The Good Old Days-- They Were Terrible!

Otto Bettmann's "The Good Old Days - They Were Terrible!" is really kick to the head in terms of establishing reality with folks who think everything was so much better and more simple in the "good old days."Filled with interesting graphics and drawings, this book covers all the bases from food safety to crime to public education. Barely a sacred cow is left untouched.I've owned this book for more than ten years and it never fails to catch my interest when I pick it up again. I've also shown it to many of my friends and even given it as a gift.As for this notion of "anti-US," this seems a bit simplistic. The author's intention seems pretty clear - to establish 19th century America as a pretty dangerous place to live. There are few, if any, comparisons to Europe. It's not intended to be a book about how "bad the US is compared to country X." No, this is about just telling it like it is (or rather, was). Being honest about our past does us no harm. Indeed, it allows us to be become even better in the future. It's called learning from your mistakes. And Bettman's book is an excellent place to start learning.

I recommend this for people who romaticize the past, because we often forget how far we have come. Things back then were terrible, like crime, health, liberties, and so on. You always see the "Gay 90s" portrayed in Disney films as glorious and clean and everyone is civilized to have tea at 4, but in reality, most of us were living in tepid, diseased squalor with open corruption running rampant.This book doesn't read heavily like a stern textbook, but is very informative without being preachy. This is a great "bathroom reader" type of book with small, heavily-illustrated chapters, consice writing, and easy-to-understand narrative. It will really make you appreciate how good we have it now, even if we still have a ways to go.This is one of my favorite books of all time in my reference shelf.

I am addicted to stories about time travel and I have a collection of them. This book is wonderful in that, instead of sentimental twaddle, conjecture, and picturesque rose-colored-glasses stories of the past, you really get to know what times were like in "The Good Old Days' - and - you'll thank your lucky stars that you are living now and not then. I was fascinated and horrified at the details of everyday life a century ago. I don't know how the people of that era survived and I now know why a lot of them didn't. A real eye-opener!!

As a student many of my friends were required to read this book for History class, I myself enjoyed the book so much I bought a copy to keep even though I didn't take the class. Much of the book focuses on letting readers understand what society was like over a hundred years ago and how things we complain about today were just as much a problem in the past. The book features chapters on immigration, health, food, medical care and many other issues of the day.Many of the chapters will make you cringe as you learn that horses created much more pollution then cars ever did or that meat packing companies often used diseased or sickly cows and pigs. The chapters on education bring light to modern viewers that delinquency and school violence were not unknown and in one instance a young teacher was killed by her on students. The book features wonderfully drawn illustartions that bring life to the world of our grandparents and how we should be glad to have clean roads, safe food and laws to protect consumers from fraud and deceit. A great book that all students should read and enjoy

What an incredible book! Interesting, informative, eye-opening, and unflinching. Tells the grim truth about life in nineteenth century industrial America, focusing on the cities (especially New York), but touching on the hardships and unpleasantness of rural life as well. The illustrations are as valuable as the text--and Bettman's list of sources is outstanding. Social history at its best!