My grandfather always read us the story of "The Little Match Girl" by Hans Christian Anderson every year at Christmas. He never could finish reading it, by the last few pages his voice was so choked with tears it was barely audible. He would sit with us, hug us and cry. He was so tender-hearted the thought of a child suffering made him weep. The story is so sad but also full of hope. It's beautiful, yet heart breaking. I miss his sweet soul daily.
I'm a retired nurse. It was normal to work 14 hour shifts on my feet. In one hospital, I literally had to run the whole time. I wore a pedometer for a while and learned I was covering, on average, 36 miles a day. I had to cover more than a marathon every time I went to work. And people wonder why nursing shortages come up.
"harsh fines on things like sitting down, being untidy [...] or even just going to the toilet without permission." So she was a Victorian era Amazon warehouse worker. Got it!
@@skyeef4351 just because we cannot disagree with you guys without being torn down on reactionary social media, doesn't mean that I canmot disagree on that matter. There was also white slavery, people from the poorhouses, coal miners, chimney sweeps and many, many more, that were indentured to the same type of life of a POC slave. Even corporal punishment was not spared on them if they stepped out of line. You just learn the history as it's convenient for you...
lets never forget that working conditions only improved because of unions! corporations would still be treating workers like this if it was up to them! no company is moral, at least, not for long.
@@AP-su9oc Work stoppages had nothing to do with it? Poor productivity and sloppy work did not exist? Foreign competition won because Brits were putting out rubbish in the rare instances they were building anything.
@@4jp dude it doesn’t matter if the products where quality or not. Companies are in the business of making money, and if they can cut their expenses they will. Chinese products are not know for quality, they are known for being cheap. And yet they are the most dominant manufacturer
@@AP-su9oc If British businessman were patriotic?? If British citizens were patriotic they would only buy products made in Britain instead of only buying things for the lowest price. They did it to themselves.
It puzzles me how little men thought of women's capabilities when they had a woman as reigning Queen for decades. You'd think that would've put out of puff in their chests. So confusing.
@Okiroshi Yes, but she was a very successful queen and did bring a lot of prosperity. I'd expect her accomplishments to speak for the capabilities of women to men, but sadly it was not so.
I imagine they considered the queen to be on a different level with different standards, thanks to, you know, her being to queen. She was royalty and therefore SHE could be capable and powerful, but “normal” women couldn’t be. Or something like that. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time people made up some rationalization to justify maintaining in a certain worldview even when the facts contradict it...
@@sherryyyberryyy235 Okayyy. Even if they were republican-owned, they’d still be making a profit with those same ideals because both parties are capitalist. 😂
I am not British, but I am ken to find out how Britain turned from the ruler of the world to a nonfactor. It didn't happen in a day. Britain more and more oppose the very reason that made it rich: capitalism. You may say UK is still capitalist country. Not the same free society it used to be. The same as EU countries. They forgot what made them rich. The decline will continue if there is anything left. Adam Smith made UK rich and strong. His descendants destroyed it.
@@sherryyyberryyy235Trump hates democrats. Do you think when he had the tax reform written, that he would do it knowing the top profiting business in our country ,would pay zero in taxes for 2018 and 19 AND ALSO BE DEMOCRAT? They followed his lead after all.Along with many others. They are above paying taxes. - Or how did he say that again? Oh that's right, "smart". Lol - parasites
Actual photographs, sketches, drawings from the period are so rare in those vids.. I've stopped the narration countless times just to take in the "otherness" of the people, postures and settings. Good work!
Daniel, I agree! However, you need to realize that many of the pictures shown here are not from the Victorian era but are much more recent. Still, it is a very interesting documentary.
I just wish they weren't accompanied with silly dialogue or silly sound effects. The photographs are remarkable on their own, and the comedic sounds just come off cheap
"If Sarah ever got sick, tough luck. The factory was perfectly entitled to discard her like a spent match." Sounds a lot like how American businesses can treat employees still today.
spot on, I've personally experienced a disturbing trend of firings despite showing up on time, professionally dressed and while putting solid effort into every thing I do for work.
That is unbelievable! Where have you heard that? You cannot truly believe that Americans work under that same conditions as these folks in the 1800's. There are people all over the world that live and work in terrible sweat shop, sex trafficking. Do not compare American business to that.
Beer quenches thirst while also providing calories. It sort of acted like an early form of Gatorade. The people in olden times were expending thousands and thousands of kilocalories per day. They needed a cheap source of fuel. Bread and beer/ale filled that role for hundreds of years.
She's right. milk wasn't pasteurized, and the water came from wells dug right next to the outhouses, or from streams that were full of sewage and chemicals.
When I was a kid, I read a story from a children's book entitled the The Match Stick Girl. It was the 1st time I read a sad story because she died in the cold with a basket full of matches and an empty stomach. She finally got to feast endlessly when she passed on with the food she could only dream of eating when she looked through the glass windows of warm homes. 😭
i like that line at 2:07, "Because the unsung heroes who REALLY put the 'Great' into Great Britain, were just the ordinary folk who had to cope with the dramatic changes the world has ever seen."
How did men and women ever time time to meet anyone outside their own family? You'd think no one would have time to have a relationship or let alone having children.
It actually makes me wonder if that's why the practice of arranged marriages weren't fought as much. I mean if you wanted to get married and have children, you probably appreciated any help in finding a person to marry. At least in some of the cases
I think love and lust was a distraction form all the hard work, so it was actually relatively prominent. I mean when all you do is work, with no distractions present, sex is a good way to let off steam and love is a good pass time
From a long line of Lancs and Mancs. Can confirm this was a thing. Also the coal mining industry is the reason motorcycles were and are so big in the north of England
My 5th Great Welsh Grandmother worked in the mines. She left behind a life story. Her husband adored her and she him. It was a true love story. His co workers would say to him, "If anything happens to you, I am going to marry your Mary!" He was sadly killed in a mine accident and though she raised 7 of his children alone she never did remarry:)
Smart smart Woman. She knew how men could be…not all were bad, but surely she heard and saw the suffering of other women and didn’t want to allow that kind of torment into her home.
I’m an American, but I absolutely love Tony Robinson, he is one of my all time favorite television hosts. I think he could make anything super fun and interesting lol.
I'm impressed that people could cope to live with 16 hour workdays (in horrible workplaces), then doing nothing but chores on your day off. There's literally no time to live or enjoy life. It's a wonder that everyone didn't just off themselves, that seems like a enjoyable option in comparison.
You should watch the Most Dangerous Ways to School documentary series to really have your mind blown. The daily life of the school kids is insane, and they’re modern stories. They’ll literally walk/climb hours a morning on treacherous terrain or in extreme weather, go to class, do the trip again, do chores and/ or go to work, do homework, and go to bed. Rinse and repeat. It’s always really sad when the teachers talk about how much they’re struggling in school, because they deserve a fair go at education :(.
@Eduard Medrea same issue as right now. Office workers in mental works are shown to be much more productive on 6hr shifts max, yet many employers would rather have them for 12hr shifts as long as they didnt have to pay more. In the industrial revolution there were some businessmen who improved productivity greatly by improving labor conditions, but it didnt catch on because most businessmen were/are rather shortsighted. Profits now, worry about accidents/mistakes/burnout later.
one of the reasons for that is that they didn't know there was an actual life to live and enjoy, have hobbies, days off, etc... all they knew about life was to go to work, humans have been brainwashed for so many generations. Also, those who knew there was more to life were few but eventually the unions were created and people started demanding better conditions. If it wasn't for that we'd all still be living on 16+ hours of labour a day :/
That's literally what people _still_ have to cope with in certain jobs. I was a CNA for 7 years, and during that time I worked 14-16 hour shifts, 6 days a week. I was paid minimum wage the whole time and never saw a cent of overtime pay. Is that legal? Probably not. But I would have lost my job if I tried to report it, so I kept my head down and kept working. The only reason I was able to get out of that hell was because my parents were willing to let me move back in with them after I quit and supported me while I looked for another job.
This era sounds scary. I'm surprised that my great grandparents and grandparents survived through all the daily deadly tasks and lived til their 80's and 90's.
