Needs must be met: Living in 1776 and today

I crouched down on the corner of a street in Washington, D.C., my phone in my hand, interviewing a man who refused to tell me his name. Instead, he said, Call me Triple G.

I came across many unhoused people while working on this story, but Triple G is the only one who agreed to talk to me. At the end of our interview, I reached out to shake his hand and thank him for telling me his story.

He hesitated, looking down at his hands, and wiped them off self-consciously before reaching back to shake mine. His hand was rough and dry from hard work and a hard life.

Triple G looked at me very intently as we shook hands, and when I let go and rose to leave, he said one last thing to me: You tell it right.

I replied that I would try my best, and he shook his head. No, thats not good enough, he insisted. You tell it right.

I promised him that I would.

The Method to my Madness

In this landmark year for the United States, I wanted to look back and compare the quality of our lives with that of those living through the birth of our country to look at what has improved and what remains the same.

For the purpose of this comparison, Ive decided that a measurable metric for quality of life is whether peoples basic needs are being met.

In 1943, Abraham Maslow proposed five groupings of human needs: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. While modern papers debate the order of importance Maslow used to rank them, the needs themselves are generally agreed to be universal.

So, were people in the 1700s able to fill their needs? Can people today fill theirs? The answers depend on who you are.

Physiological

Food and shelter were easily accessible for the upper class in early America. Tyler Putnam, the senior manager of gallery interpretation for the Museum of the American Revolution, said that early Americans could pay for their basic needs.

(They had) enough wealth that all of the basic needs are covered by the labor or the products of other people," he said.

Putnam stated that their housing and food were taken care of by servants who were either employed or enslaved.

For people outside of that highest social class, securing those same needs might be the entirety of (their) labor, Putman said. The employed would likely have spent most of their day working for pay and then going to the market to trade that money for food and other essentials.

Enslaved people were often provided clothing, food and shelter by their owners, but slave-owners could also deprive them of those basic needs, regardless of how hard they worked.

The range back then was much like the one we have today, Putman said.

Some people have to work just to make rent. Other people probably don't think about their rent at all," he stated.

Indeed, the high-class elites of today likely spend very little time securing food and shelter, while the rest of us work to pay for what we need.

Jessica Lehman, a lawyer and primary earner for her family, estimates that she works about 50 hours a week. The convenience of delivery services means that Lehman can simply order groceries to her door once a week.

The actual grocery shopping is very light on my time, but the earning money to pay for my repeating $400 grocery order is very time-consuming, she said.

For some, though, working isnt an option. Injuries, mental illness even plain bad luck can leave people without a steady income. Such is the case for Triple G.

Im a working man; I worked all my life, Triple G said.

Now, he has a condition that makes it difficult for him to walk. Without work, Triple G ended up living on the streets of Washington, D.C., without shelter or consistent access to food.

Safety

Medicine was much less developed in 1776, Putman said.

People didn't really understand the causes they knew that diseases were devastating and fatal, but they couldn't necessarily explain where they came from or treat them effectively," he stated.

By todays standards, the need for good health was difficult to fulfil for even the most privileged citizens. Women and enslaved people faced a different threat: the people who legally owned them.

According to an academic article by Ruth H. Bloch, domestic abuse tended to go unpunished by law unless a husbands violence threatened death or permanent injury. Enslaved people didnt even have that level of protection, as their lives were completely in the hands of their masters.

Abuse and racially motivated violence are still serious safety concerns today, but they are at least punishable offences. These days, vaccines can prevent diseases that would have been fatal 250 years ago, and modern medicine can treat a wide variety of health issues.

But those benefits only come to the people who can access them. Since Triple G is unhoused and without a steady income, getting his prescriptions is difficult. When he does get medicine, it is often stolen.

Whenever I turn to go to the bathroom, its gone, so Ive got to find a way to get it again, he said.

Between his health issues and the dangers of living outside, Triple G said, I never feel safe.

That feeling of safety is more achievable for Lehman.

When I'm home, and I put three healthy, safe children to bed every night in their own rooms knowing that I live in a safe neighborhood I don't take that for granted, she said.

Love and Belonging

Early America was a very communal time, explained historian and tour guide Wendy Long Stanley. One of the ways people came together was through religion.

Most people had a home congregation, and if youre not part of a church community, youre really with family, Stanley said.

People might also find belonging in the workplace or the militia, Putman said. However, during this period the big sense of identity and belonging as ... part of the transatlantic British polity was disintegrating.

Many people today still find community through their family, faith and workplaces but even without those frameworks, people build connections.

Because of my mental (illness), I feel alone, Triple G said. I know Ive got people, though, because they come and get me. They come see me when I dont want to be around.

Esteem

Putman said that men in 1776 could fill the need for status and esteem in a variety of ways: a wealthy white man could gain status through his political involvements, while a poor African American sailor earned esteem for his maritime experience.

Options were more limited for women.

Women achieved status primarily through marriage and producing children, Stanley said. Without that, you were undervalued by society.

A womans ability to secure a marriage and produce children and, therefore, gain status was often determined by factors outside her own control, such as the high infant mortality rate. Stanley says women sometimes had six, eight, ten, twenty births and (then had) to endure the death of half of those babies.

Women today can gain status through their own hard work and effort. Lehman went to school for years and worked through three pregnancies and a global pandemic to get where she is today.

It's cool being a corporate lawyer at a Fortune 50 company, Lehman said. I feel proud of myself for my job and being the main provider for my family.

Self-actualization

For people in marginalized communities in early America, fulfilling their potential and becoming their most authentic selves would have been a pipe dream.

When you are prevented from being a legal human in the eyes of the law ... I think that becomes a celebration, that youve managed to avoid the almshouse, the workhouse, Stanley said.

But in the upheaval of a new nation, that dream grew a little closer.

The revolution opened all of the doors to possibility for people who never would have been self-actualized in the old system people who are exploring the bounds of what freedom means, Putman said.

People today are still exploring the boundaries of freedom.

I think sometimes being your authentic self has a time and place, Lehman said. I feel like I'm authentically who I am at home, or with my community, or with my friends.

Lehman might not break out her love of DIY on the clock, but I make time to do those things that make me feel like myself, she said.

A Guidepost for Change

In the 250 years since the founders signed the Declaration, people have brought down many of the barriers that kept them from fulfilling their needs. Many movements even used the words of the declaration to push for change.

(The Declaration) offered a guidepost that people around the world for 250 years have been chasing, Putman said. To secure basic human needs like life and really profound, aspirational human needs like the pursuit of happiness.

I think weve gotten closer to that guidepost of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. Now, we just need to keep chasing.