100 years ago, people paid money to see a fat man in a circus sideshow.

Re:100 years ago, people paid money to see a fat man in a ci... by eru on Friday April 16, 2010 @10:04AM (#1270599)

Old people weren't that rare. Over 80 would been more of a show, I guess. (But we should find some data, before we speculate.)

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Re:100 years ago, people paid money to see a fat man in a ci... by byrneseyeview on Friday April 16, 2010 @10:08AM (#1270615)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joice_Heth

P. T. Barnum traveled with this person, whom he claimed was 161 years old.

She was, in fact, about 80 when she died.

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Re:100 years ago, people paid money to see a fat man in a ci... by jonp on Friday April 16, 2010 @10:14AM (#1270645)

Even 80 wasn't that exceptional.

In 1910 there were over 200,000 people in England & Wales aged over 80; about 1 in 170 of the population.

(Calculations based on data from http://www.mortality.org/)

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Re:100 years ago, people paid money to see a fat man in a ci... by david_adams on Friday April 16, 2010 @11:13AM (#1270814)

The way that life expectancy works is that it was low because so many people died of disease in their youth that it dragged the average down. But people who lived to old age still lived to what we would consider an old age today. There would just be fewer people who lived that long, but not dramatically fewer.

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