[whitequeen96]

There was a great show on PBS called "The 1900 House", and you can get the video. All the lovely ideas we have of "a slower, gentler time, where people had more time for their families, and didn't live with so many chemicals, but more naturally" are really blown away by this show. It's a reality show, and a family actually lives in London as was done in those days. The English form of OSHA almost didn't allow this show to be made because of all the toxins in the house; lead, arsenic, coal dust, etc.! And there was so much work that the mother and 2 teenage daughters couldn't keep up with it and had to hire a servant (who almost quit, as the work was just so hard)! Heating water, keeping the furnace going, cooking, keeping up with all the dust bunnies that formed; the work was overwhelming. And this was in a "modern" house! People died younger because they worked so hard and because they were exposed to so many poisons in the air, plus the reasons listed above. It certainly made me give up any ideas I had about longing for the "good old days!"