Mine survived by living in the countryside and running a small farm. Fewer things trying to kill you there. Provided your bull isn't trying to kill you of course
People were a HELL of a lot tougher back them, because everything wasn't done for them. Most western countries wouldn't survive an attack today. Ya ready??
People say that in the past life was so much better, the proof being that people lived long lives. Yeah, they were the lucky few with a train of dead people behind them. When my grandfather was born in 1897 his life expectancy was 49 years. He lived to be 88.
"These girls are working in the mines, crawling for 14 hours staright in near darkeness, we must do something about it" "I don't see the problem, frankly..." "They are partially nude sir" *Monocle pops off, jaw drops*
My dad’s mom and dad were trained tailors from Liverpool and got the heck out of England in the early 1900’s and made their way to Toronto Canada. They made a small fortune and my dad grew up in relative luxury. That would never have been possible had they remained back home.
Toronto then, while not perfect by any means, would have had much cleaner air and water than Liverpool or London, a more sanitary place on the whole. Your grandparents made a good choice I think.
Yeah, my grandmother was a refugee in the UK from Estonia and moved to Vancouver, Canada during WW2. I just spent three long years in England. I was not a fan of the place and way too crowded! I missed the big mountains.
Sarah's life was a living hell. The constant danger and awful work conditions which offcourse nothing was done about. The horrific sexism and torture of work hours and literally no rest would have killed me mentally first. Then all the work the women had to do at home without thanks or a break. I'm glad the women who worked as match girls did strike and stand up for the right to a decent working environment. Not that the Victorian Glaswegians had it much easier. Disease and sewage rampant and cleaning it 12hrs a day non stop by shifting 20tonnes of earth for 25p. Shit what are we complaining about?
@@feralbluee Yes, society is sorely lacking in class consciousness these days. Working class people need it, and feminists need, like we had in the 70s (look up the strike Icelandic women went on).
...sexism? ...what about the mistreated boys and men? You're a joke. You didn't even know or care about this before this video. The sexism lied in women being "protected" from the workplace rather than have their workplace reformed. Women's Suffrage was responsible for most of these women to change into Prostitution. Get out of here with your wrongly placed sexism when it was elite women of first-wave Feminism that unemployed hard-working women because, they didn't want to break a sweat like their governor daddy and wanted to vote without property for no reason. Not because, women were actually losing their limbs nor for women to expand job opportunities.
I'm from Knoydart Scotland and I was told about the horrible jobs my grandfather Alistar Wallace had to do just to help out after the first world war... not as bad as these jobs but close. I pray for these poor kids that had to works and suffer
These jobs and how I was raised serve me well. I wish everyone would learn. We are all human...when I was bean I was told gender doesnt matter... wealth and Status may be nice regards to a full belly and a nice house... what you do for those that are in need mean most.... pray for those just trying to feed their birth and be humble and provide for others. Working class is the most responsible and respective in my eyes
Aside from the better pay and conditions the radium girls thought they had...they were allowed to sit and have a lunch break, go to the toilet etc but they were ingesting horrific poison that killed or disfigured them 😔😨
I am absolutely thrilled for this to be on here. Cannot wait to watch them all!!! Finding his worst jobs episodes back about 9 years ago, as a American was absolutely life changing.
My grandfather worked in the coal mines when he was 12. My dad told me that he would drive the mules pulling the coal cars and got paid 10 cents a load. This was around 1920.
I have so much respect for every single one of these people. And I thank this man for not only respecting the men but respecting the women involved too
Those poor matchstick girls remind me of the radium girls. They developed a very similar condition through their constant contact with radium paint, which they used to paint "luminous" watch face dials. They were trained to make fine points on their brushes by rolling the brush between their lips. The radium would then absorb into their body and acted very much like calcium, so it slowly replaced the calcium (often in their faces, but in other parts, too). Ultimately, their face bones were riddled with holes and would shatter or fall out. The poor women suffered horribly. But despite the company's knowledge that radium was very deadly, they were never told...just like the poor matchstick girls. So sad.
7:07 Up until this time "the fastest thing around had four legs and ate straw." Horses are fed various grains and hay, ideally allowed to graze on grass. Straw is what's left over when certain crops, like oats and wheat are harvested. It has no nutritional value but is good as animal bedding. Hay is long grass that is grown, cut, allowed to dry before being stored. It's essential food for horses, cattle and other animals who otherwise aren't given access to pasture or browse. Hay doesn't make good bedding and straw isn't good as animal feed.
@@yashironene7904 Despite the misleading title this is not entirely about match girls. OP's comment is in response to a quote in the video's final segment.
GOD. I hate when this sort of thing happens in vids. Like the host carelessly says a word that they think is interchangable with another, and to someone with the particular knowledge it's So Annoying. #1 example for me is how many people don't know the difference between poisonous and venemous. 😩😩😩 The burden of knowledge.
Yeah I meant this is just the western, sort of white imperialistic idea of what is advanced. "If you don't live how we do, you're backward heathens blablabla". I feel like a lot of people today still think this way. Other countries, other cultures who have different ways of living aren't any less advanced, just live differently. There are cultures that are kind to the environment, where people don't eat sugar and have healthy teeth. Maybe they could learn from such cultures instead of looking down on them.
The very reason why I clicked this video in the first place. I thought it was about those match girls that we heard in the story of the Little Match Girl.
Oh my gosh, the cliffhanger! What happened when Edwin got back to his wife?? I've obviously seen too many crime documentaries, cause as soon as they say she didn't budge, I figured she was dead.
I found some info on www.edwinwaughdialectsociety.com/waugh.html. It says that Edwin's wife moved back in in 1850 and they separated permanently in 1855. So thankfully, his wife, Mary Ann was not dead as it seems from how they phrased it in the show.
When he said she wouldn't budge, I thought she somehow died in her sleep from take your pick of the dangerous drugs and chemicals that were considered "healthy and safe."
ive learned so much history through the years with your voice narrating it, something so comforting in wandering through the ages with you. thank you for it all , cheers !
Next time I have a back ache from my sit down job, I'm going to remember those women crawling on their hands and knees 14 hours per day. Can you imagine?
16:10 "we don't have any photos of her, but she might have looked like this lass holding a giant tambourine" what lass?? what tambourine???? lol it's a blurred image
Same thing for Sweden ( Railroads , Göta Kanal etc. . .www.gotakanal.se/en/the-gota-canal-history/gota-canal-history/ ) , and in many other countries . But history is , most of the time , about the ruling classes . . . :O) .
@@RattusSwedicus or anywhere there were factories or mining. Indentured servants were also slaves. they could be sold for what THEY OWED their "owners" for paying for passage over here and anything they broke or otherwise did wrong. a lot of them never did get out of debt. anyone remember this song? "You load 16 tons and what do you get? another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don't you call me, i can't go. I owe my life to the Company Store." coal miners. . . Tennesee Earnie Ford, (1955), Johnny Cash. . .
Same! He shook her to wake and she didn't get up, I was like "oh no she died in her sleep" but then he went on his vacay and the video just ends???? 0_o weirded me out
Wow this sent back a flood of memories of this book our librarian read us in elementary school called ‘The Little Match Girl’ I was sad about it for weeks
I'd be really interested to see a series on the history of daily life of the lowest common denominator in the countries that Britain had under their control during this time. How was life for the average person in India when it was under British rule, for example? I love looking into the history of the non-elite, it's so easy to look over, but like you said, their backs were what the world rested on.
Honestly, probably not to different from living under the local Raj, or the Mugal dynasty or the Marata Confederacy. The poor suffer under the rich no matter the country or who is in power.
I agree, people talk about how the country is developing fast but the don’t mention how only half the population is moving up. For every one step up the disadvantaged seem to be moving two steps behind.
@@gigahorse1475 yeah in a lot of ways it is,im still missing the "more pointless our way of living seems" part....im curious what the poster ment,i mean there is definitely plenty about modern society that is pointless and arbitrary
@@robhogate2312 People who lived in those situations back then didn’t have the luxury of having existential crises. Today we have more time, energy, and resources to discover meaning in our lives. Not to diminish the fact that we still have our own struggles as well.
