HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I’m reading a book called Yesteryear (by Caro Claire Burke), and Reds and Readers, it is phenomenal. Riveting. I absolutely love it.
And the gist of it, no spoilers, is that a tradwife influencer, all butter churning, adorable children, dutiful wife who lives on a ranch, is an organic farmer, homeschooler, all those things, and who spends her entire life presenting herself on Instagram as a salt of the earth back to what’s important good spiritual loving person is, in reality, pretty much a fraud. She's cynical dismissive ambitious–and absolutely irresistible to read about.
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So that’s not even the point of the story. Again, no spoilers because it’s on the back of the book, one morning she wakes up and she is in 1805. Where churning butter and collecting eggs and making your own bread is not an option, it’s the only way people can live. And she realizes it’s hideous. It’s awful. It’s difficult it’s cold it’s hard and there’s no electricity and she’s totally miserable. She remembers her other life, see, so she’s even more bitter.
How the heck did that happen? I will never tell but suffice it to say it’s a terrific book, and an amazing tour de force in voice, as well as an examination of our contemporary fantasies. And inside all that is a dark and terrifying social commentary about pressure and criticism and manipulation and power and expectations and envy.
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Oh, another element is that her contemporary husband is super rich and super handsome and super dumb. And not that… romantic, shall we say. And she wishes, constantly, for someone who is strong and tough and manly and in charge. In 1805, her husband is all of those things, and she hates him. He’s horrible!
There’s a whole lot more, the above does not even begin to describe it, and you have to read it for yourself. Do not miss it.
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So that’s not even the point of the story. Again, no spoilers because it’s on the back of the book, one morning she wakes up and she is in 1805. Where churning butter and collecting eggs and making your own bread is not an option, it’s the only way people can live. And she realizes it’s hideous. It’s awful. It’s difficult it’s cold it’s hard and there’s no electricity and she’s totally miserable. She remembers her other life, see, so she’s even more bitter.
How the heck did that happen? I will never tell but suffice it to say it’s a terrific book, and an amazing tour de force in voice, as well as an examination of our contemporary fantasies. And inside all that is a dark and terrifying social commentary about pressure and criticism and manipulation and power and expectations and envy.
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Oh, another element is that her contemporary husband is super rich and super handsome and super dumb. And not that… romantic, shall we say. And she wishes, constantly, for someone who is strong and tough and manly and in charge. In 1805, her husband is all of those things, and she hates him. He’s horrible!
There’s a whole lot more, the above does not even begin to describe it, and you have to read it for yourself. Do not miss it.
Anyway it got me thinking about things we do the “old-fashioned way.”
I am trying to think of things I do without modern conveniences, and I have to say that there are kind of… None. Gardening maybe? Does that count? Flower arranging? That seems kind of pitiful. I would make a cake from scratch, but 2026 scratch is nothing like 1805 scratch, not to mention the oven.
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Does yesteryear – – the reality, not the book – – seem tempting to you at all? (I left out all the medical parts, we won’t even go there.) Do you do anything "the old fashioned way"?
HALLIE EPHRON: Sounds like a “be careful what you wish for” story - and not one to miss.
What I do without modern conveniences: Whip cream (with a whisk or a fork). Drip coffee.
The thing I’m SO GLAD I don’t have to do without conveniences: laundry. Can you even imagine?
JENN McKINLAY: Camping is as close to yesteryear as I want to get and even at that, I have an inflatable mattress. I remember reading My Side of the Mountain as a tween and thinking “No, absolutely not.” That being said, I do enjoy manual labor like painting rooms, refinishing cupboards, and putting in flooring. There is such a huge sense of satisfaction when walking on a floor you put down or putting books on a bookcase that you made yourself.
LUCY BURDETTE: My yesteryear excursions would all be in the realm of cooking, gardening, and canning. In my old days, I canned everything using a pressure cooker, and pickled things with hot water baths etc. But it’s a risky business, avoiding botulism, and now I only do the occasional pickle. I do prefer to bake from scratch, and also cook from scratch. Until I’m tired of it and insist we go out to eat:).
Most of the gardening has been shifted over to John, but he does use my organic methods. We are now bracing for spring and the onslaught of critters who adore his produce! I guess in the old days, we’d shoot them and eat them.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Any romanticized ideas I might have had about Ye Good Olde Days were ruthlessly squashed during the Ice Storm of ‘97, when I lived in an 1820 house with NO electricity or running water for nine days. Oh, and with a five and three year old constantly underfoot!
Ross brought home water in jugs (the lucky son of a gun had heat, power and a hot shower at his office) and we heated the house to a balmy 50° by keeping the wood stove and both fireplaces going round the clock. Which, yes, entailed one of us getting up very three hours during the night to pile on more logs.
