Extremely dangerous technology which was considered safe in old-time Phoenix


As someone who tends to embrace new technology quickly, I like to see if I can look in the other direction, and see a time when a new technology was considered perfectly safe, although now we know better. Let's time-travel to 1908.

When I first found the picture at the top of this post, which is in the middle of the intersection of Central and Washington, I had no idea what this guy was doing. It was explained to me, by people who understand this kind of stuff, that he is changing a light bulb, and standing on a piece of wood, to ground himself. Or is it to not ground himself? As you can tell, I have no idea how all of this works, but I darned sure know that I wouldn't do that, it's extremely dangerous! But back then, the average person wouldn't know.

If I lived in Phoenix in 1908 I might have read about the use of electricity elsewhere, which really had become fairly common in big cities. And if you tried to explain to me how something that was completely invisible could do things like light up light bulbs, or move cars, I'd just have to believe it, and believe that it was perfectly safe. I'm sure that the older and wiser folks would never touch it, and make a note of every newspaper article that showed how people got electrocuted, and died, which happened quite often.

Of course, in my imagination I'd be a young person in 1908 Phoenix, and I would turn a deaf ear to my elders, thinking of them as being old-fashioned. I would probably surround myself with all kinds of things that later would be discovered as dangerous. And if I didn't get electrocuted, I would become older and wiser, too!

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