"As for "pre-toaster" lives, most people who lived in the age before the toaster could expect to die by about age 40 (the toaster was invented in 1893, when life expectancy in the U.S. was about 43 years)."
I hate when people talk about how people in the last century could expect to die when they were about 40, because that is skewed by the ridiculously high infant-mortality rates. The data that that paragraph links to says it all: if you lived to age 10 by 1900, you could expect to live another 50 years more, i.e. you would most likely die when you were about 60.
Take a good look at the data. At birth in 1890, your life expectancy was only 42 years. At 10 years old in 1900, your life expectancy is now 50 more years, i.e. you've aged 10 years but now you can expect to live an additional 8 years on top of that. Your total life expectancy went up by 18 years just by virtue of having made it through the first 10 years.
By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, this means about 1/3 of babies died before age 10, which seems about right...
"As for "pre-toaster" lives, most people who lived in the age before the toaster could expect to die by about age 40 (the toaster was invented in 1893, when life expectancy in the U.S. was about 43 years)."
I hate when people talk about how people in the last century could expect to die when they were about 40, because that is skewed by the ridiculously high infant-mortality rates. The data that that paragraph links to says it all: if you lived to age 10 by 1900, you could expect to live another 50 years more, i.e. you would most likely die when you were about 60.
Take a good look at the data. At birth in 1890, your life expectancy was only 42 years. At 10 years old in 1900, your life expectancy is now 50 more years, i.e. you've aged 10 years but now you can expect to live an additional 8 years on top of that. Your total life expectancy went up by 18 years just by virtue of having made it through the first 10 years.
By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, this means about 1/3 of babies died before age 10, which seems about right...