If life expectancy was 46 for men and 48 for women in 1900:

regarding following link:

Life expectancy in 1900 46 years for men and 48 ...

Then you know that ignorance was rampant in many ways back then. People either didn't go to school or only finished grade school at most. So, knowledge of all things often was lacking except what people could discover by accident enough to even grow up in the first place. So, really only the top 10% of most educated and wealthy people lived to 70 or more because of all the variables then in place. Trying to get safe food and water to drink and eat was problematic to the extreme. Trying to keep kids alive even to age 5 was problematic in the extreme. Also, there were no legal abortions and without legal abortions this would raise the mortality rate in extreme ways too from all the ignorance or superstition around sex and birth and death and everything.

Also, the ONLY counselors available mostly for people would be ministers and this could likely go in almost any direction at all which would result in almost any outcome as well especially of those ministers had their own problems that were not being addressed.

So, from all directions we have ignorance regarding almost everything killing off the average person and making the lifespan average only 46 for men and 48 for women. So, most people likely cannot even imagine how ignorant and scary life was for everyone then. This is why so many people became religious because believing in something is better than believing in nothing and dying as a direct result.