The speed of change
Summary
I bet even stationed in remote Greenland, you can order your favorite snack food online and have it delivered nearly the next day. All this was in parallel to growth of rail systems enabled by the transcontinental railroad completed in 1869 and other overland delivery services like the pony express and Wells Fargo stage coaches. It wasn’t until 1896 that Congress and the USPS introduced rural farm delivery (RFD) systems for getting packages closer to your door. All this was simply awesome to people living in rural America where choice had been limited to whatever the (likely single) regional general store had in stock. One report states Bell/AT&T’s network in 1910 had 5.8 million telephones, barely touching a fraction of the U.S. By 1920, you could, in some regions, order something by phone and have it delivered to your home.