Friends of the Family

'Good old days' weren't really all that good

If we could take a trip back in time, would we like what we found? A family came as close to accomplishing this as is possible, and made some interesting discoveries. Researchers in England wanted to find out what would happen if a contemporary family tried to adapt to conditions at the end of the 19th century. Through the media they asked for volunteers and several stepped forward.

The family selected was the Bowler family: a mother, father, twin daughters, and a son. The family agreed to live for a period of months in a house that was remodeled to bring it back to the way it was in 1900. This meant no electricity, no central heating, and a wood burning stove. The family had to wear the clothes of the period, including corsets and stiff, woolen jackets. There was to be no cheating; if it wasn't available in 1900, they couldn't use it.

A film crew would document their everyday life. The footage was edited into a documentary called "1900 House."

The conclusion you would expect is that we have made significant progress in 100 years. And in many respects that is true.

1. Soap. Oh, there was soap in 1900. But what a gooey, sticky mess it was. The family made its own soap in a large kettle, stirring the ingredients over a fire and then pouring it into small glass containers. When a bather tip-toed into the tub of tepid water, the soap produced a notable absence of lather.

The worst part was pouring it onto your hair. Again no lather. This shampoo left everyone's hair looking greasy and stringy. The mother temporarily cheated by smuggling in some real shampoo from a local supermarket. No wonder people wore hats! We certainly are much cleaner than our ancestors.

2. Medicine. The family had available an assortment of elixirs and potions with odd labels and magical names. Unfortunately, there was no correlation between bad taste and the cure rate. Bravo for penicillin and the diseases it has seemingly conquered. Not to mention organ transplants and laser surgery. This is probably the most important advance.

3. Gadgets. The Victorian house appeared to be chock full of stuff: shelves and niches laden with bric-a-brac including pin cushions, brushes, curios, photographs, books, to the point where one could feel squeezed by all the clutter.

Electricity is the clue to the main difference between our stuff and their stuff. Everything in 1900 needed to be cranked, stoked, punched, pushed or prodded to work. Muscle and sweat alone drove the work of the household. A century ago life was physical to an extent that today we would experience as brutal. And this leads us to the next difference.

4. Women. Cooking on a wood stove was a hot, dirty task with uneven (and sometimes disastrous) results. Laundry was worse. Boiling and bleaching clothes was a back-breaking ordeal with frequent burns. It took both a mother and a daughter to lift the heavy, wet clothes from the kettle, then scrub them, and finally hang them to dry. The documentary pointed out that then it took three days to do what can be accomplished today in a 45-minute-cycle with a washer and drier.

A woman's lot in life was subservient. Bent shoulders and a curved spine were testimony to her labor. In the documentary, the mother actually takes mornings off to go swimming at a local pool. It proved impossible to fit her mind into the corset of the time.

Other changes could be mentioned such as our increased awareness of world events, our evolution into a "global village" brought about by the media. In conclusion, there is very little reason for nostalgia for the "good old days." They really weren't that good. All in all, families have come very far.

Except for one not so small consideration.

Much of our world today continues to live exactly the way families lived in 1900. Not exactly, because the majority of the world's population would love to get the chance to upgrade their living conditions to live in a solidly constructed, two-story Victorian house with wood stove, gas lamps, and beds to sleep in.

To duplicate the conditions of families in countries such as Bangladesh and Afghanistan, our heroic family would have to travel further back than 19th century Britain. They would have to take their time machine back centuries and centuries to see if they could notice any change in the grueling conditions of poverty.

As we have progressed, so has our awareness. In the West we are more comfortable, but the events of recent months make it impossible to be complacent any longer. Can we afford not to share?

(Pankratz is a marriage and family therapist at Catholic Charities Milwaukee regional office.)