@@gigahorse1475 first you really think nobody back then questioned their lives??having an existential crisis has nothing to do with luxury....but i will concede that yes id assume its a way bigger problem these days,but i mean how many ppl are just faceless drones sitting in office buildings contributing nothing in the bigger scheme of things....going to do jobs that mean nothing in order to buy things they don't really need that will break with in a short time and be thrown away,masses roaming around especially in citys with no real skills to survive in life....the next generation being hobbled by the "adults" of society so they reach "adulthood" with even less tangible skills,back in the day by 15 16 they were capable of maintaining employment,households and families today ppl in there 30s 40s cant figure that out....the extreme forced conformity of society making ppl think and act alike because ppl who dare to stray from it are shunned and attacked,forcing them to hold these crappy pointless jobs in order to buy the right uniforms and the right toys....oh God then you get to those toys,technology has hurt society as much if not more then its helped Like i said there is definitely plenty pointless and arbitrary things about modern society....there was a lot bad about the past but there was also a lot that was good about it too,things that we have lost and need to bring back
40 hour work weeks leave you little time to enjoy your life and life is short and temporary. You're allowed to complain, be sad, and feel discouraged, and most importantly you're allowed to be happy. Be kind to yourself.
Complaining is the exact spirit they wanted though, not letting your employer force you to work your life away when you could be spending time with family is exactly what they did!
@@CRYSTALCLAWED these women spent more time working. That was the point of my comment. House work took hours. Just think of a washing clothes. You think they had time to spend with kids and husband? Now women get paid for their work. Not sure why that offends you. Now they have time to spend with their family when most of the day was spent doing house work. Edit: and now men are stepping up and doing house work. Which means women today have more time and money.
The whole Feminist movement is an insult to women. A woman's strength and importance that wasn't reformed with suffrage but, outright banned and unemployed women and girls to become whores on the street. They pretend women never worked with men for equal treatment and pay. Good or bad. They just favor one other the other. These women would laugh at where Feminism is today because, it fails to recognize these dark chapters in history for women.
The resilience of our ancestors is stunning. Even today I'm filled with thoughts of suicide, I don't know how you manage to go on when your life is nothing but suffering.
Sorry to hear this and hope you do well by now. But to answer your question, I think it's because they got too much work to contemplate about their life all too often. I assume, that's why people managed to do surprisingly well during these times....or experienced some kind of burnout and fell into alcoholism.
Honestly! As awful as it sounds, I just *don't* understand where these people got the will to live and keep working like this, even though it was extremely unlikely their life would ever get much better. (How they could convince themselves to bring children into the same life....)
Appalled by the factory's indifference to phossy jaw, the Salvation Army campaigned for the use of safer red phosphorous. I have one of their matchboxes, which says something about lighting the way to a safer life.
I read The Little Matchstick Girl by Hans Christian Andersen as a child. I read it to myself. And then I cried and cried and was depressed for days. After being used to Disney movies and cheerful kid's shows, I was absolutely stunned at what I was reading. That story had a permanent impact on me. To this day I can't read it without sobbing as a grown man. 30 seconds in and i go into full sob-mode. A mere mention of it and something gets tugged inside. There's a reason it was never made into a full feature film like Han's The Little Mermaid. Nobody would be able to sit through it undisturbed. You'd have people walking out of cinemas with panic attacks and wailing uncontrollably. It is "the" saddest story ever written. It has a lot of nuance to hit you in the feels in just the right way, with gentle and tender words that stick you like daggers. The fact that type of suffering really happened makes it even worse. The reality that story presents is a disgusting stain on humanity as a whole, to think that people are ok with exploiting each other, and to such extremes too.
This story is in our themepark over here as an attraction to listen and watch to story. It's in a fairytale forest and little children with their parents watch it.
There's other video about working in the mines in this era. Particularly about kids. The mine shafts were not fully open start to finish, every so often there were sets of doors, they used children to mind these doors. Girls as young as 7 would sit in the pitch-black for 12-hours waiting on a little bell or chime to tell them to open one door or the next as a cart rolled through. Fighting off rats trying to eat their lunch of bread and cheese or biting them in the dark.
I have that book and read it twice (in English). It's an early social realism novel - and it's shockingly well written, you ARE in the corridors in the mines with endless tons of mountain on top of you. Then there are the horses who work and are stabled underground....they go blind after a few years in the pitch black. The living conditions are also vividly described.
@@maxdecphoenix longnosed factory owners just putting the white people into slavery on the excuse of wages without which they wouldve starved. Nothing ever changed
But it was reality, for a long time. So appreciate what ordinary people did for ordinary people today. It was a long fight for equality, child labour and lots more, even for animals was terrible.
Love you guys and your videos so much, an accounting of the realities in history is something we are taught so little of growing up and it's really sad to hear how hard things could be for regular people. It's important to learn as the same patterns play out in different ways in our modern lives.
100 years from now they will make a documentary about "Why every british documentary starts with the presenter talking and walking towards the camera and i hope to be here for it.
It’s Angus & crew that made civil life possible. My Great-Great-Great Grandfather came to Plymouth Colonies as an indentured servant from County Cork. He fought in the American Revolution and died an American. He earned his freedom and bought land in what is now Vermont. He and a Mr. Sergeant settled Chester, Vt and set current Vermont boundaries. I’m proud of my family history.
@Kabuki Kitsune the average age of entry into prostitution around the world nowadays is also between 12-14 years old, presumably younger (it's very hard to determine this)
This is around the period my ancestors immigrated to the states, and dug out a hill house on the frontier. With conditions like this back in Britain, I can see how living in a hole in the ground in the wilderness probably didn't seem that bad. Least they wouldn't die of poisoning, might work fewer hours too.
That Taxi idea is ingenious! Something so simple, but so effective! I truly admire these people, ordinary people, with barely any education, they lived in much harsher conditions with barely any time off, and they managed squeeze time to think of these amazing new ideas.
In the story "The McGregor Affair", set in 1800s Scotland, dramatized in the early 1960s on both "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" and Boris Karloff's "Thriller", one character was a different sort of "match girl"; she'd sing a little song about selling matches, then a man would pay a seemingly exorbitant price for one match and walk away with her. Given what she was really selling, her job came with a different, but just as formidable, set of dangers.
Hans Christian Anderson's story "The little match girl" is about an orphan who works on the streets selling matches for her living. She dies of exposure and starvation.
@@updownstate I don't think she wa san orphan? As I remember, she was scared to go home because she hadn't sold any matches and her father would punish her.
I'm a retired RN and it blew out my left shoulder and neck from holding up and squeezing IV fluid bags. I remember crying on the way both to and from work. I ended my career working in. Inpatient psychiatric units in 2 different state prisons, which was actually the best jobs I ever had. I had the most autonomy and was escorted on rounds and contacts by an officer. I never felt unsafe and the inmates would tell other guys to knock it off if they got mouthy. Glad I'm retired!!!
My mother use to yell me a story about the little match girl she sold matches and none would buy her matches and one night she was so cold she lit a match and saw her deceased grandmother and died from the cold and fire, I remember feeling terrible for this little girl, She told me that story almost 50 yrs ago and I still remember it
The whole idea we have today of Victorian ladies laying around on chaise lounges, tight-lacing their corsets to be fashionable, and arranging tea for visitors is just disgusting and disrespectful. Women were worked to the bone, just as much, if not more than men, all while being treated worse, having no rights, and often not being able to keep the money they earned. That money went to their abusive husbands or household patriarchs. It shows a lot when a society does not care that you’re being killed for your work, only that you aren’t wearing the right clothes while doing it, and shaming the women who would be in such levels of undress rather than the work that requires it.
The old ways of life tought people how to be tough and to live their lives with respect and discipline to value life and live long lives if they stayed healthy enough.
Programs like this always make me wonder what people a century or two from now will look back on from today and think we're behind the times when we think we're ahead of them.
