Tuesday, July 17, 2007

The 1900 House

For Family Home Evening last night Seth and I went to the library and checked out a few movies we had never heard of. One was actually a reality TV show from England called The 1900 House. It is totally fascinating! Around the turn of the century some historians in London decided it would be interesting to put a modern-day family in a home retrofitted to be exactly like a house would have been in the 1900s.

I can’t stop thinking about how hard life would have been back then. Laundry took three days every single week to do...and that was just the under clothes. All the outer clothes just got “brushed.” The oven had three temperatures: cold hand, warm hand, and hot hand and you figured it out by (surprise!) sticking your hand in the oven. The toilet was in the backyard (but it was a flush toilet). Bakers and butchers came to the door everyday selling goods because everything went bad really quickly. Keeping chickens was popular because eggs were so expensive. You washed your hair with the same soap you washed your dishes with. I would compare it to camping—inside your house.

Can you believe how much has been invented in the last 100 years? Let me just say (in Kip’s words) I love technology.

1 comment:

Kristen said...

Thank heavens for dishwashers, washing machines, and pants on women...great idea for an FHE. Rob and I will steal it or rather just borrow it.