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1. "The 1900 House"
Posted by Harry on Mar-25th-02 at 11:52 PM

About 2 years ago there was a PBS TV series entitled "The 1900 House". It took place in England but it could have just as well been in Fall River.

In it a modern family volunteered to live in the house for 3 months using only what was available at that time. Not so easy as they thought it would be. This article describes some of the problems encountered.

http://www.salon.com/ent/col/mill/2000/06/19/1900/

I saw snippets of this, and knew a little about it.
Thanks for the link.
As I read, though, I began to think about the different expectations of a MODERN family GOING BACK, as compared to a VICTORIAN family looking TOWARD the future.
It may have meant something, as an experiment, to that immediate family and their dynamic, but I can't see that it follows that we as Moderns learn anything specific from this experiment, other than it was boring, hard work.

I'm with you, Kat. I saw the show in its entirety. The family was only undertaking the experiment to find out what it was really like to live in 1900 without the modern conveniences already intimately known to them. But the people living back in 1900 didn't know the work they were doing was very hard and boring because they had no reference or comparison from the future to work with---they simply did it without any thought except how they might do it more efficiently and prolifically. After all, there was no other way available to get the work done---they HAD to do it in order to maintain as high quality of life as possible. They were applying what experience and scientific/mechanical knowledge they had from people in past centuries to what they were going through at the time, as we in the early 21st century are doing with all our modern conveniences---the automobile, the home video system, the calculator, the PC and the Internet, all the big-ticket kitchen appliances, the advances in medicine, etc. And, no doubt did they consider the "modern" conveniences they DID have back then, namely, the electric light and the telephone and the phonograph and the trains/railroads and existing medical technology, that dictated their day-to-day living experience to be far superior to those of people from preceding centuries. (Just visualize the quality of life that was afforded the following people by available technology as compared with that in 1900: Thomas Jefferson, Leonardo da Vinci, Richard the Lionheart, William the Conqueror, Charlemagne, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Aristotle, the citizens of ancient Knossos or ancient Babylon, and Noah and seven generations' worth of ancestors of his, including Adam and Eve.)

Not only did the people in 1900 not really think about their work as "hard and boring" (as they considered it absolutely necessary to obtain the product or result they demanded) unless they--being humans--were naturally and constantly searching for and developing more efficient, time-conserving ways or mechanisms to do the work, they also didn't really look at the 1900 fashions as evident in dress, the vehicles, or the household appliances or romantically/obsessively "feel the period" through the wearing or using of them. Instead, they regarded the persons wearing or using them---their knowledge, their thoughts, their feelings, their emotions, their character, their reputations---in short, the real people. These people, not the fashions, made or influenced the making of real, living history, because fashions by themselves lack real meaning except largely as a mere social construct and sometimes as the need for a specific design arose for either convenience or functionality. (A little more on this shortly.) Again, they had no reference experience to compare their fashions with except for their own memories of recent experience and for any extant documentation they knew of that detailed the fashions of past decades/centuries, which is somewhat unlikely, given the slow spread of and limited access to information what with then available technology. After all, as far as they were concerned, fashions were just that, fashions that met their human need for 1) covering their naked bodies not only for protection from the elements but also as a moral instinct/imperative and as a social nicety and for self-esteem reasons, the latter two of which demanded that the fashions be more ornamental than functional (in retrospect, the hoop skirt and the bustle and the hour-glass shape---non-functional attributes of female dress---were unnecessary and sometimes painful constraints and often unwieldly in both appearance and use), and for 2) quick and convenient transportation or use. As far as they were concerned, fashions changed along with the people/culture over time, and old fashions were forgotten as quickly as they had first appeared, since the users/wearers cared only about what was new and more convenient or less restricting. Therefore, they generally didn't think about the historical significance of the change in fashions let alone documented them while they were slowly changing or even of the past fashions. It is only to the people of our century that this peculiarity occurred, for nostalgic reasons and also and especially because, unlike the people in the past, we have time to reflect upon this and the means and wherewithal to collect and store the documentation and interpret the information thereon and philosophize about the ramifications of a given fashion and the place in history of that fashion either as a hobby or as a profession since technology has so advanced that we have greater leisure and luxury.

Just my own observation and interpretation of fashion.

WOW!
Did I almost (not quite) Say All THAT!?
Thanks for the input!

Are you the CURATOR?

I remember the show and enjoyed it tremendously.  I learned a lot, too, what domestic life was really like back then.  The kids really hated it and I don't blame them.  When the wife was asked what she missed the most, she said the washing machine.  I wish they'd make another one with another family.

I agree! The family should have kept in mind that people back then did not view their work as very hard and boring because it was absolutely necessary if they wanted to maintain the desired level of quality of life, and then comported themselves accordingly. After all, it was sort of like living in the army or under survivalist conditions. You had to do without any modern conveniences and you had to do all the hard work because you just had to and not think about it at all. Also, the experiment was to last only three months, which is more than reasonable a deal to me. The whole family on "The 1900 House" were a bunch of whiny, immature, spoiled and undisciplined brats, IMO (the little son was the exception, however, you couldn't expect him to understand the experiment, let alone enjoy it), but in spite of their faults you couldn't help liking them. On the whole the show WAS entertaining and educational, but, again, it leaves you wishing the show's producers chose a more mature family for this experiment/show.


(Message last edited Mar-30th-02  4:13 PM.)

I agree, the whining was excessive (& very annoying to witness at times), but maturity or no, I doubt if any modern family would have made do without complaints.  100 years later, we're all very spoiled in comparison to our ancestors.  We've been raised with countless household inventions/labor saving devices that we take for granted.  We have a concept of leisure time that was formerly just a dream to everyday folk.  We've been raised with movies & TV shows that portray having all the latest new toys as being the norm, & we have come to expect a certain standard of living as our birthright. 

My father was a child of the Depression, & altho I had to suffer thru all the classic "we had to walk 50 miles to school" stories, he often made comments that made me think.  "People today believe they have a right to have everything.  They don't appreciate very much.  People were happier back in the old days.  They didn't expect so much, so things really had meaning and value to them."

Later, when I travelled to South America, I witnessed real poverty for the 1st time in my life.  People had nothing.  And yet, they were very in tune with their senses.  They really found joy in life, & overall, seemed a lot happier than those of us who live with so many priviledges.

I've often wondered if there hasn't been a price to pay along the way.  I got very sick of the whining & complaining, but had to wonder if I would have been any different.  People at the time would have found a sense of personal pride & accomplishment in keeping a clean house, etc.  A simple joy from a job well done.  How many of us truly experience that today?  When the house from the show was originally built, it was for people of an emerging middle-class.  The original owners were probably overjoyed by the modern conveniences (such as a flush toilet, gaslights, etc). 

I enjoyed the show esp for the snippets of info, such as what products were available at the time, the household hints, etc.  But what really made me think was the reactions of the people involved.  I was deeply saddened when the eldest daughter was leafing through a Victorian book published for girls roughly her own age, & she proclaimed it "crap".  She wanted to read about scandals & sex, etc.  She proclaimed the contents of the book "absolute rubbish".  She needed a much higher threshold of stimulation in order to find something interesting, & she was not interested in learning, only in being easily stimulated.  It made me think about what we've all lost along the way.

In the final episode, when they were all so overjoyed to be back in their own home, I wondered if the family in the show really learned anything from the experience.  It made me think about the true meaning of the word "spoiled".  In our pursuit of leisure, have we human beings spoiled our life experiences?