With the rate of improvement in medical and life extension technologies, you might very well be around to see it. I hope I am. Despite it all, I try to be optimistic about the future. Things tend to improve over time because most people want better, and want better for everyone. Not all, but a solid majority.
@@Author.Noelle.Alexandria We're not even close to the carrying capacity of the solar system. A proper Kardashev 2 dyson swarm with O'neill cylinders and terraformed planets, all possible under known science and maybe even practical within a century or two (the O'neill cylinders part, terraforming is a centuries or millennia-long application of sheer brute force), has a carrying capacity measured septillions. Thar's just this solar ststem. Throw in the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, and the fact that we can conceive of propulsion systems that would make travel the galaxies in our local cluster also possible, and the seeming absence of any other life in the universe (there's something, somewhere, almost certaintly, but the Fermi Paradox is complicated), and we could conceivably support every human to ever live even if no one dies anymore, right up until the heat death of the universe. And hey, for anyone that decides that kind of a lifespan isn't for them, or if they get bored with life, there's always an exist stategy. Just stop using the life extension technology. Sorry, I just never get the "people aren't meant to live that long because it isn't natural" argument. Nothing in our modern world is natural. Even our "all-natural, non-GMO" crops were genetically modified by selective cultivation over generations. They're about as artificial as whatever building you're in, whatever device you're using to access the internet, and honestly, about as natural as you or I.
Love your show! The series is complete and I'm super grateful for that since I tried PBS Secrets if the Dead and Its bunk. They don't really have many videos. Speaking of mines, my dad got a summer job mining Uranium in Colorado. Que the bizarre songs about the Uranium Mining Fad in the early 50's (incredibly surreal ) So being a teen he chucked a stone in his pocket to keep, uranium seemed so Neat! It glowed. My gramps grabbed him and said, Boy, don't you go putting that in your pocket."
I love these Absolute History videos! They are very interesting, and Tony Robinson is a great presenter, and you can see how he really feels like he's going back to the Victorian era as he's telling us about it, helps make us feel we're going back there with him
My great great grandfather had x6 big shires horses that pulled beer wagons in London. Also some of my family brought shell fish on boats down the Thames to trade. My great grandmother had a grocery store.
If you haven't read the fairy tale "The little match girl" by H C Andersen, you should. It's a heartbreaking little story. Actually; I recommend reading all his stories if you haven't. They're so beautiful, but it feels like they're often overshadowed by their Disney adaptations.
I'm from Denmark, and a lot of us grew up being read these stories at evening, and still read them to our own children, they are beautiful as adult to read too, and his danish language is SO beautiful, So I somehow feel a little sorry for all the worlds people who can't read his original language, but has to read it in others
I have even read som of his fairytales being tranlsated to more modern danish, but it lacks his deep poetic sense, and very precise use of words, rythm etc
It is important to note that at the same time described by this documentary, Germany was establishing universal healthcare and welfare for the masses. England had no such concern for the masses. Germany was much more concerned for the masses than England at this time.
Wait....What happened to Mary Ann? I thought he was going to say, "...and when Edwin returned home, Mary Ann was still in bed, where he left her...though _now_ he realized she was stone cold..."...
I completely agree with your comment Randominter! I get very excited every time a notification pops up. It never fails to surprise me that there aren't more people commenting and liking on these videos. Not only are they informative but they're very interesting and Incredibly well made
@@sachadavid8410 (edited to correct spelling of other commenter's name) Hello Sacha! I never said I finished watching it I said that I agreed with the other poster about it being informative and interesting. I'm about to go and drive somewhere so I wanted to make sure the comment was posted since I don't text and drive or comment and drive! LOL I hope you have a wonderful day!
26:26 In the 1930's my Grandad worked for Gartsides brewery in Ashton under Lyne. He told me that a drayman was only paid by the brewery to deliver the keg to the pavement. If the pub didn't have a cellarman then they would pay the drayman in liquid form if he helped bring the kegs down to the cellar. Depending on the delivery run a drayman could have done a dozen drops a day. He told me of having seen one at the end of his shift fall 6' or 7' out of a steam wagon whilst asleep, still snoring as he lay on the ground!
My grandfather always read us the story of "The Little Match Girl" by Hans Christian Anderson every year at Christmas. He never could finish reading it, by the last few pages his voice was so choked with tears it was barely audible. He would sit with us, hug us and cry. He was so tender-hearted the thought of a child suffering made him weep. The story is so sad but also full of hope. It's beautiful, yet heart breaking. I miss his sweet soul daily.
It was the most heart-breaking story ever. I cried a river of tears as well.
He sounded wonderful
@@shable1436 Thank you, he was. The kindest and most gentle man that ever lived I believe.
Thank you. And him. I will look this book up.
@@DD-du9ip You will need tissues.
I'm a retired nurse. It was normal to work 14 hour shifts on my feet. In one hospital, I literally had to run the whole time. I wore a pedometer for a while and learned I was covering, on average, 36 miles a day. I had to cover more than a marathon every time I went to work. And people wonder why nursing shortages come up.
You also got paid way more than 16 pounds a weeks.
@David Wood Working those glutes, son.
Thank you for your service!
These replies suck ..l thank you for your work :)
I always wanted to take after my mom and be an RN but I can't even do an 8 hour shift on my feet, so I gave it up long ago
"harsh fines on things like sitting down, being untidy [...] or even just going to the toilet without permission."
So she was a Victorian era Amazon warehouse worker. Got it!
thought the same thing.
England ruled the world at the expense of making their own citizens worse than slaves.
@@Goodkidjr43 as a black person, I'm gonna have to say "calm down" to that one buddy.
😂😂
@@skyeef4351 just because we cannot disagree with you guys without being torn down on reactionary social media, doesn't mean that I canmot disagree on that matter.
There was also white slavery, people from the poorhouses, coal miners, chimney sweeps and many, many more, that were indentured to the same type of life of a POC slave. Even corporal punishment was not spared on them if they stepped out of line.
You just learn the history as it's convenient for you...
lets never forget that working conditions only improved because of unions! corporations would still be treating workers like this if it was up to them! no company is moral, at least, not for long.
And unions killed off much of British industry in the 20th century. Turns out that everyone is selfish.
@@AP-su9oc Work stoppages had nothing to do with it? Poor productivity and sloppy work did not exist? Foreign competition won because Brits were putting out rubbish in the rare instances they were building anything.
@@4jp dude it doesn’t matter if the products where quality or not. Companies are in the business of making money, and if they can cut their expenses they will. Chinese products are not know for quality, they are known for being cheap. And yet they are the most dominant manufacturer
@@4jp you're delusional and have been brainwashed.
@@AP-su9oc If British businessman were patriotic?? If British citizens were patriotic they would only buy products made in Britain instead of only buying things for the lowest price. They did it to themselves.
It puzzles me how little men thought of women's capabilities when they had a woman as reigning Queen for decades. You'd think that would've put out of puff in their chests. So confusing.
@Okiroshi Yes, but she was a very successful queen and did bring a lot of prosperity. I'd expect her accomplishments to speak for the capabilities of women to men, but sadly it was not so.
"Reigning" doesn't mean "running."
@@avengerscap It means she held the role of Queen and as Queen she did do good things for the country.
I imagine they considered the queen to be on a different level with different standards, thanks to, you know, her being to queen. She was royalty and therefore SHE could be capable and powerful, but “normal” women couldn’t be. Or something like that. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time people made up some rationalization to justify maintaining in a certain worldview even when the facts contradict it...
@Okiroshi bringing prosperity to the people =/= bringing prosperity to the country. And if you don’t believe me, just look at Margaret Thatcher.
this must be where amazon got its employee management ideas.
This is like the 3rd Amazon comment like this I’ve seen. All I can say to that is democrat owned & ran. Get used to it I do suppose.
@@sherryyyberryyy235 Okayyy. Even if they were republican-owned, they’d still be making a profit with those same ideals because both parties are capitalist. 😂
I am not British, but I am ken to find out how Britain turned from the ruler of the world to a nonfactor. It didn't happen in a day. Britain more and more oppose the very reason that made it rich: capitalism. You may say UK is still capitalist country. Not the same free society it used to be. The same as EU countries. They forgot what made them rich. The decline will continue if there is anything left. Adam Smith made UK rich and strong. His descendants destroyed it.
