In my father's family or at least his section women were sent for higher education if they wanted it. So I would have either been at college, if finished with schooling would be planning or in my debutant season. In my mother's family I would have been working in some type of shop or business until married. Again although the women seldom went to college my grandmother went to a two year business school.

Both my grandmothers were born around 1890 and both went to university. So probably went to University and then joined the suffragette movement.

Farming in Iowa or attending Ohio State.

Ditto -- part of a farm family in the midwest.

My maternal grandmother was born in 1888, so would only be 12 in 1900. She worked as a maid in her teens and immigrated from PEI to Boston at age 19. She worked in a factory till she got married at 26. I don't know much about my parternal grandmother except she died in her early 30's, probably due to taking care of 14 children. If I had to choose back then, I would rather be like my maternal grandmother and get married in my mid 20's and NOT have 14 kids.

Well, based on my great grand mother, who was born in the late 1800s, I would have been living in Brooklyn, married, had three children by now and be widowed by 21. Then take in boarders for the rest of my adult life. The prospects were certainly dim for most, but Maifleur's lineage sounds like it was a bright spot.

Probably married with a baby. I would have a big garden to can food for the winter. Also raising chickens for eggs and Sunday dinner. Not milking a cow though or working in the field. Going to church functions would be the highlights of the week.

I would cooking with babies in my arms. lots of babies lol No birth

control. Hopefully hubby would be doing the other work. ha ha

Chances are I would be teaching in a one room school house in ND or MN depending on if we follow mom's or dad's people.

As glamourous as what I wrote sounded that would have been life in 1900. While my father's side was not affected by the crash of 1905 and a later one during the war most of my mother's family money was gone by the 1920s. The rest left shortly thereafter. The social connections were still there enough that one of my great aunt's asked me if I had "came out" and if I had not would she let me sponsor me when I was 22/23. Was not one of the things that I wanted to do and I considered myself too old. Now at this great distance I do wonder what my life would be like if I had accepted her offer.

Wow Maifleur. The ceremony of the times...such a difference from today.

If I had been born in 1880, I wouldn't have lived to see 1881, let alone 1900.

No way to know or guess. All of my grandparents were born in the late 1800s, all were urban dwellers and 3 of 4 had college degrees. If I were one of them, these brief facts about them is probably all I should assume could be part of my own situation.

Like my Grandparents, I would have been in college. Most likely I would become a teacher as several other women in my family were at that time. I guess I would have been a sweeter more submissive woman than I am in this era.

All grandparents born in 1860s, I think, both farmed their own farms, paternal grandpa's larger than most neighbours', Dad sole kid born 1901, too young for WWI 1914 - 1918 but at 34 I might have been in it, though prob. not if I owned a farm.

Dad married Mom, about fourth of six, 1925, they took over paternal grandpa's farm soon after, so likely I'd have been a farmer. Dad started H. S., soon bored, changed to short course bus. school. Few farm kids finished H S, I think, so doubt I would have (I, age 10 when WWII began in 1939, was too young to enlist: began Univ. Sask. 1947. Didn't enlist for Korean War, either, but went there as missionary as that war ended).

If 20 in 1900, prob not marry a U S person, as I did, in Korea in 1959 (no family member from either side present). Daughter, dual citizen, has spent about 25 recent years in U.S.

Had I survived ... I'd now be 141 - I think, but at my age it's getting a bit hard to keep track as one counts on one's fingers.

ole joyful

In 1900, age 20, female, I'd likely be on a mountain farm in Austria, milking cows and making cheese. There is a story that one female relative was an excellent baker, having learned her trade in Vienna. No way of verifying that now, but kind of fun to think about.

The Great Grandmother closest to this scenario was about 29 or 30 in 1900. She was living in a tenament in Brooklyn with husband, 4 step children and 3-4 of 'their' children and probably the next one on the way. I doubt she could read or write.

My Dad was born in 1896. At that time and in his farming family, an 8th grade education was considered good 'nuff. He spent the spring month behind a team of horses while wielding a plow. Due to the needs of a farm family for labor and low motivation to attend school, sometimes the Boy spent 2 years finishing the 8th grade. Homework (from school) was rare and if any was done, it would have been by the light of a kerosene lamp. Calculators were non-existent; 3 1/7 was often used for the value of Pi for calculations that did not require high precision. However, 3 1/7 is a close approximation for Pi and good enough for slide-rule calculations.

That was a transitional period for education and vocations. If were 20 in 1900, what I would have been doing would depended greatly on who my parents were and where I lived. Professional people living in population centers had higher aspirations in regard to education and access to higher education than farm and ranch families in rural settings. Growing up from 1880 to 1900, automobiles were on the horizon. Engine power was beginning to replace horse and manual power. The first electrical generating stations were being built. Knowing my curiosity about what makes an IC (internal combustion) engine work, I probably would have leaned toward becoming an engine mechanic.

At that time, many small cities did not have high schools. Towns having a population of 2000 or more could support a high school. If I lived near a high school, I would gone there, otherwise probably not. Many rural kids lived 20 miles or more from a high school and would have had to find a way to board during the week to attend high school. Not many did.

