Housing:

The houses people lived in during the late 1800’s early 1900’s were usually constructed from wooden boards and lots of plaster. The outsides and framing were wooden, and the insides were coated with plaster; an early type of drywall smoothed onto the wooden boards to make a finished interior wall. They had no electric lights, so they had to use candles to make their way through their homes. Houses were all built by hand, using handmade nails and many men. Families were large to help spread out the many chores that people had. Most families lived on and operated farms, where they grew their own food, and butchered their animals for meat.

Fashion:

The sewing machine did not come into existence until the eighteen-forties. Before that, women made the clothing by hand. Women usually only had three different dresses; one for church, one for social occasions and one for whatever else. Men had two or three shirts and two pairs of pants; one for summer and one for winter. Children’s clothes usually consisted of dress clothes until they reached an age where they could begin working. The women mended the clothing, towels, blankets, sheets and any other cloth that was needed, while the men worked in the fields.

Domestic Life:

The average earner only made about sixteen dollars a week, and some workers made as little as two to six dollars a week. A bag of flour was a dollar eighty, so the poor man had to work many hours just to get by. Children worked in factories often times to help out the family. The average housewife stayed at home to cook and clean while the rest of the family went out to work. Some women did work in factories though, but the majority of them stayed at home. Stoves were a common luxury in wealthier homes used for cooking, and heating. Gas lighting was first used in the early eighteen-hundreds, but was not used widely until the late eighteen-hundreds.

Recreation:

For entertainment, men sat in bars drinking, telling stories, gambling and fighting. Christian women hated alcohol; they would rather get together and have quilting bees and apple bees. Everyone went to church, Sundays were set aside for families to attend church and relax with their families. Many people attended theatres. The wealthier people sitting up front and in the balconies, while the average people sat everywhere else.

Work:

There was a lot of hard labor back in the eighteen-hundreds. Most work was done by hand, not many large machines were used like in today’s world. Some jobs that people did were; cutting down trees, plowing fields, working in the city and running a business. Men had to be physically fit to perform the back breaking work required by civilization. The invention of machines as tools was not widely used until the early nineteen-hundreds.