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What skills did almost everybody have 50 years ago, but few people have today? (slrpnk.net)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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I suppose it would be mostly practical skills, cooking, fixing things. Usually had to be done by people themselves.

Maybe also mental things like navigating (with or without paper map) and remembering their daily and weekly agendas.

What other things would be a big difference with the people today?

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[–] 22 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Definitely more than 50 years ago, but this little piece of Americana is interesting

Families often had small nail-manufacturing setups in their homes; during bad weather and at night, the entire family might work at making nails for their own use and for barter. Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter: "In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable. I am myself a nail maker."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nail_(fastener)#History/

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Thomas Jefferson made nails for commercial profit in purpose-built workhouses on his estate. Or to be specific, his child slaves made the nails

    https://www.monticello.org/encyclopedia/nailery

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  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago

    I like the preceding lines

    Nails were expensive and difficult to obtain in the American colonies, so that abandoned houses were sometimes deliberately burned down to allow recovery of used nails from the ashes. This became such a problem in Virginia that a law was created to stop people from burning their houses when they moved.

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