Would you like to have lived in the 19th century?

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I know most of us wonder what it would have been like if we were to have lived in the 19th century, especially during the Civil War era. Due to continued medical advancement, some might say it is a more desirable time to live now, but I think there are pros and cons to both time periods. Would you like to have lived in the 19th century? What would you like to have witnessed, or who is a person you would like to have met?
 
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Probably not in the cities . On Mackinac Island , Michigan there are no motorized vehicles allowed , so you get around by bike , by foot or by horse carriage . They have crews sweeping up the horse manure , but the smell never goes away completely in the town and the smell of horse urine is something not too pleasant either .

Still one of the best places to visit in the country. Simple, full of history, great food and for the most part, people.

To answer the question at hand though. I reflect on times I spent deployed overseas when the comforts of home, for the most part, weren't available.

In terms of healthcare and general hygiene, I'd rather be around today and leave the 19th century in the dust. No A/C or heat. Had I been wounded, I'd rather have helicopters to MEDEVAC me and be treated at a hospital than have a "doctor" amputate the wounded area.

One thing I did love about being deployed was the lack of phones and internet. There's something romantic about writing and receiving correspondence. The excitement you feel when receiving mail is unrivaled when you have no other means of long distance communication. I could certainly do without the drama and hatefulness I see on TV or social media so chalk one up for the 19th century there.

I think both sides have an argument here but at the end of the day, I'd probably hang tight here because the pro's outweigh the cons.
 
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It is easy to spin a slight twist on the time theme. There have been some 3 or 4 recent discoveries of tribal groups in the Amazon that had never been in contact with civilization. How these tribes must feel when they are first met by the outside world is a wonder. They live in a time from long ago, now in the present day. They seem to wish it to be their time not ours, regardless of all the new wave gimmicks. There is one island near Java that is totally peopled by tribal heritage, allowing no outsiders from the world. Just last year a missionary traveled to the island, ignoring advice and was immediately killed. No charges were ever brought against the tribesmen. It has always been death when the outside steps upon its shores. Whatever we are used to is the way should be.
Lubliner.
 
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It is easy to spin a slight twist on the time theme. There have been some 3 or 4 recent discoveries of tribal groups in the Amazon that had never been in contact with civilization. How these tribes must feel when they are first met by the outside world is a wonder. They live in a time from long ago, now in the present day. They seem to wish it to be their time not ours, regardless of all the new wave gimmicks. There is one island near Java that is totally peopled by tribal heritage, allowing no outsiders from the world. Just last year a missionary traveled to the island, ignoring advice and was immediately killed. No charges were ever brought against the tribesmen. It has always been death when the outside steps upon its shores. Whatever we are used to is the way should be.
Lubliner.

Sounds like the Sentinelese on North Sentinel Island in the Indian Ocean. They know were all here but you try to make contact with them, you're met with hostility. I'm all in on leaving them and their island alone. If they've made it this long, no need to interrupt their way of living. It's intriguing to me.
 
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One thing I did love about being deployed was the lack of phones and internet. There's something romantic about writing and receiving correspondence. The excitement you feel when receiving mail is unrivaled when you have no other means of long distance communication. I could certainly do without the drama and hatefulness I see on TV or social media so chalk one up for the 19th century there.
Yes, I agree with that! But it is possible to introduce this less frantic aspect into your life without joining the army. I am probably the only person in Maine without a cell phone/smart phone because one of the pleasures in life is getting away from the telephone. I don't have a (working) TV because there really isn't much worth watching (the only programs I'd watch are on the Web, anyway). And I do without many kitchen appliances because, when one needs to think out a point, there's nothing like tedious, repetitive work.

But I couldn't do without the computer!
 
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As so many others have said, lack of medical care, inadequate sanitation, and various social strictures of the times are a few of the reasons I wouldn't want to live in the 19th​ Century. But as others have also said, if it were possible to go back in time for a visit, I would go without hesitation. I'd like to spend a year in a typical 19th​ Century small town or farming community near such a place. I'm most interested in not only what people did every day—how the dressed, worked, ate, entertained themselves when possible, socialized—but especially how they thought. I keep wondering what was it like to live before people were bombarded around the clock with a deluge of information and noise that overwhelms anyone's ability to comprehend it all? What did the passage of time feel like when the only means of communication was in person or by mail? When the only means of transportation was by horse, or by foot, railroad, or boat? Did people feel a greater or lesser emotional connection to others? Were people more patient, knowing that a response to an urgent question would have to come by mail—rather than impatiently listening to music on hold on a telephone call? How did it feel to measure the passage of a season only by the work done each day and the changing weather? We can surmise much about people's daily concerns and joys from letters and diaries, but we can never know what living day-to-day felt like when their experience of time was so different from our own. I'd like to know about that, and then I'd happily return to the 21st​ Century!
 
