Many social reformers over the years have perpetuated and popularized the notion that people fared better BEFORE they had to work in the mills, mines, and factories that sprang up during and after industrialization, but did they?

It is generally true that then as in most any age, the politically privileged and connected tended to do rather well.  At least they tended to have the best of what was available at the time.

However, it is also a matter of common observation that an hourly-rated worker in the United States at just about any time after the nineteenth century, lived and lives today better than royalty and nobility ever did prior to 1760.

Although a king or emperor might have had the best and most of everything that was available, not one of them had a decent bed (by today's standards), a decent bath (even when they took them), or a competent medical examination.

In the United States today, the poorest of the poor commonly have a heated and air-conditioned house or apartment with hot and cold running water, a bath, windows, a refrigerator, a stove, a telephone, electric lights, a color television, free access to emergency health care, and so much food that the vast majority of them today are considered overweight if not obese!

In 1760, no monarch on earth even imaged or dreamed of such things as automobiles, radios, televisions, or air conditioning - much less personal computers, cell phones, and jet engines - yet such things are considered commonplace today, even to the most common of people!

In this country and in countries all around the world, we have politicians who today imagine and pronounce that a man earning less than $20,000 a year is now considered poor - and yet at even half of that, the standard of living for such a man is higher today than that of King Henry VIII!

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