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This has always been something of interest for me because I generally laugh when I hear people say 'those were the times' rather it be 70s,60s. 30s because those times heavily favored certain people. I am only speaking from an Americans view point, I would LOVE to get a short history lesson from those who are from else where!
In this case lets just go with LATE 1800s/1900s (just to give myself a little leverage due to the ending of the civil war) simply because it fascinates me the most. Seeing as how everyone isn't here from America im sure everyone's story would be very different and clearly you would have to have some knowledge of the time chosen. I will start this off
America--Louisianan (I am sure I have family from there for some time, oh how lucky would I have been, the south)
The more and more I think about it the more I realize just how SCREWED I really would have been.
White Father Black Mother ( I am their life would have probably been worse off ) and out of wedlock--with zero musical or dancing talent. What would I have done with myself... Parents did not stay together. Not sure on what middle class was back then however, im sure due to the extrema racial divides (and lack of over all opportunities over all) im certain we would have not been middle class back then...Oh ya and my bi-sexuality...The more and more I think about it the more depressing the situation looks. And my poor mother.
So ya, when ever I hear how cool it would have been to live back at a certain time its usually coming out of a white guys mouth because boy oh boy am I happy to be born in this day and age and it sucks to think about what it was like for those who actually had to live in those times, altho I am sure there was some good.
What interest me more is your story. I just want to know if you were born into the family you were born into in between the late 1800-1900s (in your home country and state) how do you think you would have done for yourself ?
Based on my family genealogy, I would most likely be a farmer in Idaho. One great-great grandfather was a miner in south-central Idaho and had his leg amputated when he was in his late 20s, due to a mining accident. Not exactly sure what he did after that, but he had a bunch more kids. I think he became a judge.
If I were born then, it would have been a difficult life, but I would have made do.
My dad is an ex-army officer so life would have been pretty good for me as they were more upper class back then.
If I was born exactly 100 years ago I could have followed in his footsteps and be an officer at the regiment where I did my military service when they moved to my hometown in 1907.
We used to live in a house with officers apartments in the 80s and still lived by rank back then.
My hometown began to really expand in the 1880s when they first built the main line from Stockholm and then the iron ore line from the coast to the mountains.
It was a really interesting and exciting time in local history.
Hopefully I would have retired by 1939.
Fathers side Presbyterian farmers.
Mothers side were Catholic but extremely rich. Owned alot of land in derry and were barristers.
TBH i'm not sure what life was like back then. I think if I took option one life would be so much easier because I don't think catholics were treated with alot of respect. Which is quite sad, it actually really upset me when I did my mums family tree and I see the way they were treated. It's not nice the way the catholics were discriminated and I am glad that time is over.
This has always been something of interest for me because I generally laugh when I hear people say 'those were the times' rather it be 70s,60s. 30s because those times heavily favored certain people. I am only speaking from an Americans view point, I would LOVE to get a short history lesson from those who are from else where!
In this case lets just go with LATE 1800s/1900s (just to give myself a little leverage due to the ending of the civil war) simply because it fascinates me the most. Seeing as how everyone isn't here from America im sure everyone's story would be very different and clearly you would have to have some knowledge of the time chosen. I will start this off
America--Louisianan (I am sure I have family from there for some time, oh how lucky would I have been, the south)
The more and more I think about it the more I realize just how SCREWED I really would have been.
White Father Black Mother ( I am their life would have probably been worse off ) and out of wedlock--with zero musical or dancing talent. What would I have done with myself... Parents did not stay together. Not sure on what middle class was back then however, im sure due to the extrema racial divides (and lack of over all opportunities over all) im certain we would have not been middle class back then...Oh ya and my bi-sexuality...The more and more I think about it the more depressing the situation looks. And my poor mother.
So ya, when ever I hear how cool it would have been to live back at a certain time its usually coming out of a white guys mouth because boy oh boy am I happy to be born in this day and age and it sucks to think about what it was like for those who actually had to live in those times, altho I am sure there was some good.
What interest me more is your story. I just want to know if you were born into the family you were born into in between the late 1800-1900s (in your home country and state) how do you think you would have done for yourself ?
