A random division back to 1880 and William Webster Ellsworth, with his young family, living in New York City:

“Street cars, with horses straining at their collars when the car was crowded, ran down Madison Avenue, and some of them turned the corner at Astor Place and stopped at Broadway, directly in front of my office at 743. Omnibuses lumbered down Broadway, with straw on the floor in winter, very unsanitary but some of us are still alive. The driver, always red-faced and looking like a character in Dickens, sat high up, outside, and you handed him money; if you needed change, he gave it to you in envelopes, marked 10, 25, 50 cents, and $1, through a little hole that was just behind him. It was not expected that you would require more than a dollar; buses were not for millionaires. You tore open the envelope and dropped a nickel into a lighted box which the driver could look down on. You passed up money for ladies and handed them the envelope and then dropped in their nickel. A strap ran from the door around the driver’s foot and when you wanted to get out you pulled the strap and he lifted his foot so that you could open the door. Horse cars had conductors however.”

A far cry from Uber!