Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1958 a tobacco farm ran on hand labour supplied largely by the family. Every leaf was pulled by hand, five or six times through the season as…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1955 a canal lock was worked by a man who lived in the cottage beside it, because the job required somebody to be there at any hour…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1955 the railway was controlled by thousands of men in small buildings beside the track, each pulling a frame of heavy levers that moved signals and points…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1960 the weather was measured by people. Somebody walked out to a white wooden box on legs every hour of every day, read four thermometers, emptied a…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1950 there were still tens of thousands of one-room schools operating across rural America, each with one teacher, one stove, one bucket of water and every child…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1955 the single-handed country doctor was the whole of medicine for a great many townships. He saw patients in a room at the front of his own…