@@sherryyyberryyy235Trump hates democrats. Do you think when he had the tax reform written, that he would do it knowing the top profiting business in our country ,would pay zero in taxes for 2018 and 19 AND ALSO BE DEMOCRAT? They followed his lead after all.Along with many others. They are above paying taxes. - Or how did he say that again? Oh that's right, "smart". Lol - parasites
I was about to say..this reminds me of amazon warehouse! xD
Actual photographs, sketches, drawings from the period are so rare in those vids.. I've stopped the narration countless times just to take in the "otherness" of the people, postures and settings. Good work!
yes me too, fascinating!
I hear that. Love old non posed photographs.
Daniel, I agree! However, you need to realize that many of the pictures shown here are not from the Victorian era but are much more recent. Still, it is a very interesting documentary.
I just wish they weren't accompanied with silly dialogue or silly sound effects. The photographs are remarkable on their own, and the comedic sounds just come off cheap
@@TJ-bu9zk , I completely agree! I stopped watching after a while because of the silly comments and sound effects!
"If Sarah ever got sick, tough luck. The factory was perfectly entitled to discard her like a spent match." Sounds a lot like how American businesses can treat employees still today.
Literally not true, take your privilege elsewhere. Complain when you’re working in sweatshops and have no rights.
spot on, I've personally experienced a disturbing trend of firings despite showing up on time, professionally dressed and while putting solid effort into every thing I do for work.
All over the world still!
@@riss6734 You are seriously warped. Were you born warped or did you do a lot of stoop labor kissing butt?
That is unbelievable! Where have you heard that? You cannot truly believe that Americans work under that same conditions as these folks in the 1800's. There are people all over the world that live and work in terrible sweat shop, sex trafficking. Do not compare American business to that.
Beer was probably the safest and most sanitary drink available.
Beer quenches thirst while also providing calories. It sort of acted like an early form of Gatorade. The people in olden times were expending thousands and thousands of kilocalories per day. They needed a cheap source of fuel. Bread and beer/ale filled that role for hundreds of years.
@@4jp Man I must be the fittest man on the planet! This is peak performance! The ideal male body!
@@BushidoBurritoe You gotta swing a pickake twelve hours a day for it to work, shagua.
She's right. milk wasn't pasteurized, and the water came from wells dug right next to the outhouses, or from streams that were full of sewage and chemicals.
@@BushidoBurritoe that is rough bro, glad you're past it.
When I was a kid, I read a story from a children's book entitled the The Match Stick Girl. It was the 1st time I read a sad story because she died in the cold with a basket full of matches and an empty stomach. She finally got to feast endlessly when she passed on with the food she could only dream of eating when she looked through the glass windows of warm homes. 😭
Hans Christian Andersen. The little Match Girl. I cry everytime i read it. So so sad.
If you hated that story as much as I did, you should really read "Hogfather" by Terry Pratchett.
A tragic tale that pointed to the existence of an eternity where scores are squared by God.
i like that line at 2:07, "Because the unsung heroes who REALLY put the 'Great' into Great Britain, were just the ordinary folk who had to cope with the dramatic changes the world has ever seen."
That says everything
And all the Britain's colonies who's ressources were being exploited
@@ameliacadieux-rusan3623 because Africa had so much going for it😀
@@freddymarcel-marcum6831 it had much more going for it before Britain than after
@@Superlegalyutube they couldn't make fire, get the fuck outta here 😆
How did men and women ever time time to meet anyone outside their own family? You'd think no one would have time to have a relationship or let alone having children.
It actually makes me wonder if that's why the practice of arranged marriages weren't fought as much. I mean if you wanted to get married and have children, you probably appreciated any help in finding a person to marry. At least in some of the cases
What people dont appreciate is how many festivals and holidays they had, in the middle ages for example. And communities were quite tightly knit.
Humans find a way!
I think love and lust was a distraction form all the hard work, so it was actually relatively prominent. I mean when all you do is work, with no distractions present, sex is a good way to let off steam and love is a good pass time
@PdrMarc lol......
But banning women from the mine didn't stop them. They worked illegally so the mine owners were able to pay them less.
Oh that’s a good point, so many things like that regrettably keep happening whether or not it’s legal
From a long line of Lancs and Mancs. Can confirm this was a thing. Also the coal mining industry is the reason motorcycles were and are so big in the north of England
Just gotta strap the tatas down and lower your voice..back in the day. Suddenly I'm a man.
So what sandyview? Beggars cant be choosers.
@@twistedtrees4175 they’re british, they don’t have to lower their voice 😂 most british women already sound like men
My 5th Great Welsh Grandmother worked in the mines. She left behind a life story. Her husband adored her and she him. It was a true love story. His co workers would say to him, "If anything happens to you, I am going to marry your Mary!" He was sadly killed in a mine accident and though she raised 7 of his children alone she never did remarry:)
It sounds like she had a very hard life but a lot of love.
What a strong lady
Smart smart Woman. She knew how men could be…not all were bad, but surely she heard and saw the suffering of other women and didn’t want to allow that kind of torment into her home.
I’m an American, but I absolutely love Tony Robinson, he is one of my all time favorite television hosts. I think he could make anything super fun and interesting lol.
I'm impressed that people could cope to live with 16 hour workdays (in horrible workplaces), then doing nothing but chores on your day off. There's literally no time to live or enjoy life. It's a wonder that everyone didn't just off themselves, that seems like a enjoyable option in comparison.
You should watch the Most Dangerous Ways to School documentary series to really have your mind blown. The daily life of the school kids is insane, and they’re modern stories. They’ll literally walk/climb hours a morning on treacherous terrain or in extreme weather, go to class, do the trip again, do chores and/ or go to work, do homework, and go to bed. Rinse and repeat. It’s always really sad when the teachers talk about how much they’re struggling in school, because they deserve a fair go at education :(.
Well, suicides were common, in fact suicides by poisoning yourself with matches specifically were a thing for example
@Eduard Medrea same issue as right now. Office workers in mental works are shown to be much more productive on 6hr shifts max, yet many employers would rather have them for 12hr shifts as long as they didnt have to pay more. In the industrial revolution there were some businessmen who improved productivity greatly by improving labor conditions, but it didnt catch on because most businessmen were/are rather shortsighted. Profits now, worry about accidents/mistakes/burnout later.
one of the reasons for that is that they didn't know there was an actual life to live and enjoy, have hobbies, days off, etc... all they knew about life was to go to work, humans have been brainwashed for so many generations. Also, those who knew there was more to life were few but eventually the unions were created and people started demanding better conditions. If it wasn't for that we'd all still be living on 16+ hours of labour a day :/
That's literally what people _still_ have to cope with in certain jobs. I was a CNA for 7 years, and during that time I worked 14-16 hour shifts, 6 days a week. I was paid minimum wage the whole time and never saw a cent of overtime pay. Is that legal? Probably not. But I would have lost my job if I tried to report it, so I kept my head down and kept working.
The only reason I was able to get out of that hell was because my parents were willing to let me move back in with them after I quit and supported me while I looked for another job.
This era sounds scary. I'm surprised that my great grandparents and grandparents survived through all the daily deadly tasks and lived til their 80's and 90's.
I'm surprised anyone survived the Victorian Era, it's like everything was trying to kill them, even their wallpaper lol
Mine survived by living in the countryside and running a small farm. Fewer things trying to kill you there. Provided your bull isn't trying to kill you of course
People were a HELL of a lot tougher back them, because everything wasn't done for them. Most western countries wouldn't survive an attack today. Ya ready??
People say that in the past life was so much better, the proof being that people lived long lives. Yeah, they were the lucky few with a train of dead people behind them. When my grandfather was born in 1897 his life expectancy was 49 years. He lived to be 88.
People were tough, the human spirit is so resilient.
"These girls are working in the mines, crawling for 14 hours staright in near darkeness, we must do something about it"
"I don't see the problem, frankly..."