It was AWFUL, and I still had the benefit of certain modern conveniences - the kids and I went to a friend’s house to bathe and shower, and I hauled the dirty clothes to a laundromat. It’s no wonder women died in their 40s back then - it was probably from exhaustion.
RHYS BOWEN: I grew up in a big old house with no central heating. Corridors so long that I used to roller skate down them. In our 30 by 20 living room there was a fireplace at one end, around which we all huddled. My bedroom had no heat apart from a two bar electric fire. I used to get dressed under the bedcovers. Sometimes there was ice on the inside of the window. So no thank you. I would not want that again.
Unlike Lucy I have never bottled or canned. My mother was always a professional woman so no housewifely stuff for her. I’m trying to think of anything old fashioned that I do: I used to knit. Does that count? I write proper thank you letters and cards. I send birthday and Christmas cards. That’s about as primitive as I get.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I’ve canned marmalade, does that count? Although to be fair, the oranges came in imported tins. I’ve fermented things, kimchi and sauerkraut, which only require salt and time, and I’ve baked sourdough bread, but only in a modern oven. Household chores like dusting and sweeping–surely those haven’t changed too much except for the quality of the instruments. And gardening, since people have been digging in the dirt since time immemorial.
Like Julia, we’ve lived through extended power outages during ice storms, having only our living room fireplace for heat, and there is nothing the last least bit romantic about it!
HANK: How about you, Reds and Readers? Is there anything you do that you would have done the same way in 1805? Would you have liked to have lived then? Why and why not?
I am trying to think of things I do without modern conveniences, and I have to say that there are kind of… None. Gardening maybe? Does that count? Flower arranging? That seems kind of pitiful. I would make a cake from scratch, but 2026 scratch is nothing like 1805 scratch, not to mention the oven.
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Does yesteryear – – the reality, not the book – – seem tempting to you at all? (I left out all the medical parts, we won’t even go there.) Do you do anything "the old fashioned way"?
HALLIE EPHRON: Sounds like a “be careful what you wish for” story - and not one to miss.
What I do without modern conveniences: Whip cream (with a whisk or a fork). Drip coffee.
The thing I’m SO GLAD I don’t have to do without conveniences: laundry. Can you even imagine?
JENN McKINLAY: Camping is as close to yesteryear as I want to get and even at that, I have an inflatable mattress. I remember reading My Side of the Mountain as a tween and thinking “No, absolutely not.” That being said, I do enjoy manual labor like painting rooms, refinishing cupboards, and putting in flooring. There is such a huge sense of satisfaction when walking on a floor you put down or putting books on a bookcase that you made yourself.
LUCY BURDETTE: My yesteryear excursions would all be in the realm of cooking, gardening, and canning. In my old days, I canned everything using a pressure cooker, and pickled things with hot water baths etc. But it’s a risky business, avoiding botulism, and now I only do the occasional pickle. I do prefer to bake from scratch, and also cook from scratch. Until I’m tired of it and insist we go out to eat:).
Most of the gardening has been shifted over to John, but he does use my organic methods. We are now bracing for spring and the onslaught of critters who adore his produce! I guess in the old days, we’d shoot them and eat them.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Any romanticized ideas I might have had about Ye Good Olde Days were ruthlessly squashed during the Ice Storm of ‘97, when I lived in an 1820 house with NO electricity or running water for nine days. Oh, and with a five and three year old constantly underfoot!
Ross brought home water in jugs (the lucky son of a gun had heat, power and a hot shower at his office) and we heated the house to a balmy 50° by keeping the wood stove and both fireplaces going round the clock. Which, yes, entailed one of us getting up very three hours during the night to pile on more logs.
It was AWFUL, and I still had the benefit of certain modern conveniences - the kids and I went to a friend’s house to bathe and shower, and I hauled the dirty clothes to a laundromat. It’s no wonder women died in their 40s back then - it was probably from exhaustion.
RHYS BOWEN: I grew up in a big old house with no central heating. Corridors so long that I used to roller skate down them. In our 30 by 20 living room there was a fireplace at one end, around which we all huddled. My bedroom had no heat apart from a two bar electric fire. I used to get dressed under the bedcovers. Sometimes there was ice on the inside of the window. So no thank you. I would not want that again.
Unlike Lucy I have never bottled or canned. My mother was always a professional woman so no housewifely stuff for her. I’m trying to think of anything old fashioned that I do: I used to knit. Does that count? I write proper thank you letters and cards. I send birthday and Christmas cards. That’s about as primitive as I get.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I’ve canned marmalade, does that count? Although to be fair, the oranges came in imported tins. I’ve fermented things, kimchi and sauerkraut, which only require salt and time, and I’ve baked sourdough bread, but only in a modern oven. Household chores like dusting and sweeping–surely those haven’t changed too much except for the quality of the instruments. And gardening, since people have been digging in the dirt since time immemorial.
