Super Throwback Thursday: 20 Ways Tech in the 1890s Was Much Better Than it is Today

Image via Complex Original

Conspiracy theories abound regarding why exactly we still haven't gotten this whole voting machine thing right. We aren't here to speculate on why we can launch rocket ships, yet can't count votes correctly, but we can tell you that the voting machine was perfected in the 1800s. After spending almost $100 million on new fangled voting machines, New York City was forced to retreat back to voting machines utilizing "technology first developed in the 1890s." Some people, like Dick Dadey, executive director of the Citizens Union, are against returning to old machines. Dadey said, "It's absurd that in a 21st-century New York, we would go back and vote on machines first used in the 19th century when Tammany Hall controlled the elections." Mr. Dadey, at least when Tammany Hall controlled the elections, you always knew who was going to win.

It might sound crazy to claim that phone technology was better in the 1890s, but at least a hundred years ago phones were used as phones. How wonderful would it be to be able to once again walk down the street without having to Frogger your way past people absorbed in picking out the perfect emoji for their next text message? Group texts, telemarketers, and predatory phone plans would no longer be a part of your daily grind. People wouldn't think it was abnormal if they couldn't get a hold of you, and can you put a price on avoiding nagging time sensitive emails?

Over the last century, we have become enamored of the shared viewing experience of the movie theatre. In our obsession with IMAX and big screen, we have forgotten the simple beauty of watching a film through a Kinetescope. The Kinetescope presented films the way that they were meant to be viewed: through a peephole at the top of a complicated machine. Though the films only lasted thirty seconds, they were quite similar to the viral YouTube content and Vines of today. Let's face it: they just don't make films like "Cockfighting" and "Feeding the Doves" anymore.

Fixies, curved handlebars, and dope color schemes are cool and all, but style was really the first thing on bicycle makers' minds in the late 1800s. It simply isn't fair that the last time we get to roll a big wheel here in the twenty-first century is at the end of toddlerhood. In a perfect bicycling world, we could judge a bicyclist by the size of his front wheel and not the content of his character. Also, we imagine that a big front wheel would slow you down, which wouldn't be a bad idea for the incompetent Citibike riders that are taking over New York City and other major American metropolitan areas.

We are going the wrong way when it comes to ocular technology. Contact lenses and Lasik surgery have created a world where we can't tell who has vision problems. At Complex Tech we believe that people with less than perfect vision should be celebrated for their difference, not blended into the crowd. The top hat wearing, mutton chop sporting industrialists of the 1890s knew how to show off their poor eyesight with the dopest of monocles. There is no better way to inspect the dirt on the hands of those worse off than you than through a ridiculously expensive monocle. It is a verifiable fact that the decline of society's great men is in direct correlation with the rise of glasses.

A meal always tastes worse when prepared in the microwave. Reheated leftovers and microwave-ready meals symbolize compromise. To heat up a microwave meal is to tell yourself that you are working too much, going out too much, or that you are just plain lazy. If this were the 1890s, if you didn't have time to cook food in an oven or on a stove, you had to eat it raw. After a few nights straight of PB&J sandwiches, you would quickly learn to make time in your schedule to actually cook food for yourself, or just call the 1890s version of Seamless.

Odds are that you saw this Upworthy video on your Facebook wall in the last month or so. People (or at least our friends on Facebook) are sick and tired of the false standard of beauty created by Photoshop. Back in the 1890s, you didn't have to worry much about that false standard of beauty. There was some level of retouching in the late 19th century, but obviously it was nothing near what we have today. The five dollar bill is based on a photo in which Lincoln's head was place on John C. Calhoun's body, but the wrinkles and blemishes are evident in any picture of Honest Abe. The crude nature of the 19th century version of photo retouching meant that it would have been obvious if pounds were shaved off and curves were added to your favorite celebrities.

Escalators are bullshit. If the escalator hadn't been invented at the turn of the century, we would have only had two choices for getting around vertically. The fit would take the stairs and the lazy, pregnant, or encumbered would take an elevator. The escalator ruined what was a perfect set of choices and introduced a ridiculous set of questions into the equation. With over a century of escalator history under our belts, we still haven't figured out the rules of escalator etiquette. When is it okay to walk past someone on an escalator? The world may never know.

1898 was the year that Wurlitzer invented the coin operated player piano. Though modern day inventions like Guitar Hero make it easier for people to pretend they are great at playing instruments, we've gotten away from instruments that play themselves. We aren't sure why we've abandoned the creepy yet delightful idea of the player piano, but if we had our way, these finnicky jukeboxes and crappy cover bands that bars have today would be replaced with a piano that played a tinny rendition of "Camptown Ladies" on demand.