"They are partially nude sir"
*Monocle pops off, jaw drops*
This guy is one of my favorite hosts. To say these people were knackered after work, is an understatement.
My dad’s mom and dad were trained tailors from Liverpool and got the heck out of England in the early 1900’s and made their way to Toronto Canada. They made a small fortune and my dad grew up in relative luxury. That would never have been possible had they remained back home.
@Horny Step Mom - Videos omg
Horny Step Mom - Videos you have some explaining to do for Saint peter
Risk has its rewards
Toronto then, while not perfect by any means, would have had much cleaner air and water than Liverpool or London, a more sanitary place on the whole. Your grandparents made a good choice I think.
Yeah, my grandmother was a refugee in the UK from Estonia and moved to Vancouver, Canada during WW2. I just spent three long years in England. I was not a fan of the place and way too crowded! I missed the big mountains.
"The pay was 28 pence a day, the modern equivalent of about 8 quid"
Sooo how much money is that say, outside Middle Earth?
~9€, or ~11$.
Left me wondering too xD
@@i.cs.z and how much is that adjusted to prices? I mean a 16h day for 56 to 69 cents per hour wouldn't let you survive in modern days.
@@leonm8906 I believe it was adjusted in the video, I just translated the currency.
What's a quid? Is it slang like a buck for a dollar?
Sarah's life was a living hell. The constant danger and awful work conditions which offcourse nothing was done about. The horrific sexism and torture of work hours and literally no rest would have killed me mentally first. Then all the work the women had to do at home without thanks or a break. I'm glad the women who worked as match girls did strike and stand up for the right to a decent working environment. Not that the Victorian Glaswegians had it much easier. Disease and sewage rampant and cleaning it 12hrs a day non stop by shifting 20tonnes of earth for 25p. Shit what are we complaining about?
they worked to make our lives better and now we've gone backwards. we need to organize Unions again - Amazon, Walmart, etc.. .
@@feralbluee Yes, society is sorely lacking in class consciousness these days. Working class people need it, and feminists need, like we had in the 70s (look up the strike Icelandic women went on).
Jules XD White Privilege was wonderful, no?
@@elizabethpeterson7165 lol I don't think these ppl knew they were privileged lol.
...sexism? ...what about the mistreated boys and men? You're a joke. You didn't even know or care about this before this video. The sexism lied in women being "protected" from the workplace rather than have their workplace reformed. Women's Suffrage was responsible for most of these women to change into Prostitution. Get out of here with your wrongly placed sexism when it was elite women of first-wave Feminism that unemployed hard-working women because, they didn't want to break a sweat like their governor daddy and wanted to vote without property for no reason. Not because, women were actually losing their limbs nor for women to expand job opportunities.
_"There was nothing the Victorians loved more than setting fire to things."_
*"People?"*
"The women and children too." - Anakin
@@AlexSDU lmfao that one killed me 😅
@@AditiSingh-ie6fy you do not get the reference do you
Oh you haven't met South Africans yet.....
My maternal grandma remembered the sheer joy of moving to a village with gas when she wed during WW-I and her first non-fire cooking experience
Hhmmm, a strike at a match factory.
I'd say they were "on fire" for change!
Omg
@@AmyLynnRiley Yup, they weren't about to let themselves get "boxed in".
I see you have a flare for puns.
@@chrischris4827 Stop it, you're hurting me.
I'm from Knoydart Scotland and I was told about the horrible jobs my grandfather Alistar Wallace had to do just to help out after the first world war... not as bad as these jobs but close. I pray for these poor kids that had to works and suffer
These jobs and how I was raised serve me well. I wish everyone would learn. We are all human...when I was bean I was told gender doesnt matter... wealth and Status may be nice regards to a full belly and a nice house... what you do for those that are in need mean most.... pray for those just trying to feed their birth and be humble and provide for others. Working class is the most responsible and respective in my eyes
Reminds me alot of the radium girls!
Yes, me too!
That is exactly what I was thinking!
Lol agree!
*very much so*
Aside from the better pay and conditions the radium girls thought they had...they were allowed to sit and have a lunch break, go to the toilet etc but they were ingesting horrific poison that killed or disfigured them 😔😨
"14 hour shifts, virtually all of it on their feet, can you imagine it" i don't have to imagine it. welcome to the american service industry
It’s unimaginable how these people coped! I could not manage a single day!
I am absolutely thrilled for this to be on here. Cannot wait to watch them all!!! Finding his worst jobs episodes back about 9 years ago, as a American was absolutely life changing.
the groom of the stool!
@@jayg1438 when I hear that, I think of someone using a fine tooth comb to go through someone's poo
"... people would bleat and moo and baa."
Heck, I do that while I'm in line at the airport waiting to go through security. Some things never change.
This is what a lot of the world's rich would love to take the world back to.
It wil be possible after covid19. Perhaps the world goes back to the time of slaves.😥
Seems to me they already do live off the backs of the poor and middle class. They can't even clean their own toilets.
Totally agree. The trumpheads would love to keep us in our place doing yard work or watching their snowflake kids.
@@pennierkaide4985 , so would the Democrats. If you are grown and still haven't learned that both sides are evil then you aren't very bright.
@@tammycenter8757 the "both sides are the same" argument only shows how privileged you are
The navvies ate well, better than most workers at that time.
Yeah & I'd rather have watched a bunch of screaming kids than working in the coal mine 😆
even though they worked the butts off, the servants got good food, too. and clean placess to live. far from perfect, but as bad, i think.
What’s a Navi
@@jordanamezcua8464 the blue avatars
My grandfather worked in the coal mines when he was 12. My dad told me that he would drive the mules pulling the coal cars and got paid 10 cents a load. This was around 1920.
It's amazing anyone survived these times. Then again, I think in 200 years, people will be saying the same thing about us...if there are still people.
Just love Tony....he makes history fun.
Not just fun, he makes it every day conversation.
It's still pretty normal for people to work 12+ hours on their feet. Longest shift I was on was 17 hours with maybe 45 min of rest all together.
I have so much respect for every single one of these people. And I thank this man for not only respecting the men but respecting the women involved too
Those poor matchstick girls remind me of the radium girls. They developed a very similar condition through their constant contact with radium paint, which they used to paint "luminous" watch face dials. They were trained to make fine points on their brushes by rolling the brush between their lips. The radium would then absorb into their body and acted very much like calcium, so it slowly replaced the calcium (often in their faces, but in other parts, too). Ultimately, their face bones were riddled with holes and would shatter or fall out. The poor women suffered horribly. But despite the company's knowledge that radium was very deadly, they were never told...just like the poor matchstick girls. So sad.
They also developed radium jaw, so reminiscent of the phossy jaw.
I was reminded of that hearing about the match workers too.
I was thinking the same thing. I can’t even imagine it.
7:07 Up until this time "the fastest thing around had four legs and ate straw."
Horses are fed various grains and hay, ideally allowed to graze on grass. Straw is what's left over when certain crops, like oats and wheat are harvested. It has no nutritional value but is good as animal bedding. Hay is long grass that is grown, cut, allowed to dry before being stored. It's essential food for horses, cattle and other animals who otherwise aren't given access to pasture or browse. Hay doesn't make good bedding and straw isn't good as animal feed.
Yashiro Nene Knowledge and truth are power! Get educated on a variety of subjects!
@@yashironene7904 Did you watch the vid? Only the first five minutes are about women who worked in match factories.
@@yashironene7904 Despite the misleading title this is not entirely about match girls. OP's comment is in response to a quote in the video's final segment.
I always wondered what the difference was!
GOD. I hate when this sort of thing happens in vids.
Like the host carelessly says a word that they think is interchangable with another, and to someone with the particular knowledge it's So Annoying.
#1 example for me is how many people don't know the difference between poisonous and venemous. 😩😩😩
The burden of knowledge.
Really makes you rethink how “advanced” countries like England really were back then.
well i mean, they essentially invented everything, so
Off the backs of their poor
@@derricklangford4725 Literally. Slaves and peasants were the backbone of society. And today it's chinese factory workers
Let me remind you that England was way ahead of its time because the industry developed fairly quickly compared to other countries.
