Random fact found in a museum yesterday

I learned that the average moving truck in the 1920s could only carry about 2 tons of furniture, compared to 10 tons today. My grandpa would've had to make 5 trips for what I do in one load. Has anyone else stumbled across a weird stat like that out of nowhere?

3 comments

3 Comments

jade5173d ago

Funny enough, that tracks with a lot of stuff from back then... people just didn't have as much stuff. Houses were smaller, families didn't accumulate piles of furniture like we do now. It's like every generation has had this sneaky push to own more and more, and we don't even notice it until you see a number like that. You really start to wonder how many trips our grandkids will have to make compared to us.

spencer_owens583d ago

Gotta disagree a bit though. Yeah people had less stuff but a lot of that was just because they couldn't afford it or it didn't exist yet. My grandparents didn't have a TV room or a home office cuz those weren't things back then. Not really some deep lesson about consumerism, just different times.

sage3083d ago

Are we really that deep into it though, @jade517? I mean sure people had less stuff back then, but they also had less money and less options. It wasn't some noble choice, it was just how things were. Now we've got cheap furniture from big box stores and online shopping making it easy to fill up a house in a weekend. I'm not convinced it's some grand societal push, maybe we just like having things that make life more comfortable. And honestly how many trips our grandkids make seems like a weird thing to worry about when they'll probably just hire someone to haul it all anyway. Feels like one of those facts people use to feel superior about their own minimalism without actually changing anything.