1890s: The "public highway" running between town and the berry fields of Winesburg, Ohio, is a dirt road. Field workers travel by wagon, and goods are shipped by train.

1990s: Although there are still unpaved highways and freight trains in the rural parts of the Midwest, they have mostly been replaced by paved roads on which trucks pass.

1890s: Strawberries are grown throughout the country and picked by hand by day laborers who are mostly local. The fictional Wing Biddlebaum picks one hundred and forty quarts in a day.

1990s: Most large-scale strawberry farms are in California. The berries are still picked by hand, because they bruise easily, but the picking is done by migrant workers, many of them from Mexico.

1890s: Most schools, like Adolph Myers' school in the story, have only one teacher for all the grades, and the teachers have little...