Like Julia, we’ve lived through extended power outages during ice storms, having only our living room fireplace for heat, and there is nothing the last least bit romantic about it!
HANK: How about you, Reds and Readers? Is there anything you do that you would have done the same way in 1805? Would you have liked to have lived then? Why and why not?
I appreciate all those creature comforts far too much to wish to go back to 1805. Even canning with a pressure cooker [which I have done] would be far different then than now. Gardening is about as close as I might get to days gone by . . . .
ReplyDeleteYes, I am so with you! Our heat went out during the blizzard, and that’s as close as I want to get to yesteryear!
DeleteHank, that sounds like a fun book. I will look for it! I've done a lot of "yesteryear" things. Milked cows, made butter, baked big batches of bread, heated with wood, hauled water from a spring, etc., etc. In our first year of marriage we lived in a cabin in the back woods without electricity or running water. With my lack of fine motor skills, aside from cows and dairy (typically female chores), I'm a lot better at the manly skills than the womanly ones.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who studies history I've thought a lot about the past. One thing is that our lives are not set up today around survival. We don't spend all spring and summer producing food in the fields and all fall packing our cellars with barrels of salt beef and pork and cider, cheeses, and boxes of apples. We don't store squashes and hang ropes of onions in our attics. We don't split a winter's worth of wood and stack it in a shed outside the kitchen door. We have all become Aesop's grasshoppers who expect to have freedom from planning for these things. We expect to have freedom for reading, for art and self-expression. This is just the story of progress.
Women, particularly, have come far. The feminine chores were not always harder but they were constant and isolating. (Laundry was the worst, most backbreaking task and the first to be farmed out to the underclass if you could afford it. Haying was the worst masculine task but it happened once a year.) Meanwhile a husband had total legal control of you, your own fortune if you had one, and your children. If he was brutal you had few options. The celebrated feminine ideal was to be timid and submissive. Even that lover of Abigail, John Adams, writes approvingly of Dolly Hancock, "In large and mixed companies she is totally silent, as a lady ought to be."
But the biggest reason for me would not be the toil and the lack of rights, but the medicine. I've read so many diaries and letters wherein people die suddenly and children are carried off almost overnight. (Anti-vaxxers make me crazy.) Even just one hundred years ago I'd have been dead at least twice, once from a very bad childbirth and once from a burst appendix. Sorry to have gone on so long but I do think about all this a lot. (Selden)
I would have been dead several times over, too, Selden.
DeleteYes, I'm sure I would have been dead many more times than those two. People died all the time of diarrhea! Sometimes the reasons were perplexing, but reasons had to be found. I have a 1791obituary that said a young woman in her 20s died of "imprudently" washing her feet in cold water on a hot day! (Selden)
DeleteDied of washing her feet in cold water on a hot day? Sounds suspicious like a mystery waiting to be solved!
DeleteYes, so powerful to think about all this. Progress, and what works, and how our lives have changed. I never thought about “survival “— And I know that is very lucky.
DeleteFrom Celia: I second all that Seldon wrote and I started to look back to our first year as homeowners. Olivia was born two
DeleteMonths after we moved into our first home. We had very little expendable money over after the down payment was made. A car, 2nd hand of course was a necessity but what else? We could afford either a fridge, a washing machine or a dishwasher. Which did I choose? A fridge of course. My baby was in diapers, English style very different from American ones. I sent Victor to Sears to buy a large galvanized pail. The diapers were boiled on the stove, rinsed and wrung out by me, I had a strong grip and dried on the line. We never bought a dryer until we moved to Maine! I think it took 6 months to save enough to buy a washer and three years before the dishwasher joined my kitchen. Looking back I realize it didn't occur to us by on the 'never, never' as the English phrase goes, debt was never an option. I have done other trad tasks but only if necessary. We missed the great Maine ice storm by two years but it was still very fresh in everyone's minds and we heard plenty of terrible tales. While I know that I'm up for a short term challenge but prefer the ease that electricity offers in its many forms even if it did take twenty eight years to get that dryer it's all been worth it.
I did enjoy for many years going to special church services, especially at Christmas, at the historic Lenora Methodist Church, which dates back to 1856. It is heated by a wood stove and has kerosene lamps for lighting. But we drove there in our modern vehicle (while on the lookout for Amish buggies) and I always made sure I would not need to visit the outhouse.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed dressing the part as a spectator and scorekeeper for 19th Century base ball games…especially in Gettysburg. I sewed my own outfits, but using a modern sewing machine and I took modern shortcuts with them like zippers and Velcro. And I didn’t make or wear the scads of undergarments, although I did learn all about them from some museum people at a Vintage Base Ball Association conference.
Our internet and phone were recently out for two days; people were going bonkers.
So no, I would not like to go back in time to live.
Oh yes, it is such a wake up call when phone and Internet go out, and when our power goes out, it is downright apocalyptic.
