vitrine · corridor · pairwise
1930s ↔ 1950s
Fact families the measure guard certifies comparable for this pair. Everything else renders as the gap it is. Every value links to its record.
A new car — affordability
1930s · Tier A
~$590 (average wholesale, computed from factory sales) ≈ 1,073 hours of work
1950s · Tier A
~$1,295 (average wholesale, computed from factory sales) ≈ 981 hours of work
Homeownership
% of occupied housing units owner-occupied
Household landline telephone
% of households
⚠ The 1900s source combines several technologies in one headline percentage, so its 5% is not plotted as a telephone datum.
⚠ 1910s–1930s sources counted telephones per 1,000 population, not households — those decades render as gaps rather than a unit splice.
1930s · Tier A
~41 per 1,000 population (1935) — see the placard
1950s · Tier A
Telephone: 61.8% of households (280.9 per 1,000 population). Automobile: registration data available but not asked in 1950 Census.
Radio
% of households
1930s · Tier A
Radio: ~40% of households (1930), ~80% by 1940. Automobile: ~26.7M registrations (1930). — see the placard
1950s · Tier A
95.6%
Women's unpaid home production
hours per week, prime-age women
⚠ From 2010s onward the source is ATUS (all adults 15+, hrs/day, narrower 'household activities'), not Ramey (prime-age women 18-64, hrs/week, broader 'home production') — a concept splice. ATUS facts remain available in their rooms, but render as linked gaps on this weekly axis rather than as a false decline.
Men's unpaid home production
hours per week, prime-age men
⚠ From 2010s onward the source is ATUS (all adults 15+, hrs/day, narrower 'household activities'), not Ramey (prime-age men 18-64, hrs/week, broader 'home production') — a concept splice. ATUS facts remain available in their rooms, but render as linked gaps on this weekly axis rather than as a false rise or decline.
Cigarettes consumed per adult
cigarettes per adult (18+) per year
⚠ Consumption (tax-derived), not prevalence. The chart's line ends 1994 where its table does: 1995-1999 have no table in the archived record, and 2000-2023 continue on the TTB-removals basis (series us-cigarettes-per-capita-ttb, a methodology splice) — those decades stay in the room placards rather than piling on this axis. 1993 provisional, 1994 projected.
1930s · Tier A
1,485 cigarettes per adult per year
1950s · Tier A
3,552 cigarettes per adult per year
Road deaths per 100 million vehicle-miles
deaths per 100 million vehicle-miles travelled
⚠ A rate, not a count. Absolute road deaths peaked at 55,600 in 1972 and were still near 41,000 in 2023; what fell by a factor of thirty is the aggregate death rate per mile travelled. It does not measure an individual traveller's risk.
⚠ FHWA's own footnote records a definitional change: from 1976 the count includes only people who died within 30 days of the crash. Earlier years were counted on a wider window, so the two halves of this line are not quite the same measurement.
⚠ The 1900 figure rests on 36 recorded deaths against an estimated 100 million vehicle-miles. It is published, not reconstructed, but the exposure behind it is very thin and the travel figure is a back-cast.
1930s · Tier A
15.12 deaths per 100 million vehicle-miles travelled
1950s · Tier A
7.24 deaths per 100 million vehicle-miles travelled
Alcohol consumed per person
gallons of pure ethanol per person per year
⚠ Apparent consumption: legal beverage sales and shipments divided by population. The source table prints '(Prohibition)' instead of values for 1920-1933. That gap is not zero consumption or proof that no alcohol was sold; it is not interpolated and no estimate is substituted for it.
⚠ Not falling, on purpose. The line is a discontinuity, not a trend: the 1911-1915 level is not reached again until the 1970s, and the modern peak (2.76 in 1981) sits above every year since.
⚠ The 1900s and 1910s cards carry five-year ranges rather than single years, because that is how the table publishes the pre-1934 record; the annual series therefore begins at 1934.
⚠ The denominator changes at 1970, from population aged 15 and over to aged 14 and over. It is disclosed, not corrected for.
⚠ The table's own note records that data before 1977 are from Hyman et al. 1980 — the early half of this official series is republished scholarly work.