Yeah I meant this is just the western, sort of white imperialistic idea of what is advanced. "If you don't live how we do, you're backward heathens blablabla". I feel like a lot of people today still think this way. Other countries, other cultures who have different ways of living aren't any less advanced, just live differently. There are cultures that are kind to the environment, where people don't eat sugar and have healthy teeth. Maybe they could learn from such cultures instead of looking down on them.
He should do a video about the little kids who sold matches. Rather sad times for kids.
That's what I thought this was going to be about but none of that.
The very reason why I clicked this video in the first place. I thought it was about those match girls that we heard in the story of the Little Match Girl.
Oh my gosh, the cliffhanger! What happened when Edwin got back to his wife??
I've obviously seen too many crime documentaries, cause as soon as they say she didn't budge, I figured she was dead.
Oh my gosh! I had the exact same reaction.
I found some info on www.edwinwaughdialectsociety.com/waugh.html. It says that Edwin's wife moved back in in 1850 and they separated permanently in 1855. So thankfully, his wife, Mary Ann was not dead as it seems from how they phrased it in the show.
I thought the same thing too.
@@veronicafaber143 Thanks for the info 🙂
When he said she wouldn't budge, I thought she somehow died in her sleep from take your pick of the dangerous drugs and chemicals that were considered "healthy and safe."
ive learned so much history through the years with your voice narrating it, something so comforting in wandering through the ages with you. thank you for it all , cheers !
Next time I feel self pity for my life conditions, I am going to review this vid, that should bring me back to reality quickly
I totally agree! Here I am being annoyed that my apartment is a little chilly today!
Very wise words!
Next time I have a back ache from my sit down job, I'm going to remember those women crawling on their hands and knees 14 hours per day. Can you imagine?
I am only half way thru. I cannot imagine having to live like this. No more fussing for me.
Good outlook sir👏👏👏same
16:10 "we don't have any photos of her, but she might have looked like this lass holding a giant tambourine" what lass?? what tambourine???? lol it's a blurred image
Yeah! I went looking for that tambourine, thank you!!
Yes, I was a bit gob-smacked at that too. A poor edit perhaps?
YEAH, I was wondering about that as well! I was like, "tambourine??? And, WHICH young lass?? There are like 5 or 6 in that photo?!" :/
The only thing I can think of is one girl has her hand on the shoulder of another, so maybe that girl is the giant tambourine, as in a joke?
@@greyeaglem Is that a thing? Calling someone a tambourine? lol... what would that even mean
What made Great Britain great, the ordinary working people. Same for the US.
Same thing for Sweden ( Railroads , Göta Kanal etc. . .www.gotakanal.se/en/the-gota-canal-history/gota-canal-history/ ) , and in many other countries .
But history is , most of the time , about the ruling classes . . . :O) .
@@RattusSwedicus or anywhere there were factories or mining.
Indentured servants were also slaves. they could be sold for what THEY OWED their "owners" for paying for passage over here and anything they broke or otherwise did wrong. a lot of them never did get out of debt.
anyone remember this song? "You load 16 tons and what do you get? another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don't you call me, i can't go. I owe my life to the Company Store." coal miners. . . Tennesee Earnie Ford, (1955), Johnny Cash. . .
im so used to historical mystery videos, i assumed Edward's wife was going to be found dead when he got home lolol
Glad I'm not the only one lmao
I thought the same. Lol.
I thought she was dead that morning and he was just like welp guess I'm going to the beach on my own!
Same! He shook her to wake and she didn't get up, I was like "oh no she died in her sleep" but then he went on his vacay and the video just ends???? 0_o weirded me out
Wow this sent back a flood of memories of this book our librarian read us in elementary school called ‘The Little Match Girl’ I was sad about it for weeks
I'd be really interested to see a series on the history of daily life of the lowest common denominator in the countries that Britain had under their control during this time. How was life for the average person in India when it was under British rule, for example? I love looking into the history of the non-elite, it's so easy to look over, but like you said, their backs were what the world rested on.
it's not much different for the very poor and Untoucnables right now either, in India.
Honestly, probably not to different from living under the local Raj, or the Mugal dynasty or the Marata Confederacy. The poor suffer under the rich no matter the country or who is in power.
I agree, people talk about how the country is developing fast but the don’t mention how only half the population is moving up. For every one step up the disadvantaged seem to be moving two steps behind.
The older I get the more pointless our way of living seems.
Ok that caught my eye i need you to explain
It’s a lot easier now than it was back then.
@@gigahorse1475 yeah in a lot of ways it is,im still missing the "more pointless our way of living seems" part....im curious what the poster ment,i mean there is definitely plenty about modern society that is pointless and arbitrary
@@robhogate2312 People who lived in those situations back then didn’t have the luxury of having existential crises. Today we have more time, energy, and resources to discover meaning in our lives. Not to diminish the fact that we still have our own struggles as well.
@@gigahorse1475 first you really think nobody back then questioned their lives??having an existential crisis has nothing to do with luxury....but i will concede that yes id assume its a way bigger problem these days,but i mean how many ppl are just faceless drones sitting in office buildings contributing nothing in the bigger scheme of things....going to do jobs that mean nothing in order to buy things they don't really need that will break with in a short time and be thrown away,masses roaming around especially in citys with no real skills to survive in life....the next generation being hobbled by the "adults" of society so they reach "adulthood" with even less tangible skills,back in the day by 15 16 they were capable of maintaining employment,households and families today ppl in there 30s 40s cant figure that out....the extreme forced conformity of society making ppl think and act alike because ppl who dare to stray from it are shunned and attacked,forcing them to hold these crappy pointless jobs in order to buy the right uniforms and the right toys....oh God then you get to those toys,technology has hurt society as much if not more then its helped
Like i said there is definitely plenty pointless and arbitrary things about modern society....there was a lot bad about the past but there was also a lot that was good about it too,things that we have lost and need to bring back
"The lure of the sea was like human catnip" Still is.
The women of the past were true warriors. I'll remember not to complain about my 8 hour work days. Feels like an insult to these amazing ladies.
agreed, but you can still complain, a 8 hour shift can be tiring too!
40 hour work weeks leave you little time to enjoy your life and life is short and temporary. You're allowed to complain, be sad, and feel discouraged, and most importantly you're allowed to be happy. Be kind to yourself.
Complaining is the exact spirit they wanted though, not letting your employer force you to work your life away when you could be spending time with family is exactly what they did!
@@CRYSTALCLAWED these women spent more time working. That was the point of my comment. House work took hours. Just think of a washing clothes. You think they had time to spend with kids and husband? Now women get paid for their work. Not sure why that offends you. Now they have time to spend with their family when most of the day was spent doing house work. Edit: and now men are stepping up and doing house work. Which means women today have more time and money.
The whole Feminist movement is an insult to women. A woman's strength and importance that wasn't reformed with suffrage but, outright banned and unemployed women and girls to become whores on the street. They pretend women never worked with men for equal treatment and pay. Good or bad. They just favor one other the other. These women would laugh at where Feminism is today because, it fails to recognize these dark chapters in history for women.
The resilience of our ancestors is stunning. Even today I'm filled with thoughts of suicide, I don't know how you manage to go on when your life is nothing but suffering.
Suicidal thoughts are a pain in the behind. I hope you heal and are doing well. It truly gets better. God bless you:)
Oh boy
Sorry to hear this and hope you do well by now. But to answer your question, I think it's because they got too much work to contemplate about their life all too often. I assume, that's why people managed to do surprisingly well during these times....or experienced some kind of burnout and fell into alcoholism.
Honestly! As awful as it sounds, I just *don't* understand where these people got the will to live and keep working like this, even though it was extremely unlikely their life would ever get much better. (How they could convince themselves to bring children into the same life....)
“Imagine that”. Meanwhile I’m already working 14 hour shifts on my feet 6 days a week and making minimum wage. Go figure
And yet you are a weaboo.. I figured you wouldn't have enough time to even watch anime with 14 hour shifts.
Isn't America wonderful?