When you meet someone who has a manual transmission in their car, you usually spend the entire conversation discussing how awesome it is to have a manual transmission. The general laziness of the driving public has led to a steep decline in cars that come with a five speed, leaving manual drivers as the proud last bastions of a dying breed. Sure, we now have a lot more time for texting and eating while we drive, but we can't feel our ride like we used to. Back in the day, you didn't have a choice. Until 1904, you had to buy manual because automatics didnt' exist. The top speed at the turn of the century may have been 40 mph, but at least you knew you were driving in style.

It's simple really. Prior to 1912, the largest disaster in passenger ship history hadn't happened yet. You haven't been able to say that since 1912. No matter how sophisticated ocean travel gets, no matter how dope passenger cruises become, we'll never again be able to say that we're living in an era when the Titanic hadn't yet sank. Incidentally, the movie Titanic also hadn't been made yet, which is also a bonus.

Bread itself isn't exactly a technological wonder. For some reason, however, the phrase "the best thing since sliced bread" persists as the preferred way to say that an invention is cool. Prior to 1928, if you wanted to say that a technological innovation was impressive, you had to think of your own way to say it, rather than falling back on this tired cliché. Not having this phrase in our lexicon would be the best thing since ... we'll get back to you on that.

Actually, in the 1890s there was no radio at all, short of some emergency tests at sea. There was a time when making your voice heard actually took some effort. Back in the day, the radio was used for things like asking for emergency signals, not communicating your feelings of insecurity to the world. The first true radio broadcast wouldn't even come across the waves until 1906, and would feature Bible verses and some light violin playing. While we wouldn't want to give up NPR, it might be a small price to pay for freeing ourselves of the awkward, guilty feeling we get when a friend asks us if we've listened to their podcast yet.

Any art school student will tell you that stuff looks cooler in black and white. If you are in a situation where you want your art to appear serious and thoughtful, but you don't have the time to create art that is serious and thoughtful, it is time to think monochromatically. Back in the day, you didn't have the choice to put your short film or photo exhibition in boring color. Wouldn't it be cool to return to a time where everything looked artsy and important?

The 1890s spelled the beginning of the end for monopolies. With the passing of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the ability the create monopolies and cartels was stymied and price-fixing was severely limited. These days, companies like Apple and Amazon have to engage in doublespeak and heavy brand management just to kind of sort of have a monopoly and engage in a little price fixing. Economists and consumer advocates seem to think that a monopoly is a bad thing. Say what you will, but if you are dealing with a monopoly, you don't have to deal with the stress of decision making.

Though computers are the key to modern productivity, they are also the biggest distraction from our work. Whenever you sit down to write, prep a spreadsheet, or produce that vital PowerPoint, the temptation to open up Facebook or Twitter is palpable. How many hours of productivity have you lost looking at useless Internet lists? In the 1890s, this wasn't a problem. The thinking man's work only involved the man, his typewriter, and his unrelenting focus. This also meant that one typo was enough to force you to rewrite the entire thing, but that gave you all the more reason to focus. That being said, since you weren't balancing hashtag games and Candy Crush with the task at hand, we imagine typos were far less common.

Today's flying machines can travel far more than the 160 feet that the Ader Éole managed back in 1890. The unenlightened among you might think this is a good thing, but with the Ader Éole you never had to worry about things like layovers, cramped legroom, and lost baggage. Less time in the air meant less time to be annoyed by the people flying next to you. If you really wanted to travel more than 160 feet, all you had to do was rev up the steam engine for another pass, and hope the wind was in your favor.

It's true that the industrial revolution was over by the 1890s, but it was still far easier to find artisanal products, and you didn't have to pay today's artisanal prices. Whether homemakers were stitching pants or children were burning their hands making soap, if you looked hard enough, you could find artisanal goods. Back then, you only needed to look at a laborer's hands and see a missing finger to know that the goods you were buying were authentically made in-house.

If warfare kills more people, is that really progress? We measure success in warfare by how few casualties we sustain. With the less sophisticated weaponry of the 1890s, it was far harder to sustain massive casualties. The killing of innocents was also much harder to justify back in the 1890s. It took deliberate, sustained intent for American soldiers to murder dozens of Native Americans at Wounded Knee. With the advent of drones, we can explain away strikes that hit innocent herdsmen in terms of a technological miscalculation.

It was the beginning of the end for one of our country's greatest economic engines when the Democrats proposed bringing an end to child labor for children under 15 in 1892. These days, we are focused on replacing our workload with machines, and that's all well and good, but if you take a look back into the past, you might find a better solution. If you think about it, child laborers are like little robots. Sure, they need things like food and drink, but it doesn't take much to nourish their svelte frames. You don't have to worry about repairing or replacing parts on a child, as you can always make a new one. The bottom line is if you are looking for answers to why our economy is in the tank, you can thank the children who are spending their summers at home rather than on the assembly line. Look on the bright side: at least we still have child labor in developing nations so that we can continue to have dope sneakers or smartphones at affordable prices.