DeleteWhat an amazing premise that book has, Hank.
ReplyDeleteI garden, but not so I can eat all winter, although I do grow all our garlic for the year. I've canned in the past. Now I use the freezer to put up food. I cook and bake from scratch, put stamps on envelopes, and mail notes and checks. I sew (but with an electric machine), and I used to knit and crochet.
Sheila Connolly passed along to me the diary of a Massachusetts wife from about 1870. MOST of it is about laundry and baking. And as Selden mentioned, medicine is a biggie. No thank you for returning to 1805.
I also hang clothes on the line in good weather, but I always have the option of an electric dryer powered by our solar panels.
DeleteThe hanging clothes in the sun versus solar power dryer is a perfect comparison! You do it on the clothesline, but you don’t have to :-)
DeleteConsidered primitive by many because I have never owned , and only used for heating water at my office, a micro wave oven, and by many more because I have had no TV since 1980 (and no, I don’t use streaming except for my PBS membership)…just no to pioneering ways. What a frightening and interesting book, Hank! Happy Monday! Elisabeth
ReplyDeleteFrightening and interesting is exactly the way to put it, perfect!
DeleteThere was discourse about this on Bluesky yesterday, springing from an article calling the early 20th century the golden age of farming, when rural life anchored the country.
ReplyDeleteIn Nice I hang my clothes outside to dry rather than tumble them, but have the advantage of doing it in good weather and with modern weather forecasts. I love walking everywhere rather than driving. But I very much enjoy walking along sidewalks that do not have chamber pots emptied upon them.
While there can be great joy in doing things by hand, forcing people to attempt a subsistence lifestyle on a small family farm in the mistaken belief that it is the “right” way to live only sounds good if you have not done it or seen it done up close.
Yes, and a big article about similar things in the New York Times yesterday, too. I wonder why we are thinking about this so much now.
DeleteRags. No modess or tampons. Rags. My mother, who was born in 1919 told me I was lucky. Rags.
ReplyDeleteOh - yes!
DeleteYes! I have always wondered how women in the 18th century managed these rags, since they did not wear underwear or drawers. (Selden)
DeleteMe, too, Selden. Surely someone here knows the answer to that!
DeleteAhhhhhhhh we are so lucky :-)
DeleteI have baked bread and bagels from scratch. But, really not much else that I would consider done the same way in 1805 especially since we used modern electric or gas ovens. When my now grown daughter was playing on a soccer team, I was sitting watching with a group of moms and a grandmother. We started talking about what we would miss from our modern kitchens if we had to go back in time, like a stove, refrigerator, washing machine, etc. The grandmother said - running water. Boy, did that give everyone pause.
ReplyDeleteExactly! Exactly! We are all saying things like oh, I would hate to give up my coffee maker. Ha ha.
DeleteI think the biggest improvements are the discovery of the DNA molecule (Crick & Watson), vaccines (Salk), in the 1950's and penicillen (Fleming) in the late 1920's.
ReplyDeleteOpps no medical stuff. Thanks Amanda for the note.
DeleteOh, absolutely! As everyone is saying, we would all be dead now.
DeleteNO, thank you. Just the thought is enough for me to run screaming to the thermostat and electric light switch. Hank, you said not to mention medical stuff, but, oh my, I go there. I had a very challenging menstrual cycle and I suffered even with access to modern medicine. It's a nightmare to consider what women went through back in the day...
ReplyDeleteI would have died in my first pregnancy and I had 7. I would have ben 31.
DeleteWe have been watching Great Palaces, and the last one was Kensington Palace in England. Queen Anne had 18 children - can you imagine that, in her time. Nope, nope, nope.
DeleteYes, Margo, that constant stream of babies. If you breastfed (as most did) you could have a baby every 18 mos. to 2 years. If you married at 18 and were menopausal by your late 40s... that's fifteen "proofs of your affection"! And if you did not breastfeed you could have a baby every year! I think it was the childbearing that wore out most women so young. (Selden)
DeleteQueen Anne had 18 pregnancies and only five children born alive. None survived beyond the age of 11. Just imagine the grief she must have suffered.
DeleteYes, Kim, the overpowering grief. Which they were supposed to suppress with "resignation" to underscore their belief in God! So hard to imagine the trauma. Diphtheria carried off whole families of children for centuries, which Julia wrote about so realistically in one of her books set in the 1920s. (Selden)
DeleteIt is just so terrifying--and I wonder if they felt that, or if it was simply the way it was. That they had understood the process that way from the beginning ,so it was just part of how it worked. Horrible. Incredibly sad.
DeleteInteresting Kim, as they did not mention that on the programme. It does make a difference doesn't it. AT least Queen Victoria's children survived.
