Human Life Expectancy In The United States

Human life expectancy in the United States has nearly doubled in the last one hundred years. Prior to the early twentieth century, human life expectancy hovered between thirty-eight and forty years of age. Today human life expectancy in the United States is seventy-nine years of age. This jump in life expectancy can be accredited to modern day medicine, refrigeration, clean water and improved hygiene. Disease was the most common killer during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Helmuth). One of the biggest contributors to raising the national life expectancy was infant mortality rates and child mortality rates going down. Although the average life expectancy of the eighteenth and nineteenth century was only approximately thirty-nine years, when infant and child mortality are not taken into account, the actual average longevity age is much higher. In the eighteen-fifties, 21.7%
When Jonathan Wade died in the late seventeenth century, he was buried on his land in an area called “the burying place”. Eventually, the Salem Street Burying Ground became the town burying ground used exclusively for the burial of the town’s wealthy. Because socioeconomic factors are included in mortality, it makes sense that the life expectancy within Salem Street Burying Ground is higher than the national or global average at the time. The cemetery has stones dating as far back as 1683 and as recent as 1881. The population of Medford was only two hundred and thirty people in the beginning of the eighteenth century and by the beginning of the nineteenth century there were just over one thousand people living in Medford. There are six hundred of some of Medford’s wealthiest people buried there, as well as fifty slaves – all in unmarked graves. There are many families buried in this cemetery including those of the Tufts family. Additionally, many unknown Revolutionary war soldiers are buried in this