Life+in+the+First+Half+of+the+19th+Century+CJE+09

//__PLACE ALL OF YOUR WORK ON A NEW WIKI PAGE UNDER ALL YOUR WORK__//

EQ: Is life better now or then?

Figure out whether your life is "better" than someone living in the early 19th century using the [|data base] of 19th Century (1900-1899) primary and secondary source documents from Old Sturbridge Village. In class we will discuss what "better" means. Hmmmmm....you must utilize at least two primary and two secondary sources.

General guidelines:

Pick two topics that you will research. Find four things from the 19th Century about each topic. Find a primary source example for each. Compare and contrast them with the 21st Century Come to a conclusion on whether life was better in the 19th Century or the 21st Century

= Topic...Chores = The chores that the children did in the 19th century were very different, there were many more, and they were much harder. They were so different from ours because mostly of the settings and the time periods.


 * Example 1-How they were different.

The chores were different by the children having to do a lot of farm work because the children were mostly brought up on farms, for there weren't a lot of cities and it was all mostly rural areas. Also, the thimes and the culture varied in many different ways.**

Now-Today we have very few chores and a lot of or chores use electricity, such as vacuming, because of the times that we live in and back then they did not have any electricity. There are also a lot of cities, which is also different, so the chores are much more advanced and modern.

http://www.osv.org/explore_learn/document_viewer.php?DocID=987


 * Example 2- The age that they started doing chores.**

19th Century-The chores were harder because the children, starting at age six or seven the children were made a member of the family work force. Meaning that they had to start doing chores, and they had a lot of them.

Now-Today children don't start doing their chores until they are about nine or ten. I believe that that is much easier than starting doing chores so young, like the children back in the 19th century did.

http://collaborationnation.wikispaces.com/All+work+and+a+Little+Play++Children+in+New+England


 * Example 3- How they were harder.**

19th Century-The chores in the 19th century were harder because they had to do chores such as shelling corn and weeding the garden, which is what they do when they start doing chores. While, when the girls were young they work with their mothers and sisters to learn how to sew, wash, cook, and tend to the dairy, cow. While the men worked with their fathers and brothers in the fields and around the barn. Now-The chores that the children do now are really easy, such as vacuming, doing the dishes, wiping down the stove and counters, and cleaning their rooms. Those chores seem much easier than the other things that they had to do, but you also have to keep in mind if you do not believe me that they started doing these chores much earlier than any of you did.

http://collaborationnation.wikispaces.com/All+work+and+a+Little+Play++Children+in+New+England


 * Example 4-How there were many more.**

19th Century-Back then they had a lot of chores, far more than we had. They would have to do their chores on almost all of the days of the week except for the Sabbath, which is Sunday, the day set aside for worshiping God.

Now-Today we don't have a lot of chores and with some families they only have to do the chores on a certain day because of chore charts and with other siblings that will do the chores for them, when they have a lot of himework. Although, we can still do chores on the Sabbath because it is no longer a law that you can't do anything on that day.

http://www.osv.org/explore_learn/document_viewer.php?DocID=987

From the evidence that I have collected I believe that it was much harder for a child in the 19th century to do chores.**
 * Conclusion

= Topic...School = School was very different in the early 19th century than it was now. It was different because the homework, the dicipline, the time they went to school, and the testing was very different.


 * Example 1-Homework**

19th Century-The homework was much less because the kids had to work on the farm and do their chores after school, so most of the work that they needed to do was done in school because their parents needed help around the house and the farm.

Now-We usually get two hours of homework to do because we don't need to help our parents with a lot of farm work because most of us don't live on a farm, so the teachers believe that homework is a vital part of our learning experience, so the tend to give us a lot of it.

http://www.osv.org/explore_learn/document_viewer.php?Action=View&DocID=822

19th Century-In the 19th Century the children were disciplined very differently. When the children misbehaved the teacher would use physical discipline by hitting the kids with a hickory switch or even really thick rulers for misbehaving or distrackting the other students.
 * Example 2-Dicipline**

Now-When students misbehave now, no physical discipline is allowed by the teachers because that is now outlawed, so the teachers would probably go to jail. Instead, children go to th principle's office, get a luchdetention, or an after school detention. For extremely bad cases, the children can become suspended, or even worse expelled.

http://www.osv.org/explore_learn/document_viewer.php?DocID=146


 * Example 3-Time they went to school**

19th Century-The children in the 19th century went to school mostly in the winter because they did farm work during the summer so they really only had time to go to school during the winter, which is not during the farming season.

Now-Now we go to school for about 10 months out of the year and have about a month break during the summer because most kids now a days don't live on a farm and they live in cities, so they don't need that time to go and work on the family farm.

http://www.osv.org/explore_learn/document_viewer.php?DocID=987


 * Example 4-Testing**

19th Century-The children were tested by standing up at the end of a school day to test what they have learned in that day at school. Kids very rarely took writen tests. Now-All of our tests are written to examine what we know. The reason for the test being written is so that the children can not hear what the other kids say and it makes it harder to cheat off of other people.

http://www.osv.org/explore_learn/document_viewer.php?DocID=143

From the evidence that I have collected I believe that it was much harder to be a child in the 19th century than now to go to school.
 * Conclusion**