DeleteHank,, I think that tradwife got her just desserts. Count me firmly as someone who does not think it was better or more romantic to go back to a life without modern medicine, running water, indoor plumbing, central heating, modern appliances. I do bake and cook from scratch, and sew occasionally (on my Mom’s 1958 Singer sewing machine), and garden for pleasure. Not to mention voting and women’s rights (which we are STILL having to fight for!)
ReplyDeleteAgree, and would add it was not better to be submissive to a husband and trapped in a marriage without being able to easily get a divorce to protect yourself and children if necessary.
DeleteThe book is really wise about that--so many ways of understanding it, you'll see!
DeleteWhat a good topic for the day after International Women's Day. No way! Can you imagine helplessly watching your children die from diseases that modern medicine had eradicated? (I know it's happening, but that's because people are foolish, not because we haven't figured it out). And the hard, physical labor. I'd probably be dead within a year.
ReplyDeleteYes, that's part of the tension in the book--she remembers it all.
DeleteFirst of all, I]if I went back to 1805 I would have already been dead eleven times over. But had I made there and lived i think I would use all of my 21st century smarts and invest in Google. (They started about then, didn't they?) I would also have to unlearn an awful lot of things, like treating others as equals and respecting women and not being a faithful steward for the Earth. So, yeah, I would have a difficult time owning slaves and treating women like chattel and wiping out indigenous peoples and drinking out of lead cups, and hunting, cleaning and cooking possum for dinner. Plus, I wouldn't know who the heck to vote for: a Democratic-Republican or a Federalist, never mind those Johnny-come-lately parties on the horizon...the Whigs, the Know-Nothings, the Anti-Masons, the Free Soils, the Populists, and what not. Besides -- horror of all horrors -- 1805 would not offer me my daily dose of Jungle Reds.
ReplyDeleteWell, yeah, there's that....xoxoo
DeletePossum. Got to say, I've never thought about possum. SO wise.
DeleteJenn, with her comment about camping reminded me of the summer (May or June to September 1986 – I don’t remember, it was so much fun (maybe). We had sold our house and the next house was under construction – slowly as Jack was building it with another fellow. We smartly had built the barn first, so that we could move the animals, and so as you would expect we lived in the loft. With the occasional chicken, a bunny, several cats and I think 2 dogs.. At least it was clean as it too was new, and had never had any hay in it. We had all our worldly goods in there, mostly stacked in boxes, and just enough furniture in place to survive. The kids slept in the bunks and we had a bed somewhere.
ReplyDeleteThings we did not have. Electricity. Water. A fridge. A stove. A SHOWER. We would go across the road and up the hill – this is the country, not the city, so across the street is really not next door – for water for the animals and us. Some of it was put in a black plastic thingy with a hose and a spout. It was then placed on the picnic table in the morning to warm up, and then about noon, we would all strip naked (outside you remember, with the traffic going by…) and have a very quick shower with the water in the carboy. Any left over was used for washing dishes in the late afternoon.
Food was all stored in a cooler, with ice, so there was not much, and too much time was wasted driving to the store in the next town for groceries. It was cooked on the barbecue – and yes, you can bake a chocolate birthday Barbi cake on a barbecue if your kid is about to turn 7! Oh, and invite guests to the party.
I imagine the kids were glad to go to school in September, even if the conditions remained the same. We did move in in late September because it was getting cold, and my parents came for Christmas. My mother came in, and remarked about the lovely pink walls (the light was dim, and the ‘walls’ were pink insulation). She was so happy to see a toilet, and a sink, even if it was the only ‘white’ furniture that we had. Jack had installed the toilet just before he went to the airport to pick them up. Ahhh, luxury!
As for the ice storm that Julia went through – many stories, mostly unbelievable. 30 days with no power, no water, etc. Did you know that kerosene lamps cover everything in your house with a sticky soot that is next to impossible to get off, and that you can get PTSD (everyone had it) from 30 days under stress.
So would I like to go back - probably not, but I know that I would survive.
Margo, this is how I feel. I would survive, bar medical disasters, but I would not choose it. I lit the log cabin with kerosene lamps and did not notice the residue, probably because the logs were already dark brown. I do know from experience in a white-painted house that heating with wood leaves charcoal dust on everything, and according go the wonderful British historian Ruth Goodman, the 19th century shift to an emphasis on soap and cleanliness coincided with the shift from wood fires to coal fires, which similarly left sticky, oily smuts on everything. (Selden)
DeleteMy sister and her Quebecois partner lived for two summers in a cottage with a wood cookstove and no running water. Once when I was visiting and Pierrot was out somewhere, a big rainstorm began. She and I stripped, grabbed the Dr. Bronner's liquid soap, and ran outside for a shower and a shampoo! The next year they insulated and added water pipes...
DeleteShowering in the rain! I did that as a child, under a downspout. And Dr. Bronner's is a great memory of my college years. Thanks. (Selden)
DeleteWhy would you agree to live without basics like running water? Conditions that today would be called child abuse.
