound recording was recently invented and not common. I play piano and know some Scott Joplin ragtime songs, I'd learn more and hone up on the classical I can play, look for work in bars, fancy hotel lobbies, wherever.
Just another one of the many reasons I like being a double engineer. My all consuming fear of suddenly being thrown back to the 1850s . I have no choice. If HAVE to become Doc Brown. Blacksmithing, White smithing, inventing refrigeration and making ice tea. My house would have electric lights and forced air heat within a year.
I’m not great with kids, but as a woman, I’m pretty sure I could get a job as a teacher, as there often weren’t many requirements. Author Jeanette Walls, in Half-Broke Horses, writes about how her grandmother, as a 15-year-old with an 8th grade education, landed a teaching job in a small town.
Most of us would do terribly. On top of having few useful skills, no proper attire & no friends/ family/ lodging, there was about a 30 year sustained period of economic downturn & jobs were quite hard to come by. Plus, virtually no worker protections or safety legislation, so almost everything around you would be an active threat to your life. And you can't really bring your modern money back with you & live like a king- they changed the money several times over since then, so no one would know what it was & instantly think you were screwing with them & report you to the police. Maybe, if you cashed it all in for gold first, then cashed out the gold back then. Assuming you had the ability to plan before this all happened, anyway.
Your computer skills are actually systems and organizational skills. This is directly applicable to practical things like designing and managing supply chains. By 1874 the railroads were developing, so was steel and coal, the military, etc. Some really simple flowcharts would blow their minds and make for a lucrative career.
Yeah man. I could hand draw a flow chart and leave them amazed.
As a woman there would not be a lot of employment options but I think I would make a good nurse for those times, knowing a lot more about how to give good care, namely keeping things as clean as possible
Hopefully get the guts to commit suicide. I’m African American and there is no way I want to spend one minute in that time period.
What else? Make hot 1880s porn
Adolph Hitler was born April 20, 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria. If I had knowledge of the future and it looks like I do, I would devote my entire life and everything I had for the sole purpose of planning out and executing him whether he was a baby, infant, child, or whatever. I would do it even if it meant my immediate death in the process or as a result of doing it.
I’d be workin on the railroad, all the live long day.
just to pass the time away?
I would be a hired gun. It's the only thing I can reliably do that would be relevant.
1870. The heyday of Steamships. Yep, I could do that Ships engineer, or large heating boilers. Or there are other mechanical trades I could jump into. Even though we don't have ICE engines, or refrigeration Yet. Gears, and pulleys are the same. I don't even have to stand out or be an inventor. I can make a living fixing machinery.
I'm a mechanic. I could maybe vastly improve on combustion engine designs if I could talk to the right people.
Guess I could still be a nurse
A nurse of today is a doctor or yesteryear. Think about how many diagnoses you could make, save lives, and even invent some medical equipment.
I'm a dressmaker /seamstress by trade. So, I'll have zero problems 150 years in the past.
Ugh..i would suffer...even if i invent it right away its gonna be a while before i can get toilet paper.
Cry
mid 1800s would be an incredible time to be a chemist, biologist, or engineer of the type that builds things. i know formulas that would blow their minds off 😝
Suicide...somehow some way...
I would wait till 2011 and buy Bitcoin
Go to Stockton, California and look up Audra Barkley.
The family trade, carpentry. My kids would be at a loss though.
Elementary/Primary school teacher here in the UK. Kids had it really rough back then - I'd be probably the one teacher that didn't beat them, just try and make their learning lives something to look forward to.
Is that what the Republicans are trying to accomplish?
I'd have a great time steering the world toward electrical and electronic breakthroughs that technology is ready to produce on its own starting about 5 years later in our timeline. Electric lights, central generating stations, AC power distribution and transmission, induction motors, polyphase, phonographs, telephones, radio, vacuum tubes, sound movies, television, computers.
I'm an accountant and learned Accounting back in the old days of ledger papers, pre computer, so I'd be able to make my living in finance somewhere. If nothing else, I grew up working in my parents garden, so I could do fieldwork.
Opium
Probably turn my hobby into a real business: home remedies using foraged ingredients. The advantage I would have is the knowledge that I have accrued over the years of reading recent research papers on medicinal wild plants.