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As so many others have said, lack of medical care, inadequate sanitation, and various social strictures of the times are a few of the reasons I wouldn't want to live in the 19th​ Century. But as others have also said, if it were possible to go back in time for a visit, I would go without hesitation. I'd like to spend a year in a typical 19th​ Century small town or farming community near such a place. I'm most interested in not only what people did every day—how the dressed, worked, ate, entertained themselves when possible, socialized—but especially how they thought. I keep wondering what was it like to live before people were bombarded around the clock with a deluge of information and noise that overwhelms anyone's ability to comprehend it all? What did the passage of time feel like when the only means of communication was in person or by mail? When the only means of transportation was by horse, or by foot, railroad, or boat? Did people feel a greater or lesser emotional connection to others? Were people more patient, knowing that a response to an urgent question would have to come by mail—rather than impatiently listening to music on hold on a telephone call? How did it feel to measure the passage of a season only by the work done each day and the changing weather? We can surmise much about people's daily concerns and joys from letters and diaries, but we can never know what living day-to-day felt like when their experience of time was so different from our own. I'd like to know about that, and then I'd happily return to the 21st​ Century!
Exactly !

And a time when people weren't policed like we are now and one's word and reputation really counted; where much business was done with the shake of hands. No personal ID, no insurance (well, not for most), no birth certificate or death certificate, very little involvement for the average person with government, maybe no bank account. And a much closer connection the natural world. These days people buy food and have no idea where it came from. While I still think the negatives were many not everything was worse than it is now; I think we've lost some civility and mental composure along the way.
 
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I think about living in the 19th all the time. Actually, I have since I was a young. It mostly stems from my interest in the CW, thinking about being a soldier in the army, marching, battles, what the generals voices may have sounded like. I also think about if I could handle the physical life style. I have worked out all my life, sports, sprinting, MMA... yet I truly wonder if I could make a 30 mile march then fight a battle... all while on 2 hours sleep and with no shoes. The things those men on both sides accomplished during that war truly fascinates me. Always has.
 
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I always wondered what it would be like to be with the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804 when the frontier west of the Mississippi River was still a pristine wilderness without fences, railroad tracks, roads, power lines, and the Missouri River was a free flowing river and the endless horizon of the Great Plains, when there were herds of bison in the hundreds of thousands. If there's any point in time in the 19th Century I could travel back to, it would be with the Corps of Discovery on the Missouri River in 1804 even though it was brutally hot and hordes of mosquitoes and other flies they were constantly battling as they pulled and poled that keelboat through the river that was muddy and logs and sawyers floating by that they had to continually work their way through
 
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I always wondered what it would be like to be with the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804 when the frontier west of the Mississippi River was still a pristine wilderness without fences, railroad tracks, roads, power lines, and the Missouri River was a free flowing river and the endless horizon of the Great Plains, when there were herds of bison in the hundreds of thousands. If there's any point in time in the 19th Century I could travel back to, it would be with the Corps of Discovery on the Missouri River in 1804 even though it was brutally hot and hordes of mosquitoes and other flies they were constantly battling as they pulled and poled that keelboat through the river that was muddy and logs and sawyers floating by that they had to continually work their way through
But you would have to have knowledge of today to be able to appreciate the way you were seeing everything. Otherwise it would just be a hard slough.
 
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I think I would be happy living in Concord, Massachusetts in the 1860s near Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House or in Brunswick, Maine
Yes, I can see that. It would be possible to live happily without knowing how they'd be in the future because, even today, those places are lovely. The intellectual (if that isn't too pompous a word) of Concord would be great. Brunswick not so much but, after the war, Joshua Chamberlain settled back in Brunswick where he had a circle of good friends; they'd boat out to the camp of one of them (it may have been that of the General himself) where they'd sit solving the problems of the world.
 
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It would be exciting and thrilling to also experience traveling in a covered wagon with oxen on the Oregon Trail in 1848 too. I haven't come across too many detailed books on the Oregon Trail but there are a few books about the tragedy of the Donner Party. That certainly was a horrific experience.
Cholera was a huge killer on the Oregon Trail though. Lots of lives would have been saved if they had just understood bacteria better. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/cholera-a-trail-epidemic.htm
 
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If I had gone back in my family's country, I'd probably have been a seaman! As long as I didn't know what I was missing by not living in 2021, I don't think it would have been too bad. Except that--like Admiral Nelson--I'm prone to being sea-sick on the first day out. :smile:
Imagine being a seaman or a gunner aboard a sailing ship in Her Majesty's Navy at the Battle of the Nile or the Battle of Trafalgar or even being aboard the ironclad Monitor facing the Merrimac. That must have been uncomfortable for the crew because once the Monitor was at sea, ventilators failed and the ship was filled gas that made some of the crew grow faint
 
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Cholera was a huge killer on the Oregon Trail though. Lots of lives would have been saved if they had just understood bacteria better. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/cholera-a-trail-epidemic.htm
There's always something, isn't there? Perhaps the solution would be to have something like the Tardus from the old Dr. Who series so that one could come and go at will--enjoy the good and take off when the bad set it (under the rules of Dr. Who, it was forbidden to interfere).
 
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