DeleteNope nope nope. You must be superwoman. Truly.
DeleteHank, that book about yesteryear sounds fascinating. Like Jenn, I think camping is the extent of my venture into yesteryear. I love knitting. I love baking bread from scratch. Though I admit that as a Deaf person, I am dependent on current technology. As a child, I loved watching Little House on the Praire on television and the Holly Hobbit doll? I remember wearing a bonnet and a Holly Hobbit dress. I also loved storybooks and once wore a dress with mutton sleeves from the Phillippines.
ReplyDeleteThinking about if I would want to live in 1805. Most likely no. However, IF I was alive and deaf in 1805, then I would want to live on Martha's Vineyard where everyone spoke Sign Language. Which leads me to the next story. I was reminded of a visit to a friend from University who worked as a character interpreter at an American historical site.
Though I loved wearing the "costume" of 18th century America, meaning Colonial era America, I recall being furious at this person, another character interpreter, who told me that No One communicated in Sign Language back then. That Deaf people could not communicate. That person knew NOTHING about deaf people, even though they knew the basics of Sign Language. I knew that Deaf people did communicate in Sign Language because of people like Abbé de Epeé, a monk who worked with Deaf people in France. If anyone saw the French film, RICIDULE, there are several scenes where several Deaf characters are communicating in Sign Language. And I knew that Native Americans communicated in Sign Language before the white settlers arrived in the New World. Even hearing people in the Native tribes communicated in sign language. In fact, it was not until Darwin published his theory of "survival of the fittest" around 1860, which was at least 50 years after 1805, and the Congress of Milan 1880 when the majority Decided to prohibit Sign Language, in terms of Not allowing Deaf children to be educated in Sign Language.
Wow, that is..shocking. And fascinating. And I did not know that about the Vineyard! (And I hear the fury still in your voice!)
Delete1805? No thanks. I cook and bake from scratch, but rely on a stand mixer, oven with a thermostat, cooktop, freezer and refrigerator.
ReplyDeleteExactly. That's as scratch as it gets.
DeleteI enjoy gardening, cooking, baking and sewing. Downside is that without medical intervention I'd have been dead 40 years ago, so it really wouldn't matter. I'll take today with all its warts, thanks. I need libraries, doctors, meds, as well as aforementioned fun stuff. -- Victoria
ReplyDeleteYes, so agree!
DeleteIf you take part of this idea, you have to take all of the idea. So you can't really leave out the medical aspect of the past.
ReplyDeleteNot that that was a deciding factor in my decision to say F*CK NO!
You will not find me looking back in fondness to more than 200 years ago as a lifestyle choice in the positive. Anyone who does, well they clearly are delusional and should be on meds that are not available in 1805.
Much like Julia said, being without the modern conveniences of life for a relatively short time should disabuse anyone of thinking it would be a good idea to give it up forever.
The distant past may have great PR from all those TV shows and movies they make about the past but people seem to forget that those involved in making them don't actually have to live that way while filming is happening.
Jay, the BBC (I think) did a series where a family would volunteer to live completely as a similar family would have done during a past time (presumably, they were able to access modern medical care if necessary.) The one I recall vividly was the Victorian House, where life was pretty darned nice for the husband, who was an officer in the Royal Marines (and went to work in the 1890-something uniform as part of an HMRM educational thing.) His wife, maid and daughters, however! So much work at home, and so little meaningful work outside of it! Just the cleaning, laundry and meal prep took two women most of the day, every day.
DeleteOh right, yes, yes, I kinda remember that...The 1880's House, or something like that? Wasn't there a prairie-like one? AHh.
DeleteWhen I was growing up, we had a wringer washer. Clothes went on the line to dry. My mom's first 'luxury' was a dryer. No more wet laundry in the winter! She told stories of the washing done when she was a child, the endless washing, the ironing. No, thanks! I'll take modern conveniences (and definitely medicine). And those tradwives make me want to puke.
ReplyDeleteMy Dad told me stories about the ringer washing tub from his youth - no, thank you!
DeleteI still have a horror the wringer washers. And mangles! They were terrifyingly dangerous ways to iron large things, like linen sheets and tablecloths.
DeleteAs I said: nope nope nope. There's a really harrowing scene or two in the book about laundry. Also about how heavy it was.
DeleteYes, Ruth Goodman talked about how her back always ached after carrying all the water for washing and rinsing ("a pint's a pound the world around") and then all the wet clothes. She was always a hot, damp, exhausted frazzle by the end of laundry day. (Selden)
DeleteI totally plan to read this book! As much as I enjoy living in the country here in Maine, I mainly enjoy it because of our modern-day conveniences. Even losing power these days really only means no internet (which I e joy from time-to-time) since we have a whole-house generator now. I do enjoy simpler hobbies (knitting, pottery, playing music on instruments), but I get all of the materials via driving to shops in my car or sometimes ordering things online. I really appreciate the rural lifestyle we live this is enriched with our great advances! I often think about my ancestors who all lived in this same area, and imagine them traveling from town to town on the horse and buggies. It probably took them all day to travel to visit each other and to get to/from school. And they must have been so tired all the time… which makes me wonder why the heck I am so tired with all my appliances and nice car to drive to the grocery store?
