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Eighty Eight Years of Progress
North Vernon Plain Dealer - February 15, 1888
You can see examples of some of the items mentioned in this article at the
JENNINGS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM
    To realize the progress this generation is making it is necessary to pause and reflect. Aunt Chloe (Prather) Campbell who recently was called from earth, was born at the beginning of this century, and what are the changes during her lifetime. When she was a child no store sold ready-made clothing, and both shoes and boots were made by the neighborhood cobbler. A little coffee was used and that always bought before roasted. Now no meal was is set without light bread, then it was not often seen, cornbread and biscuit, mostly cornbread, being farinaceous diet in use. Every village had a tannery, a wagon maker, a carding mill and a furniture maker, all of which have entirely disappeared from the small towns, and mostly from the large ones. The clocks in use were six or eight feet high and very expensive, while the man who carried a watch was looked upon as wealthy. For cooking or baking the utensils were stood upon the coals in the open fireplace or swung upon the crane, as the iron bar was called which stretched across above the fire. Cane seat or cushioned chairs were unknown in this section, and carpets not thought of.
    In that vessels upon the ocean were propelled by the wind, as it not been leared that their speed could be six-fold increased by the application of steam.. On the rivers vessels were propelled downward by the current, and upward by human muscle applied to a pole with one end resting on the river bottom.
    She was a woman of middle age when the first cooking stove appeared, and at about the same time friction matches were placed upon the market. Her evenings were passed in the light of a rude lamp burning grease, or a tallow dip, until she was an elderly lady, when the 1859 burning fluid, as it was called, appeared making a more brilliant flame, and this in turn was superseded during the war by petroleum, which as yet holds it own against numerous competitors. The reader by extinguishing the light of his kerosene lamp, and putting some lard in a saucer, and in this a cotton rag with one end lighted will have what was used by our grandmothers, and be able to learn practically what progress was made in one lifetime in every home.
     Mrs. Campbell was the head of a family when the first railroad train was placed upon track, and enjoying middle life when the first dispatch by telegraph was sent in 1844. About the same time Howe invented the sewing machine which is now found in every home. Our children can remember the introduction of the electric-light, the telephone, the type writer, and the electric motor. Can the reader imagine what the earth would be if set back to the condition at the birth of Mrs. Campbell.
    Science has not made less progress than the arts, but we will allow each to investigate for himself what knowledge was of astronomy, chemistry, or geology, when this century began.

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