100 years
The difference 100 years makes (or does not), though books I’ve recently read.
17th century (1680s)
17th century is when the English Civil War happened. A lot of religious fervour. Christianity in England was still in the phase of “you have to be the right kind of Christian, or else you’re in trouble”. A log of uncertainty: which is going to be the dominant sect? Is it going to be Catholics, is it going to be the Anglicans? All sort of variations emerge in this period Puritans, Quakers etc. To say that some move to America to freely practice their religion underestimates both the difficulties you’re in if you’re the minority sect, but also the fervour of the (many) minority sects.
Towards the end of the century we have William Penn, of Pennsylvania fame. Rich. Quaker. Religious, but well read. He read classics: “Eat to live, not live to eat” comes from Socrates. He wears a wig because he lost his hair from smallpox in his youth, but he survived it.
18th century (1750s)
For this period I’m going to cover three people, to see differences as well as similarities.
John Woolman, not very well known nowadays, was influential in the abolition of slavery. Quaker. Properly religious. All he read was the Bible, the many notes of the many Quaker meetings (weekly, monthly, quarterly). And psalms. He was influential between the Quakers on abolishing slavery. The Quakers though were influential e.g. in governing Pennsylvania. But he’s against slavery for reasons that have to do with his religious ideas, not directly out of moral reasons.
Benjamin Franklin. His father emigrated to America with his uncle, reason: Puritans. The first books that he read were religious controversies that his dad and uncles cared about. Then he discovers Plutarch. He also quotes “Eat to live, not live to eat”, in fact he practised the Socratic method so well on one of his bosses that his boss hesitated at the most benign questions asking back instead “Wait a minute, where is thing going to take me?”.
Benjamin Franklin was largely home schooled. He dabbed with going to a school, but learned a trade instead: he became a printer.
Although Franklin believed in God, there is stark difference rooted into what he read, compared with Woolman. When Woolman travels to England he tries to make sailors give up drinking and swearing and become proper Christians. When Franklin travels to England, he notices that a lighthouse saved them for crashing into rocks and makes a not to plead for more lighthouses to be build in America.
John Woolman died of smallpox, Benjamin Franklin’s son died of smallpox.
Franklin met with Hume and they talked about their experience of organizing logistics for military leaders. Hume was an atheist, not openly (it was too dangerous). On his reading list there was a line of English empiricists that made the difference.
19th century (1940s)
Tom Sawyer, the character of Mark Twain’s book. Tom Sawyer was going to the town school. Children of mixed ages shared the same class and teacher.
20th century (1930s)
Two book characters.
Gatsby, the character of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, on the early side of 1930s. Rich, large mansion: he’s got a “station wagon”. That means the kind of car that you send your chauffeur to pick your guests and their luggage from the train station (the equivalent name in England is “estate”).
Atticus, the character of Harper Lee, is on the later side of the 1930s. Like Tom Sawyer, his children go to school, but the school has age-grouped classes.
There’s trains. Though for the blacks, there not much difference from Tom Sawyer’s times.
Now
Well know it looks different: there’s computers, Internet, mobile phones. Cars are more popular than trains. Most people have cars. But other things are similar. Benjamin Franklin used the printing press that he owned to influence the public opinion. Musk bought Twitter. Gatsby was rich, but involved in corruption, there is a resurgence of that, and as in Franklin’s time there is lots of money to be made by getting government’s business/military. And sadly, forms of racism, xenophobia and others on that spectrum of lack of empathy and humanity, are still present.