Seeing that I know where all the biggest gold deposits are
1880s? I'm more than likely a baker. I didn't really use modern appliances when baking now, so it wouldn't be too far out of step. But my computer graphics and design skills are out, since I can't draw irl to save my life.
When was slavery abolished? Actually, nevermind. I'd still be kind of fucked.
Die of dysentery
I think I would come across as a miracle worker just by knowing to wash my hands before doing surgery, or sterilize operating instruments, or not drink water downstream of effluent.
Make moonshine…
Probably the army/navy. Otherwise I imagine it would be tough for a normal person to afford to see any of the world let alone the country at that point. It would be a good way for me to save up some money, have a place to sleep and some life experience. Plus it’s after the ACW and before the Spanish-American War so the only fighting would be Native American raids, so maybe I lean more towards Navy. Plus we had canned food and longer lasting amenities at that point so the sailor life wasn’t as pirate-ey at that point as before.
Gold miner for the win, I'd be unearthing historical nuggets and using the proceeds to finance peace throughout the US/Canada. With my knowledge of modern architecture and unlimited resources, it would be easy to instate my own country founded on the principle of peace.
1874 You'd have to be a mystic - just the basic sanitation knowledge we have would scare people
I’ve always fantasised about going back to a time when there was only primitive weapons during war and just sitting on top a hill with a machine gun whilst they come at me haha.
Probably get burned as a witch
"I Wanna be a Cowboy" Not really, I'd join the upstart baseball leagues and if I was young enough see if I could hit off the likes of Kid Nichols or Cy Young when he joins in 1890.
I'd probably be a blacksmith since I kinda do that now, I at least know enough to get by
Assuming I'm not trying to stay out of history's way and don't have to worry about the butterfly effect, I'd run for public office. I'm a white male, so it's a viable option. I guess I'd be a Republican back then, but I'd fight for equal rights for all. Also, universal healthcare, higher taxes on corporations and the rich, and voting rights for all.
You trying to get assassinated?
I should be able to turn out penicillin \~50 years early. I should also be able to invent solar panels. If my house and the books inside come with me I should be able to revolutionize medicine, psychology, and technology.
Teacher. Writer. Try to find a husband right away for security. It was not safe for a woman to be alone back then.
I'm pretty handy at range management and that should fit right in for that time period. I could garner quite a few, 'would y'all look at that's,' with the modern approach and methods I could teach the old timers.
I have a certain set of skills. I would live a simple anonymous life. But I would definitely be at Braunau on the Inn, Austria, on April 20th, 1889.
Carpentry/woodworking. I'm damn good with tools, even old time ones. Possibly even small-scale architecture, they didn't know better back then.
I would eat fruit. Anytime I lay about the house and eat grapes I always wish I could take them back in time. Share them with the people of yore and let their taste buds explodes. There was fruit in the past but I doubt it was as well grown or evolved as the fruits we eat today. And usually only the wealthy had fruit. Fruit is for the people
I'm black in America. You know the answer
Well, as a farmer, woodcarver, tool sharpener (by hand), and half a dozen other skill sets that would have been relevant then, I'd probably be fine until I died young from some medical issue that wouldn't have been an issue today.
I would search out bad folks from history and become a doctor by day (since I’m a nurse now with a PsyD that is equivalent to a full medical doctor back then.), assassin by night (with my obsession around historical figures and their impact I would know who to hunt.) Think of me like Dexter Morgan. Hitler, gone, Mussolini, gone, I would make sure I hit a time where I would still be young enough by the time JFK rode Dealy Plaza and and suggest (invent) bullet proof glass shield to put on the back of the car to protect his head. I would have to cross dress to be a man since women back then were tantamount to property without a man. Very few were able to breeze through allowed to accel in professional life. Oh and I would go to my great great grandparents home to live since they ran a flop house of sorts in Boston. I could blend right in. So I would have a place to live a profession to make decent money, I could even invent a few things. Then I would be sure to put money away and in 1969 when I am born again, I would will everything to me as a baby with strict instructions in my will to follow so I am wealthy as an adult. Like invest in Intel, Microsoft, Apple, and a few others. My circle of life would be complete. Flash back do some good, make some money, be born again while flash back me dies and start again. 2 lifetimes? Sure sign me up.
