Unlike your ancestors, you will probably
never have to:
1.
Make all of your own clothes
Although
craft and fabric stores still offer a wide variety of cloth, patterns, and
thread for the purpose of creating clothing, for most people sewing is just a hobby to supplement a store-bought
wardrobe. In the past, though, every garment had to be hand-sewn, at
least until the sewing machine and some mass-produced clothing was introduced
in the mid-1800s. In fact, many families would have sewn all of their own
clothes well into the 20th century. Of course, those with money often employed
others to do the work for them – but the task of ordering fabrics, choosing
designs and undertaking measurements would have still been much more
time-consuming.
2.
Travel by ocean liner, steamboat, or horse-and-buggy
If you
get frustrated with the length of your daily commute, imagine how your
great-great grandmother felt when it came time to travel from her farm into town in a horse-drawn wagon or by foot, or spend days or weeks on
dangerous roads and boats to visit family, or move to a new place. Before the spread of airliners
in the 1950s the only way across the ocean was spending weeks on a ship, and travel was costly as well as time consuming.
3.
Correspond with those you love entirely by mail
Years ago the only way to connect with loved ones was through a hand written letter that could easily take weeks - or months if travelling overseas - to arrive at its
destination. That was the reality for your ancestors.
4.
Read about your postal tardiness in the newspaper
Home mail delivery has had a
relatively short life. Years ago, mail was sent from post office to post
office, and only delivered elsewhere for an extra fee. That’s
why you’ll sometimes see notices in 1800s-era newspapers warning a list of
local folks to pick up their mail soon or risk it being sent to a “dead
letters” department.
5. Sit
for a formal portrait
Genealogists
cherish the brittle old tintypes and cabinet cards of our ancestors, with their
rigidly posed and unsmiling subjects. It won’t be long, though, before our
descendants equally cherish our own (often-awkward) family portraits, because
sitting for a formal family photo has largely become a thing of the past. Why
herd the entire crew to a stuffy studio when you can just use a selfie stick to
capture a digital image? Unless you’re printing and framing (or at least
digitally preserving) these treasures for future generations, the classic
family portrait may cease to exist.
6.
Wear a corset
Remember
that scene in Gone With the Wind when Scarlett holds on for dear life to
her bedpost as Mammy forcefully tugs the strings of her corset until Scarlett
achieves her famous 17-inch waist? Corsets were a common component of women’s
fashion for more than 500 years–until the early 1900s, when medical
professionals finally put an end to the painful practice by announcing the
health risks of shifting internal organs and restricting breathing.
7.
Use an Icebox
Before we had the fridge ice was harvested from colder areas and shipped for storage in specially constructed ice
houses. Homeowners could pick up or request delivery of ice blocks to their
homes, where the blocks were kept in wooden or metal boxes lined with straw or
sawdust. In fact, ice boxes were common into the 1930s and beyond. It was the only way to keep food cold and prevent it spoiling.
8.
Let blood
Bloodletting
(thankfully) went out of fashion in the 1800s, but prior to that, a bad
headache or practically any other ailment may have led to your physician
cutting into a vein and letting a few pints of blood drain out to cure
your ills. Today’s researchers believe that excessive bloodletting led to the
deaths of King Charles II in 1685 and U.S. President George Washington in 1799 - and many, many others.
9.
Die from TB, smallpox, measles, yellow fever or cholera
Thanks
to improved sanitation and health care many diseases that shortened the life
spans of our ancestors have been eradicated. Today the average worldwide life
expectancy stands at a robust 72 years, compared to the 30- to 40-year
expectation of our 18th and 19th century predecessors.
10.
Wait days or weeks to hear the latest news
These
days, instant notifications and “breaking news” banners on our various screens
alert us to what’s happening in the next town or across the globe within
minutes. But before radios and televisions, news traveled through
word-of-mouth, mail, and newspapers–at a significant delay for those in rural
communities. Imagine not knowing about the death of a family member, the
election of a president, or a declaration of war for weeks.
11.
Use an outhouse at home
Portable
public toilets may come close, but they’re not constructed of splintery wood,
filled with spiders and situated in our backyards. And while we often associate
outhouses with fun camping trips and iconic homesteads, the reality of
sewage disposal before modern plumbing was anything but pleasant. Chamber pots are also thankfully no longer a necessity.
12.
Manage a funeral and burial
As if
the grief of losing a loved one wasn’t enough, our ancestors were once tasked
with preparing bodies for viewing (usually in a home’s living area or parlour)
and digging and closing the grave in the family or town cemetery.
13.
Employ child labor
As
children, our ancestors were often awoken at daybreak to
work on the family farm, help with daily chores, and perhaps even report for
duty at a factory or a mine. Many families relied on the extra income a child might be able to earn or the extra labor they could provide to a cottage industry or farm. Older children might also be expected to stay at home to look after younger siblings while their mother went out to work.
14. Have dental work without pain relief
Imagine having a tooth extracted with no pain relief. Modern dental care was unknown to our ancestors, and the only remedy for badly decayed teeth was extraction, often with little provision for numbing the pain.
15. Travel away from family and friends forever
While
many of us today will travel far from home to make a new life, we have the
ability, in most cases, of visiting home and family again quite easily. But for
many of our ancestors, a big move meant saying goodbye to family forever. It
was a steep price to pay for a chance at a better future, but many did it.
Yes, my ancestors' lives were very different compared to mine.
