vitrine · the walkthrough · 1900s → 1950s → 2020s

Walk the composite household

The home and the four people in it, at three stops across the century. No narration — the sourced facts, their tiers, and the gaps.

The composite family. Each room is a statistical composite, assembled from separate distributions with separate sources. The family at the median income did not also have the median house, the median car, and the median diet. No single family described here ever existed; each fact tells you, in its provenance drawer, which real population it was measured from.

The 1900s — enter the room

parlorroomskitchenbath & heathousing 12.95% of spendingapparel 14.04% of spendingfood 42.54% of spendingHomeownership rate, 1900s: ~46.5% (national, all households)Housing: rooms, rent, and tenure, 1901: Renting: 4.73 rooms/family, $24.60/room/yr avg rent. Owning: 5.92 rooms/family. Rent was 12.95% of expenditure.Technology diffusion: telephone, automobile, electricity (~1900): Telephone: 9.2 per 1,000 population (1898), ~5% of households. Automobile: <1% (registration incomplete pre-1910). Electricity: <5% of homes (urban only). Radio: not yet commercial.5%Food basket: expenditure per family by item, 1901: Beef (fresh) $46.38, beef (salt) $10.61, hog (fresh) $15.64, hog (salt) $17.60, other meat $13.29, poultry $9.91, fish $8.35, eggs $16.17, milk $20.03, butter $27.73

The 1950s — enter the room

parlorroomskitchenbath & heatfood 24.3% of spendingHomeownership rate, 1950: 55.0%Households with electric lighting, 1950: 94.0%94%Households with radio, 1950: 95.6%95.6%Households with television, 1950: 12.3%12.3%Telephone and automobile adoption, 1950: Telephone: 61.8% of households (280.9 per 1,000 population). Automobile: registration data available but not asked in 1950 Census.61.8%Households with mechanical refrigeration, 1950: 80.0%80%Food basket and expenditure breakdown, 1960-61 (CEX): Food $1,309/yr (24.3% of expenditure), housing $1,594 (29.6%), food away from home $274, local telephone $69/yr. Total expenditure: $5,393.Complete plumbing facilities, 1950: 64.5% of homes had complete plumbing (35.5% lacked)64.5%Households with central heating, 1950: 50.0%50%

The 2020s — enter the room

parlorroomskitchenbath & heathousing 31.3% of spendingapparel 2.5% of spendingfood 13.5% of spendinghealth 7% of spendingtransport 17.9% of spendingHomeownership rate, 2024: 65.3%Housing characteristics, 2023 (AHS): Median 1,500 sq ft. 99.9% have complete bathroom. 89.3% public water, 80.9% public sewer. Median 5 rooms. 67.6% have garage/carport.Phone service and vehicle access, 2023 (AHS): Cell phone 92.7%, landline 20.1%, garage/carport 67.6%92.7%Retail food prices, December 2024: Bread $1.91/lb, ground beef $5.58/lb, bacon $6.92/lb, eggs $4.15/doz, lettuce $1.71/lb, bananas $0.62/lbPrimary heating fuel, 2024: Natural gas 47%, electricity 42%, other 11%Households using air conditioning, 2020: 88% (two-thirds central AC)88%Adults who use the internet, 2025: 96%96%Households with at least one vehicle, 2023: 91.5% (8.5% with no vehicle)91.5%

The same measures, three stops

Each row is one measure across the transect. A silent record renders as a gap, never a guess.

Women's unpaid home productionhours per week, prime-age women
Food's share of spending% of household expenditure
Weekly hours, manufacturinghours per week, production workers
Life expectancy at birthyears (all races, both sexes)
Infant mortalitydeaths under age 1 per 1,000 live births

The labour-hours meter

Women's weekly unpaid home production, drawn to the data's shape — including its gaps.

⚠ The 2020s source (ATUS) measures all-adult household activities, a concept splice from Ramey's women's series — flagged, not smoothed, so the chart renders it as a gap and the placard carries both figures.
hours per week, prime-age women’00sWomen's weekly unpaid home-production hours, 1900: 46.8 — Tier C46.8 C’10sWomen's weekly unpaid home-production hours, 1910: 45.6 — Tier C45.6 C’20sWomen's weekly unpaid home-production hours, 1920: 44.5 — Tier C44.5 C’30sWomen's weekly unpaid home-production hours, 1930: 43.2 — Tier C43.2 C’40sWomen's weekly unpaid home-production hours, 1940: 41.9 — Tier C41.9 C’50sWomen's weekly unpaid home-production hours, 1950: 41.5 — Tier C41.5 C’60sWomen's weekly unpaid home-production hours, 1965: 40.9 — Tier C40.9 C’70sWomen's weekly unpaid home-production hours, 1975: 32.1 — Tier C32.1 C’80sWomen's weekly unpaid home-production hours, 1985: 28.4 — Tier C28.4 C’90sWomen's weekly unpaid home-production hours, 1990s: no reliable recordno reliable record’00sWomen's weekly unpaid home-production hours, 2005: 29.3 — Tier C29.3 C’10sWomen's weekly unpaid home-production hours, 2010s: no reliable recordno reliable record’20sHome-production hours: Ramey endpoint vs ATUS (concept splice): Ramey 2005: women 29.3, men 16.8 hrs/week (ages 18–64) → ATUS 2019: household activities 1.78 hrs/day, all adults 15+concept splice — see the placard

The true-scale house

The house is drawn to the sourced floor-area datum; a stop without one keeps the dashed reference outline.

1900s — rooms counted, floor area not measured
1950s — floor area not yet curated
2020s — 1,500 sq ft (sourced)