ReplyDeleteStacia, I'll never forget when I learned the average Maine home in the 18th and early 19th century - before coal became a heat source - needed 33 cords of wood to make it through the winter. Can you imagine?!? THIRTY-THREE CORDS of wood!
DeleteThat is a good point, Stacia. About being tired all the time. SO interesting!
DeleteJay mentioned health care, which is also a major reason I'd never want to live any time earlier than the widespread adoption of penicillin. Without proper glasses, treatment for amblyopia, and cataract surgery in my 50s, I'd be functionally blind. Except I wouldn't have had to worry about that, because I would have died at the age of 31, when I miscarried with a placental abruption. Although I may not have made it to my thirties, since I got scarlet fever when I was five! Not to mention all my vaccines that prevented me from getting measles, mumps, rubella, polio, smallpox, diphtheria...
ReplyDeleteYup.
DeleteI have absolutely no desire to live without electricity, running water (hot OR cold), central heating, central air, etc. We're trying to get the garden really going - but even that will require a roto-tiller because of two years of neglect. Wouldn't want to try and dig it all out! Yes, baking and canning and cooking is all very good - but I have an air-fryer and a gas stove and a lovely oven with a convection setting to do it. We lost heat for a couple days during a winter storm several years ago. Yes, we kept the house moderately warm by constantly feeding the wood stove. Do I want to do it all the time? No way.
ReplyDeleteAnd as someone who lives with MS and had a bout of breast cancer, and has a son who had recurring Herpes Simplex Keratitis as a child and a daughter who needs glasses full time, don't get me started on modern medicine.
We are lucky, that's for sure! xx
DeleteErma Bombeck humorously wrote about this, although not quite with the apocalyptic aspect of urban/suburban life, in her The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank. And she was instrumental in helping to push forward the Equal Rights Amendment, which is STILL, 56 years later, not ratified. (I just signed a petition the other day to finally get that taken care of. Join me, if you can.)
ReplyDeleteIt always makes me laugh to see reels, tv shows, and movies about "the simpler life", all being recorded on modern devices, or published in electronically created paper media. It seems extremely naive to believe any of that is better. Like denying the benefits of science: it makes no sense to me.
My husband still harvests (shoots, yes) a deer every year for the freezer (modern convenience), and we together process (cut up and package) it, or make jerky (in a dehydrator). He also cuts, splits, and hauls firewood for our fireplace, which is an auxiliary and potentially emergency heating source in both our homes. I cook from scratch, often using ingredients that I froze, dried, canned, or otherwise preserved, most nights, and I often make bread, lately from a sourdough starter. But we definitely need modern conveniences, like grocery stores for processed flour, etc, stuff I would never be able to create myself. And thank goodness we don't need to haul water up from the crick. It's probably polluted, anyway. Diptheria, anyone?
But there will come a time, and not in the too distant future, when we won't be able to do most of this anymore. We will be 75 and 77 this year, after all.
Yes, and think about the life expectancy back then. We'd all be long gone. xoxo
DeleteI have an electric clock, made of Bakelite, that my aunt gave her parents way back when to celebrate electricity coming to rural parts of Texas. Thanks to LBJ. As for living in 1805, only if I were plopped down with the knowledge to survive and no memories of modern life. Otherwise, no thank you ma'am.
ReplyDeleteYes, rural electrification in Texas, due to Congressman LBJ! Robert Caro, his biographer, interviewed women decades ago about what had made the biggest difference in their lives. They ALL said electrification in 1939 (many places not until the mid-1940s), which meant they didn't need to draw up every bucket of water from the deep well every day. (Selden)
DeleteAnd that does not seem like so long ago, does it? the mid-1940s? ANd I just read somewhere. on the other side of the coin, that we have now had TV for 100 years. Wait, is that right?
DeleteExperimental TV perhaps. But TV didn't become a thing in U.S. culture until the 1950s. (Selden)
DeleteThere is nothing about living the "good old days" that appeals to me. When I was five years old, we spent the night on my father's great-aunt and great-uncle's farm in rural Louisiana. I remember an outdoor toilet and a chamber pot under the bed for nighttime, a pump for water, and kerosene (I think) lamps. (It was in the 1950s--surely they had electricity? But maybe not.) Wood-burning stove, too. So much hard physical work for people who, I believe, were in their eighties. I thought it was fun for two days and a night. Now, looking back with adult eyes, I'm full of awe at their endurance. And they had no children--they'd died. I should add that my father loved them very much (and they him), and he'd spent the happiest summers of his childhood living on their farm. I'm sure their lives weren't miserable. But surely difficult.
