Usually, my blog posts involve detective work and laws, with some exceptions, but today I am branching out into time periods because some writers write historical novels. You could, most definitely, create a detective from the early or late 1800s. I'm going to give you a basic snapshot of what 1800s life was like.
In my research, I have found that early and late 1800s are different situations. I am going to be talking about the early 1800s. According to iamcountryside.com, it is suggested that you ask the Amish about their homesteading life if you want to know more about the late 1800s.
Daily Life
The first paragraph said it all: you do everything yourself, unless you were rich. If you were wealthy, you paid someone else to do it. Your kids worked alongside you and most were only educated to 8th grade. If you had money, they could be educated further. Handmade was the standard and when factories came around, some of these people lost their living (in the late 1800s, I mean).
Homes were heated with fireplaces. The wealthy had bed curtains, and brick houses with floors and windows (think Scrooge's bed, but in a brick house with less fancy linen), but others had cabins with dirt floors. "Cabin Fever" is carbon dioxide poisoning because the door wasn't open enough and you had no windows.
Gender differences were huge in this era. Women were married off via courtship, most were only educated to the 8th grade, and they were taught mostly homemaking. They were not encouraged to work, but homemaking was so different then that homemaking alone was work. Courtship was a time of freedom because they could reject and accept whomever they wanted and didn't have the responsibilities of running a household. After courtship, that power was over.
Men, on the other hand, were taught to be breadwinners and support the household with their income. They looked for a woman who could take care of the home while they worked all day. Also, someone who could give them children. They courted in their late teens, same as women.
I say this as a summary of the society standard, but I'm sure there were some out there who broke the mold, on both male and female standards. Men had simple expectations. I'd say, for this time period, that women did, too, because everyone was working constantly wherever they were. Life was hard in the early 1800s.
One last thing I'll touch on in this section is self-care and hygiene. Take away the modern medicines, vaccines, showers, bathing daily, and extra hair and body care products we have today. Make opium legal again and make herbs the main medicines to cure ailments. Make it common to take one bath per 1 month and make your bathtub a wooden tub with all the family's bathwater still in it (if you aren't the head of the family). Also, you'd be using homemade lye soap and making it yourself with animal fat. You only wash your hands and face daily, in a small bowl of water. Are you there in your imagination? Do you feel disgusting and want to shower with your bath and body works shower gel and wash your hair with silky conditioner? Yeah, me too.
What happened in this time period?
This was the time period of railroads, politics and presidents, and many other exciting events. Here are just a handful that happened (see http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1800s.html for more).
-the invention of the battery (1800) -library of congress (1800) -West Point Military Academy (1802)
-ultraviolet radiation discovered (1801) -Ohio became the 17th state in the union (1803)
-New Jersey abolishes slavery (1804) -first working locomotive (1804) -first Oktoberfest (1810)
-Pride and Prejudice (1813) -Battle of waterloo (1815) -the rosetta stone (1822)
-first photographs (1826)
There's so much more on the link above. It was hard to pick just a handful. A lot of inventions and discoveries happened in this era.
Religious and societal beliefs of the time
Last, but not least, I'd like to introduce you to what the hot topics were of the 1800s.
Mormons began in 1830 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. We know them now as people that have more than one spouse and come to your door with pamphlets. That isn't true of all of them, but that's the expectation we get from the musical The Book of Mormon, a musical that makes comedic relief of Mormon beliefs.
The 1800s hot topics included abolition (opposing slavery), temperance (best explained as alcohol = evil), and social reform. Many names were connected with abolition, like William Lloyd Garrison, the Grimke Sisters, and Frederick Douglas. At this time, some of the women's movements were beginning, as well, and these women also supported abolition. Other reforms involved school systems, headed by Horace Mann, and treatment of the mentally ill, headed by Dorothea Dix.
I hope this has been informative and useful. If you want more information, I'm putting the rest of my sources below. This topic is also explored by many historical villages, such as Roscoe Village, which is where I picked up some of this. As always, check my facts and keep me accountable, writers. I aim to write truth.
https://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/stories/how-fast-could-you-travel-across-the-us-in-the-1800s (the picture)
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