Getting There

 I have been playing around the edges of an idea for the past few days, and finally decided to try to write it down.  

Can an analogy be made between the changes in society and changes in transportation?

Let's say you want to go to California.  Never mind why - that's a topic for another day - let us just agree that you want to go.

Up until the mid-1800s you would simply set out walking, or riding if you were wealthy enough to own a horse. Somewhere about the Mississippi River, you might catch a ride on a packet boat headed up the Missouri or the Platte, or you might join up with a wagon train headed west.  The alternative would be to catch a schooner sailing around the horn of South America that would eventually dock in San Francisco.  Either way, you were looking at a danger-filled journey of six months to a year.

Somewhere after 1870, you could just take the train - assuming you had the $136 for a Pullman sleeper, or as little as $65 for a third class ticket that got you a seat on a wooden bench. Accounting for inflation, that $165 in 1870 is equivalent to just over $2000 today.

The first transcontinental commercial flight was in 1911, and took three and a half days, but it wasn't until January 1959 that the first scheduled commercial jet flight went from coast to coast. That flight would set you back about $170 which translates to $ 1138 today.

All that goes to say that getting there in the past was something of value - something you had to expend money and/or a hell of a lot of effort to achieve.

Today's young adults would just fly using their parent's credit card, or go on line and get there (virtually) for nothing.