Have to agree with you. My time spent looking at genealogy has lead me to believe that the poor were treated like crap (basically I wouldn't want to be alive) and the rich were treated as if they were some sort of lord.
Farm laborers in small villages or petty clerks in small towns in southern Italy or infantrymen in the Italian army in some colonial war in Africa.
Industrialization in the north started triggering the mechanization of agriculture in the south, and even more so, along with advances in shipping technology, the first round of globalization of industrial trade at least.
Meanwhile big cities like New York and Buenos Aires were offering low-skill manufacturing and service jobs, cheap urban housing, and plenty of food.
They migrated by train, I think*, from small villages and towns to the big Italian port cities, then by ship - some with eye and lung infections - to the big cities of the Americas, they found jobs as ship laborers, shoe shiners, coal and ice deliverymen (no gas/electric ovens/heating and refrigerators back then) using their own backs and horse-drawn carts, and seamstresses, then later, after starting as young as 15 as apprentices, they opened up their own businesses as printers and local truckers with the fading of horses and the advent of the motor vehicle.
*To me, the most interesting detail to be researched is exactly how they traveled from small villages and towns to the big port cities - perhaps a part of the journey, at least to the nearest train station, may have been by horse-drawn cart or by foot, and what material possessions they could take with them, if any -, and, in human terms, how they said good-bye to family members who stayed behind: was it hugs and tears, or the middle finger, or perhaps a little bit of both?
Anyway, it was harsh and bleak, both in the old and new worlds, like life had been most of the time for most everyone until industrialization became widespread and successful in the 1950s, at least in the US, western Europe and Japan, but at least food, then antibiotics, were highly abundant, fewer died of starvation and infection, and even education became a possibility.
What is truly miraculous is how the predecessors of those who lived in the late 1800s/early 1900s survived so many centuries, nay millennia, of harsh and bleak life.
Anyway, yes, the good old days for some, at least improving for others; but indeed not for everyone for whom life remained harsh and bleak.
To be sure, the globalization of industrialization, featuring faster-than-light-speed computing, instant global communications and abundant money supply, has evened the playing field, so to speak, at least somewhat, and here we are, common idiots, discussing these things at ease as if we were scholars.
I agree with the OP that today, right now, is the good old days, and the financial, budget and wage problems that we are experiencing around the globe are like growing pains in this new era.
It could end badly, like it did in the 1930s-1940s, but there is also a reasonable expectation that more and more people around the globe can enjoy more productive and easier lives over the next 50-100 years and going forward.
People normally say things like "those were the times" with nostalgia, because they remember those times with fondness. It's unlikely anyone today would be old enough to personally remember the late 1800s with fondness.
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So ya, when ever I hear how cool it would have been to live back at a certain time its usually coming out of a white guys mouth because boy oh boy am I happy to be born in this day and age and it sucks to think about what it was like for those who actually had to live in those times, altho I am sure there was some good.
Why are you making this about race? White people aren't entitled to have nostalgia about their past? They're not allowed to appreciate cultural history? Perhaps you also think every German should be ashamed of themselves?
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What interest me more is your story. I just want to know if you were born into the family you were born into in between the late 1800-1900s (in your home country and state) how do you think you would have done for yourself ?
That's an impossible question to answer because my family today wouldn't have been the same people had I been born earlier in history. They would be different people because they, and myself, would have been shaped differently by the alternate culture and society from such a different time period. I'm American so I have several different heritages and having extensively researched my family tree, I can tell you exactly what my ancestors from all different time periods did with themselves but probably, you'd find it rather boring. If you really want to know, I have already written family histories for all my ancestors on my blog (there's a list of links for them down the right side): Genealogical Musings
Why are you making this about race? White people aren't entitled to have nostalgia about their past? They're not allowed to appreciate cultural history? Perhaps you also think every German should be ashamed of themselves?
Well I was not trying to make it about race seeing as how those times really were about race. I figured if I were to be born by my two parents back then than yeah--I would have been screwed. It sucks but its a reality of the time. I am unsure of the history of Germany and race relations but back here in America it was a big deal. Should every German be ashamed of themselves--I don't see why not when I doubt ALL of them were in favor of what was happening back then.
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