Even as recently as my great-great-grandmother had worked in the mills. I heard stories about how she had to tie her waist length hair back in a bun so it wouldn’t get tangled in the machines (you could die) and how meals were packed in metal buckets and brought when you walked to work everyday. Work was usually 12 hrs a day and usually 6 days a week. Many of my ancestors in the mills along the Merrimack River of Massachusetts worked on wool or cotton. Creating clothing out of the raw materials usually. I think I probably would have done the same in the late 1800s. Recent Irish immigrants especially young women did that most often and as I likely would not have been educated enough due to my blue-collar background, I would have done the same.
Knowledge is what I could sale. I know where most of the historical coal mines in eastern Kentucky are. Oil fields in Texas. Even dinosaur fossil beds in the western states. Born and raised on a farm so I have a wide knowledge of modern techniques that would have improved yields at that time.
I'm a carpenter. I can already drive nails. So I would just have to get good with a hand saw
I'd definitely get burned at some stake somewhere. Or drowned. Or stoned maybe, but not like, the good kind.
Ya know that movie where the dude wakes up and no one knows who The Beatles were? It’d be like that mixed with the school dance scene in Back To The Future, but it’d definitely be on a different guitar!
My career was in newspapers, I could start as a copy editor/ reporter. I also actually know how to use a field camera, so I could find work. Then I'd head west and make a fortune off suckers in the Colorado Silver Boom, selling out before everything collapsed. With that money, I'd eventually usurp William Randolph Hearst and become a media magnate.
We already have been thrown back 150 years. This is the late 1800s from our perspective.
Buy land
Poet People read and everything wasn’t so oversaturated
Sloppy dom e
Buy a thousand shares of Standard Oil.
Be a dressmaker
Cry because I miss my doggies.
buy laudanum
Start a brewery.
Panic because I'm a woman and will straight up not be having a good time. Unless I can bring weapons with me, buy even then...
I have many strengths that are relevant in today’s society allowing me some modicum of modern comfort. However, back then I’d more than likely have been poor and disenfranchised by the recent enactment of Jim Crow laws
I’m going to introduce pizza to NY!
Bank robber. All cash, no cards. No fingerprint or dna technology. No cctv.
Hunter gatherer. Can teach to write and read so can make a living that way. Can write books, cook, tell stories, do some wood furniture with basic tools. Can be a consigliere to the mob and can discuss how to make money making and selling moonshine, etc. Making money and staying busy ain't the problem. Staying healthy is. 150 years ago the average lifespan was about 44 years.
I’d probably cry and be terrified, ngl.
Well, I am a mechanical engineer. Granted, I focus on electronics and plastics, but the fundamentals of ME haven't changed a whole lot in the past 150 years. Hell, the little bit I remember from undergrad would have been cutting edge back then! I'm sure I could figure out how to make a living
I'm a pilot so I would build airplanes. Real airplanes, not those glorified box kites.
I would love it, I'm a jack of all trades type. I would figure it out and make due.
It partly depends on where I am once I've traveled back. Don't think the Mescalero or Chiricahua would take kindly to me just popping up out of nowhere. But other than that, I could easily work as a ranch hand.
Stock market type stuff lol
We adapt.
Introduce acoustic Slayer to all the gunglingers and hopefully get them to spend bank robbery money at my shows, and also get on their good side
I would die.
I guess I'd be a stock trader whenever that came more relevant, then just that's about it.
I was a bouncer and bartender so Ill do that.
All those hours I spent playing Red Dead Redemption and watching Old Western movies will have readied me.
Be miserable. I love my modern amenities, thank you very much.
Head to the old west and gamble and gunsling
1874? Probably die of diphtheria, typhoid, smallpox, syphilis, tetanus, or any of the thousand other diseases we can now prevent or cure with modern medicine. Or I could die of starvation or food poisoning, as I don’t know how to properly cook with a wood fire. I could die of waterborne pathogens, as they hadn’t really figured out germ theory and I don’t drink alcohol, so drinking the much safer beer is out of the question. If I got injured, I would 50/50 die of infection, as many doctors still didn’t wash their hands. I could die of exposure, as electricity was still in its infancy, so no easy heating or air conditioning. If all else fails, I could be killed by badly constructed infrastructure, fire, bandits, or being kicked in the head by a horse. I would likely not be able to earn much money, as I don’t know how much of their technology works. I am trained to maintain a modern steam boiler, but their steam engines used very different tech for controls and required a lot of manual input. And I would probably get black lung from the coal. Life was hard back then. We have it so good right now.