10 dangerous things in Victorian/Edwardian homes (BBC)
The late Victorians and the Edwardians lived through a domestic revolution. Theirs was a bold and exciting age of innovation, groundbreaking discoveries and dramatic scientific changes, many of which altered life at home in profound ways - including some that were terrible and unforeseen, writes historian Dr Suzannah Lipscomb.
Much of their ingenuity was a response to the challenges of living in the newly booming cities - in 100 years, the urban population of Britain had leapt from two million in 1800 to 20 million at the turn of the 20th Century. By 1850, London was the biggest city the world had ever seen, and such enormous concentrations of people posed brand new problems of feeding, watering and housing the masses.
In addition, the newly enriched middle classes - whose incomes had risen as mass production meant the cost of necessities dropped dramatically - had more money to spend on luxuries than ever before, and those they purchased were designed to make their homes into comfortable, fashionable havens of domesticity.
Yet, many of the products they bought or inventive technological solutions they came up with were not only health hazards, but deadly domestic assassins. They were welcoming hidden killers into the heart of their homes.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25259505
Some of these may be familiar, some not. I certainly did not know about adding boric (aka boracic) acid to milk.
Warpy
(111,255 posts)They left out gas jets for lighting. Buildings in Boston still had the pipes running through the walls and were so damned old that nobody remembered where they were. While it made adding gas fireplaces easier when the building was yuppiefied, people found they had to strip plaster and lath off the walls to get to them--plaster that contained asbestos. Nobody back then designed things that could be fixed. You built them once and they would last until the end of time, i guess.
Early electricity was DC current. The MTA ran on it and they still supplied it to residential buildings to run the Edwardian era elevators.
However, the back staircases were as lethal here as they were in England. Navigating them cold sober in jeans was a challenge. I can't imagine doing it in a long skirt with an armload of laundry or cleaning supplies.
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)used to drink it to commit suicide, besides the chronic long-term effects.
Exploding toilets! Sounds messy and smelly... Eww.
eppur_se_muova
(36,262 posts)mercury poisoning left hatters mad as, well, hatters. Hence the "Mad Hatter" in Alice in Wonderland.
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)the GOP paradise of free market capitalism and absence of "government regulation".
bvar22
(39,909 posts)...that suit of Armour standing in the corner holding up a big battle axe
was kinda dangerous too.
Anybody who has ever seen a Vincent Price movie agrees with me.
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)They made progress, but then were in greater danger because of what they still didn't know.
Servants carrying things in long skirts down poorly designed steps! They don't show that in period pieces they make for TV. Might make an interesting subject.
jmowreader
(50,557 posts)People liked green wallpaper, or green accents in their wallpaper patterns. Problem is, the green pigment was a copper arsenate compound. If the paper got moldy - a common occurrence especially in England - the mold would create arsine gas, which will kill any poor bastard unlucky enough to have green wallpaper in his house.