In 1900, unrest in Europe was trending toward war. It was a fearful time and the US decided to stay out of it, but as we know from history, we were pulled in.

The Wright Brothers were experimenting with powered flight starting with big glider and running down a very large sand dune at Kitty Hawk, NC. Powered flight happened in 1904 and I would have read everything about it that I get my hands on. They could not source an engine light enough so they built their own. Its crankcase was a crude box made of welded aluminum plates.

The US had been building railways since 1850 and were extending the lines in 1900. Railroad steam engines were becoming larger, more powerful, and faster. After bad boiler explosions in the 1800s with stationary steam engines, ASME began developing boiler codes, pressure safety valves were developed, and rail engines became safer. One of the early successful mobile steam engine applications was Mr. Fulton's river boat of 1811-1812. That boat was on its maiden voyage down the Ohio R. with dignitaries aboard and had entered the Mississippi river. Upstream of New Madrid, MO, it was struck by the earthquake of 1811-1812. A tsunami like seiche rolled upstream and engulfed the boat. It leaned back the superstructure and broke up the paddle wheels, but the boiler did not explode. The crew lashed together paddles out of flotsam and limped to New Madrid only to find the town wrecked and abandoned. That event was hailed as a success. This event propelled stream boat building on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and reduced the use of the Natchez trace.

The development of railroads threatened river boats. There was antagonism wherever a rail bridge crossed a steamboat waterway. Both modes of transportation were important in 1900, but the mighty rail engine was King. In 1900, boys dreamed of driving a locomotive.

I would be a student at Leipzig University.

Most likely I would have been a young married or soon to be married woman in Denmark. My family were farmers on both sides with large families so likely I would be a child of a farmer and married a farmer. Education was difficult to achieve at the best given the level of accessibility and our state of poverty.

Based on my grandmothers’ lives I would have worked as a waitress or a seamstress from the age of 14 and then been a coal miner’s or sailor’s wife. However, I would have known, as they did, how to limit my family. Based on my own experience I would very likely have been a permanent invalid from the birth of my first child (who would probably have died or been severely disabled) and having my second child would certainly have killed me. If my second child had survived he would possibly have died in the coal mines or the trenches of WW1. If he survived he’d probably succumb to lung disease in his early 50s as my grandfather did. Nobody in our family had a university education until my father, in 1939, who had escaped the mines by winning a scholarship to high school. 1939 was not a good time to be 19. He completed one term before being called up for what turned out to be six years of military service, as was my mother.

I would probably have been apprenticed as a seamstress in Piemonte Italy in my early teens -- and maybe married by 20? Better there than working in the silk factories in Toscana.

I would probably be married, have a baby and be living on a farm in North Carolina, where all of my family is from.

After reading all the above replies about women being college students in 1900, I looked it up. Very few women were even high school graduates. Only little over 5,000 graduated from college in 1900. Most were from the upper class or rich. Poor women either got married or worked as servants or in the factories.

It was a big deal when I received my BA degree in 1974, the first women ever on both sides of my family. Even bigger deal when I got my Masters. Though it was joked about that I only went to college to get my MRS degree. I know I would not have liked being a women in 1900. There are so many rights that we have that we take for granted now.

I imagine myself married with a job that dominates my life. Whirlwind vacations.

Something very different than my life has been, I am sure!

If I took after one of my great-grandmothers, for whom I was named, I am about 20 in 1900. I would have come to this country by myself to join my older brother about 4 years before; my mother and two other of my siblings would have just arrived, and I am living with all of them. I was educated by my father in the old country in the school that he ran (unusual for the country and the time) before he died, and I am multi-lingual, but I will be working in the garment industry as a "pants operator" (my sister will be a "pants seamstress" and my brothers "pants maker" and "cloak operator"). And the community is likely looking out for an eligible bachelor to match me up with - and I will be married in the spring of 1901.

Caflowerluver, even in this century, I worked with many a woman who was the first in her family to graduate from post secondary education.

Even in the Dirty Thirties depression, on a paved highway 1 1/4 mi. from a village, 9 mi. from London, Ontario we had electricity, and a party-line phone, via a big box with a crank on the wall.

No bathroom at that farm - likely would have been not long after Dad had drilled well in 1936 with pressure system in house and 3 barns, had Mom been home, but she in psych hosp some earlier, after birth of last son, grandpa died and grandma came to live with us in our house with 6 bedrooms, and hired couple, man worked on farm and wife in house - till "they" got pregnant.

No bathroom on farm 10 mi. from Regina, capital of Sask. which Dad rented just after World War II from a guy grandpa had helped finance post-sec. education, before 1910 in Ont., who then moved to the prairies. No electricity at that farm, 1.5 mi. away, we used pressurized kerosene lanterns that gave bright light until Dad bought his own farm a few years later.

My first experience of daily use of bathroom was when I moved to dorm in seminary at university - in 1947, a long time after 1900, quite a long time before 2000.

This old fart is glad he has one now.

ole joyful

That is just about how old my paternal grandmother was in 1900. Maybe two or three years older. Since I am very much like Alice in a number of ways, I'll say I'm on stage, performing in light opera, getting some attention from the press, and falling in love with the handsome baritone I'll soon marry.

Living in the old country.