Family with Elderly Woman in Wheelchair, Buda, NE, 1903Library of Congress: Prairie Settlement Nebraska Photographs and Family Letters, 1862-1912
The number of people living to old age and the number of years they spent in old age continued to increase. The average life expectancy at birth increased by 10 years from 1900 to 1930, and increased by another 15 years from 1930 to 1990. This change occurred largely because fewer people were dying in childhood, so larger percentage of the population lived to old age. (Changes in Life Expectancy)
In 1900, those hardy souls who outlived diseases and injury in childhood and early adulthood had nearly as many years ahead of them as today's seniors do, and finding a place where they could live for what might be a fairly lengthy period of time was just as important then as it is now. People who reached age 65 in 1900 could expect to live another 10-12 years. Those that reached the age of 85 could expect to live another 4-5 years. (Changes in Life Expectancy) To underscore the fact that the elderly of this period could live a very long time, an 1898 magazine article names hundreds of people who lived to the age of 100 or older, including a man alleged to be the oldest person in the United States -- a pauper who died in a North Carolina almshouse in the summer of 1896 at the reputed age of 128 years. (North American Review, 1898)