ReplyDeleteNot miserable--because it was just the way it was? ANd you make the best of it?
DeleteI am at the moment reading about electricification in rural Ireland in the late 1950s! And when I first moved to Scotland and England in the late '70s you would still see outhouses in gardens. Our power went out--unexplainedly--for about half an hour this morning and I was panicked...
DeleteOhhhh that is scary, Debs. Ahhh. Ad growing up in Indiana in the late fifties, I do remember a...rural electrification...something?
DeleteThe closest would be-when I canned tomatoes & green beans (but on an electric stove) from our garden in the 1970's; we went weekend tent camping when our daughters were children, a fun family activity that we all loved, along with hikes in our mountains. My baking is from scratch, but with modern appliances, of course. We have 5 wood burning fireplaces in our house, which is nice when the power goes out and and there is no heat, but No, would Not want to live without all our modern conveniences & advantages. Thank you for the book recommendation-I added it to my TBR.
ReplyDeleteEager to hear what you think! It is really unusual, an very original.
DeleteWell, I make my own bread. (Have not bought a loaf in 2 years). But I have an electric oven. :^))
ReplyDeleteCamping while canoe tripping is great. For a few nights. In summer. When it's not raining.
Yesteryear is now on hold at my library. (And there's something else to love about modern technology.)
Yes, I’ve got it on hold as well. Such good access we have - don’t have to wait for a book to make its way by train to maybe find its way into our hands.
DeleteONE night. In summer. When it's not hot, or rainy, or mosquito-y. Still maybe no. xxxx
DeleteI so agree with everyone that I would never want to live in "yesteryear" without modern conveniences. My husband and I raised beef cattle and grew our own hay on our farm in East Texas for 30 years. And that was with the help of tractors, hay balers and other modern equipment. I like the country life, within reason. And I wouldn't want to give up the internet or TV, or bathrooms and kitchens with hot and cold running water. No thank you!
ReplyDeleteSO agree. Let's hear it for John Deere. Or whoever. And WITH that, it's still so hard!
DeleteJust experiencing a tiny bit of "1805 Fever" this past blizzard I would be the one back then who would be either institutionalized or shot at dawn. After the second night of no power or heat and wrapped in three layers of clothing and two blankets I pulled a nutty running through the house like the kid in "Home Alone". I freaked out...a little. Well...maybe more like a lot. And good lord...no perked coffee for three mornings! To make matters even worse we were only a five minute walk from "civilization"...two banks, a small food market, two restaurants, a coffee shop, a book store, the Mirbeau Inn and medical facilities including urgent care. But nothing was open; even emergency generators were non functioning. So no recharging one's phone, no hot meal and "no room at the Inn". [Where have I heard that phrase before? ;-) ]
ReplyDeleteEvelyn, you are hilarious! I just burst out laughing. Yes, our heat was out in the blizzard, but not the power, so we had space heaters .Still it was 50 degrees in the family room, and I was walking around in about in fourteen layers of clothing and a massive fleece blanket. (You must be near or in Pine HiIls?)
DeleteYes we are tucked away in Pinehills in a little neighborhood called Greengate behind the Rowen. We wanted to live near the Village. Lots of amenities plus a post office that is a hop, skip and a jump away from us. And of course you know Book Love. Such a great place that is also geared to young readers as well as adults. They saved my keister on Christmas Eve when at the last minute I realized I was short a board game I needed as a family gift. I frantically called them to ask what they had left. Despite being in short supply of most everything they found and set aside Scrabble for me and my husband hoofed over there to pick it up before leaving for a family Christmas Eve party. I also enjoyed being at your book signing at the Mirbeau Inn a couple of years ago.
DeleteOh yes, that was absolutely memorable! And lucky lucky you… What a perfect place to live! Xxx Hope to see you again soon…
DeleteI look forward to that! Thank you.
DeleteI still write and send letters to family and friends. I want mainly my children to have a letter they can hold in their hands and read that is personally from me. I send cards and thank cards all the time.🥰
ReplyDeleteSherry Brown
ozdot4@sbcglobal.net
Oh yes, that is so lovely! Thank you! That is the perfect answer. Writing, of course. Perfect.
DeleteWe've said at Ren. Faire that while it's fun to pretend, we'd not want to live then. Even royalty had life harder than most in the modern world, and odds are far greater that we'd be peasants.
ReplyDeletePBS had a series of people trying to live authentically as if in the Victorian Age, and it was hard!
Closest I've come was camping, and I haven't done any of that since the '70s.
-- Storyteller Mary
Ha!
DeleteAs always, very very wise!