Robert Caro's first LBJ biography includes a passage that explains how rural electrification transformed the lives of farm families, especially women. It makes a powerful case for Robert Gordon's thesis that innovations of the last 50 years pale in comparison to what came before.
The arrival of electrification relieved farm families of several categories of back-breaking labor: washing clothes by hand, milking cows by hand, canning, hauling wood to (and tending) woodstoves. Refrigeration drastically reduced milk spoilage. Plus of course electric lighting.
Big-screen TVs and smartphones are nice but they just aren't transformational the way washing machines and electric lights were to our great grandparents.
The issue isn't that our great grandparents were more innovative than we are. It's that our great grandparents had big problems in their lives that could be solved by new technologies. Today we've invented solutions to most of the problems technology can solve.
Those solutions aren't perfect. They can always be more efficient or convenient or affordable. But getting a better car or refrigerator or light bulb isn't comparable to going from not having a car or refrigerator or light bulb to having one.
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