In terms of sheer changes to life, yes. Electricity*, skyscrapers, cars, airplanes, telephones, film, radio, television, rocketry, nuclear weapons- all of this stuff the average person basically did not know about in 1890 (or to the extent it was known, it was a novelty), yet by 1950 or thereabouts, is a part of daily life. In 1890, the world was still a largely agrarian place, the average person had never even seen a skyscraper, and was probably in total shock at something like the Brooklyn Bridge. They rode around on horses. If you put them in a movie theater and have a train approaching the camera, they'll start screaming and running out of the theater. Yet by 1950, almost all the accouterments of modern life are in place. The world of Mad Men is, technologically, not so different from our own.
* IMO, electricity is the defining feature of the
modern world, and if any event can be said to mark the temporal dividing line between premodern and modern eras, it would probably be the
World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The modern world lasts until the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which marks the beginning of the postmodern world.
Poll
