For a large part of this year, I worked full time at a living history site as a costumed historical interpreter. This was something I absolutely dreamed about growing up, but never thought I would actually have the opportunity to do. I have always loved history (I’ve written before about how I’m drawn to old things) so this was something I was really excited about. As a historical interpreter, I got to wear historical clothing, work in historic homes, spin wool, quilt, sew, cross stitch, bake in a wood burning oven, garden, and a whole host of other things as I greeted guests, shared information, and answered questions about daily life in the 19th century. Here are some of my biggest takeaways after six months of immersing myself in the 19th century.

1. Yes, it’s hot. If you are hot in your t-shirt and shorts, then I am hot, too. But probably not much hotter than you. Next time you are speaking to someone in historical clothing, instead of asking about the temperature, might I suggest you ask them to tell you about their clothing and its layers. Historical clothing is amazing. It’s designed exceptionally well. Natural fibers (which were really the only fibers available historically) are excellent at regulating your temperature because they are breathable and can even wick moisture away from your body to help keep you cool in the summer. When it cools down, wool in particular has some amazing properties that make it waterproof. I worked through a very rainy spring season, and all I needed to protect myself and my dress was a wool bonnet and a wool shawl. They kept me completely dry. Later in the summer, with my lightweight dress, even the heat stayed pretty manageable most of the time. I worked in all kinds of weather ranging from 30 to 100+ degrees and I lived to tell the tale. People had ways of dealing with less then ideal weather.
2. No, but really, it’s hot. Yes. Yes, it is. No, there was no air conditioning. Yes, people in the past must have been very warm in the summer. Yes, yes, yes. But there are a few things to keep in mind. Homes were often quite well insulated. Some, especially in warmer climates, used adobe brick, which is an exceptional insulator. There was one home at the site I worked that used straw mixed with the plaster that covered the walls to add another bit of insulation. Some homes had especially thick walls which can also help with insulation. Designing multiple doorways across from each other to allow for strong cross-breezes (a true, true blessing on warm days) seems to have been pretty standard practice. A simple hand fan is remarkably effective at taking the edge off the heat. They had ways of managing the heat.
3. Respect the intelligence and contributions of our predecessors. We like to sort of poke fun at the way people lived in the past, at common practices that are “gross” or ridiculous to us today. We sometimes forget that everything we know now is the result of thousands and thousands of years of accumulated human knowledge and effort, so please, don’t belittle that. People have always reached for the best that was available to them. Instead of thinking of them as primitive or naive, maybe try to focus more on the incredible things they were able to achieve with very few resources. Also remember, things that make no sense to us now made perfect sense within the scope of knowledge people had at the time. The theory of the four humours is a good example of that. When there was literally no possible way for people to be aware of viruses and bacteria, humoral theory is as good as another, right? And if that is the only way you have of understanding human health, then the system they created around it makes perfect sense. It would make perfect sense why you would prescribe, for example, cucumbers to someone who had a fever. The scope of human knowledge is always changing and always fallible, and I guarantee that there are things we do or believe today that will inspire guffaws and eyerolls in the future, so let’s not feel too superior to our predecessors because they used bloodletting or because they contaminated drinking water so egregiously.
4. Life has always been hard. (Right little ray of sunshine, aren’t I?) One of the most common things people would say to me after I presented information was some variant of, “I could never do that. I could never live then.” I would usually smile and sometimes say something along the lines of, “Well, it was a lot of work, but it has always taken a lot of work to survive – even now.” I wanted to get that point across to guests. Yes, life in the Middle Ages was a lot of work. Life in the Renaissance was a lot of work. Life in the 19th century was a lot of work. Life in 2019 takes a lot of work. Same with Ancient Greece, Classical Rome, Restoration Britain, the Edwardian era, the 1960s, and the Ancient Mesopotamia. It has always taken a lot of work, but you do what it takes to survive – whether that means plowing fields for 16 hours three days in a row, or sitting in front of a computer for nine hours followed by a two-hour commute. We do what we have to do. Why do we act like it was any different for our ancestors?
5. There is value to understanding connections and where items come from. There is a widespread lack of understanding when it comes to raw materials and their origins. Even most adults I spoke with knew very little about how fabric is made, for example,

   

   and a shocking number of people do not really make the connection between the pig they see at the livery and the bacon they have for breakfast. I am deeply convinced that these connections and the understanding of raw materials have a real (though indefinable) value that has been lost. I certainly include myself in this – even with something as simple as knowing what fruits and vegetables look like when they first come out of the ground! When I harvested some onions this summer, they looked so different from the onions I’m used to just buying at the store, that they felt entirely unfamiliar.
6. People were cleaner than you think. We often have this idea of the past that people were frankly disgusting – dirty, following terrible hygiene standards, and so on. Yes, hygiene has changed over time, but there were pretty much always hygienic standards that were followed by most (but not all) people, just like today. For example, a quick scrub with a dry cloth in the morning was widely used in place of bathing in the Tudor times, and a thorough combing was used to clean the hair. Both techniques are quite effective. (Just ask Ruth Goodman.) Yes, hygiene looked a little different than it does today, but let’s get away from thinking of our predecessors as wallowing in filth. Let’s give them some credit.
7. It is as easy to romanticize the past as it is to scorn it. Neither is a particularly constructive way of viewing history. The past (no matter what era you point to) was incredible. It was also horrific. Both of these things are true. History, and the people who have gone before us, deserve that complexity to be acknowledged and honored.
8. The past is not a single story any more than the present is. I tried to avoid using absolutes when I was sharing information with guests. The truth is that it simply isn’t accurate to say that something was always the case or was never the case. Experience varied just as much in the past as it does today. Geographic location, socioeconomic status, religion, race, and gender are just some examples of variables that impacted every day life in the 19th century and in every period. The best we can do is to describe what we think was “typical” or “usual.” There is no single story that represents daily life in the past. Again, honor and acknowledge that.
9. Infrastructure matters. People sometimes point out that we rely so much on things that haven’t been around that long. Think of how difficult everything becomes when the power goes out. Or the sheer panic when you realize you’ve left your phone at home. But it’s not that we’re just lazy or soft. It’s that our infrastructure now is literally built around these things. It’s a big deal when you leave your phone at home because (just as one example), road systems are more complex now than they used to be and you haven’t memorized every route to get where you’re trying to go, and therefore planned to use Google Maps. Historically, you were likely to spend most of your life in a much smaller geographic area, and there were fewer roads and ways to get lost anyway. This concept extends to the way our days are structured as well. We may look at daily life in the past and marvel at how much time was spent simply preparing and cooking food. But today, we have to do our cooking in and around our other commitments – most especially full-time jobs that realistically take about 10 hours out of our day. It’s not that we’re not willing to cook (at least not only that) – it’s that our days are no longer structured around it the way they often were in the past. These kinds of things matter. Things that seem like they would have been difficult or painstaking about historical daily life likely weren’t. They were the norm, and were supported by infrastructure (whether physical, cultural, or economic).

Bonus: No, there was no indoor plumbing. (You’d be surprised how often this was a shocking piece of information.)

I still have a lot to learn, but these are just some things that were on my mind frequently throughout my time in the 19th century.