@@BallHeadFreak so she shouldn't even be allowed to enjoy things? smh let ppl do what they want
@@BallHeadFreak fu!
Get some ambition
Appalled by the factory's indifference to phossy jaw, the Salvation Army campaigned for the use of safer red phosphorous. I have one of their matchboxes, which says something about lighting the way to a safer life.
I read The Little Matchstick Girl by Hans Christian Andersen as a child. I read it to myself. And then I cried and cried and was depressed for days. After being used to Disney movies and cheerful kid's shows, I was absolutely stunned at what I was reading. That story had a permanent impact on me. To this day I can't read it without sobbing as a grown man. 30 seconds in and i go into full sob-mode. A mere mention of it and something gets tugged inside.
There's a reason it was never made into a full feature film like Han's The Little Mermaid. Nobody would be able to sit through it undisturbed. You'd have people walking out of cinemas with panic attacks and wailing uncontrollably.
It is "the" saddest story ever written. It has a lot of nuance to hit you in the feels in just the right way, with gentle and tender words that stick you like daggers.
The fact that type of suffering really happened makes it even worse.
The reality that story presents is a disgusting stain on humanity as a whole, to think that people are ok with exploiting each other, and to such extremes too.
This story is in our themepark over here as an attraction to listen and watch to story.
It's in a fairytale forest and little children with their parents watch it.
lol p😢
A man drinking a gallon of beer every day does make some sense out of why Glasgow set out to build such a massive sewer system
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
14 hour shifts on your feet the whole time, can you imagine?!?! (Cries in American) 14 hour shifts are a very regular thing here
@Mary Christmas most nurses do 16-18 hr shifts with 1 15min break and 1 30min break
@@beckyanderson988 bs
@@paulthiessen6467 I am a nurse and she is absolutely right. That's why I am trying to open a business. I can't do this forever
@@paulthiessen6467 I am as well. She is very right.
@@azed5764 wow, whomever is in charge of scheduling should be fired. How is that safe?
Wish I had history teachers like this guy.🙂
Everything was so interesting.
Shame they always made it feel boring.
Coal mining women? See French film "Germinal" based on Emile Zola's stories of working in 1800's mine. Hell on earth.
There's other video about working in the mines in this era. Particularly about kids. The mine shafts were not fully open start to finish, every so often there were sets of doors, they used children to mind these doors. Girls as young as 7 would sit in the pitch-black for 12-hours waiting on a little bell or chime to tell them to open one door or the next as a cart rolled through. Fighting off rats trying to eat their lunch of bread and cheese or biting them in the dark.
I have that book and read it twice (in English). It's an early social realism novel - and it's shockingly well written, you ARE in the corridors in the mines with endless tons of mountain on top of you. Then there are the horses who work and are stabled underground....they go blind after a few years in the pitch black. The living conditions are also vividly described.
@@maxdecphoenix longnosed factory owners just putting the white people into slavery on the excuse of wages without which they wouldve starved. Nothing ever changed
Horses don't eat straw. They eat hay and lay on straw.
I thought hay and straw were the same thing! Shows you what I know... 🤣
@@brianscott-dawkins6528 I know! What the hay!! I only knew that because my friend is a farmer and grows hay
I know the difference because I’m allergic to hay, but not straw.
I absolutely love this guy. He makes everything so informative but fun! Lol you can tell he's thoroughly enjoying himself
Everyone who romanticizes the past needs to watch the videos on this channel. I am so grateful to have been born in 1993.
This happened in America as well.Only the rich get mentioned for making money off of labor.
William schlenger where did it not happen, please tell me
And... so? Enterprise...
@Jeshua Satterlee Ahhahahhah, no, that's not how that works. that's so fucking dumb.
I love this series!! But this one is particularly sad
I know right?
But it was reality, for a long time. So appreciate what ordinary people did for ordinary people today. It was a long fight for equality, child labour and lots more, even for animals was terrible.
Love you guys and your videos so much, an accounting of the realities in history is something we are taught so little of growing up and it's really sad to hear how hard things could be for regular people. It's important to learn as the same patterns play out in different ways in our modern lives.
100 years from now they will make a documentary about "Why every british documentary starts with the presenter talking and walking towards the camera and i hope to be here for it.
It’s Angus & crew that made civil life possible. My Great-Great-Great Grandfather came to Plymouth Colonies as an indentured servant from County Cork. He fought in the American Revolution and died an American. He earned his freedom and bought land in what is now Vermont. He and a Mr. Sergeant settled Chester, Vt and set current Vermont boundaries. I’m proud of my family history.
I just keep thinking, “oh hell no”
@Kabuki Kitsune the average age of entry into prostitution around the world nowadays is also between 12-14 years old, presumably younger (it's very hard to determine this)
This is around the period my ancestors immigrated to the states, and dug out a hill house on the frontier. With conditions like this back in Britain, I can see how living in a hole in the ground in the wilderness probably didn't seem that bad. Least they wouldn't die of poisoning, might work fewer hours too.
That Taxi idea is ingenious! Something so simple, but so effective! I truly admire these people, ordinary people, with barely any education, they lived in much harsher conditions with barely any time off, and they managed squeeze time to think of these amazing new ideas.
I love Tony Robinson's documentaries. So entertaining.
In the story "The McGregor Affair", set in 1800s Scotland, dramatized in the early 1960s on both "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" and Boris Karloff's "Thriller", one character was a different sort of "match girl"; she'd sing a little song about selling matches, then a man would pay a seemingly exorbitant price for one match and walk away with her. Given what she was really selling, her job came with a different, but just as formidable, set of dangers.
Thanks for the recommendations. I’m gonna look for those movies. 🙏🏽
This made me rethink the fairy tale, thanks
@@emiv592 *many fairy tales in their original form and telling are pretty dark*
They always seemed to show up in Christmas stories, and I never really knew what they were.
Hans Christian Anderson's story "The little match girl" is about an orphan who works on the streets selling matches for her living. She dies of exposure and starvation.
@@updownstate I don't think she wa san orphan? As I remember, she was scared to go home because she hadn't sold any matches and her father would punish her.
@@Sigart Doubtless there are many versions of the story. It makes sense that she would be afraid of her father. Thank you.
@@updownstate Hmm, not sure exactly what you mean with many versions... are you talking about adaptations or other derivative work?
@@Sigart What's the diff betw the 2?
My god, he's gotten old, but he's still awesome.
Haven't watched anything with him for a while and I was as surprised
@Osel Somar oi, w'r talking 'bout Baldric ere, so shut it !!
Father Time spare no one . . . ;O) .
check out the Timeline youtube channel, he’s on there all the time still!
Yeah part of aging
I'm a retired RN and it blew out my left shoulder and neck from holding up and squeezing IV fluid bags. I remember crying on the way both to and from work. I ended my career working in. Inpatient psychiatric units in 2 different state prisons, which was actually the best jobs I ever had. I had the most autonomy and was escorted on rounds and contacts by an officer. I never felt unsafe and the inmates would tell other guys to knock it off if they got mouthy. Glad I'm retired!!!
Hans Christian Anderson wrote a tragic fairy tale on this and we study it in high school.
That must be one wet class.
Name of the fairytale?
@@qweadd6987 The Little Match Girl
Absolutely one of the best directed and hosted shows on TH-cam ! Bravo !!
Great documentary but the number of ads are excessive 😯
Skip past those 1st, silly.
32:17 some of us still feel selfconscious when we leave a store without purchasing anything
21:48 it must have been hot down in those mines. No seriously, it really must have been stifling.
My mother use to yell me a story about the little match girl she sold matches and none would buy her matches and one night she was so cold she lit a match and saw her deceased grandmother and died from the cold and fire, I remember feeling terrible for this little girl, She told me that story almost 50 yrs ago and I still remember it
The whole idea we have today of Victorian ladies laying around on chaise lounges, tight-lacing their corsets to be fashionable, and arranging tea for visitors is just disgusting and disrespectful. Women were worked to the bone, just as much, if not more than men, all while being treated worse, having no rights, and often not being able to keep the money they earned. That money went to their abusive husbands or household patriarchs. It shows a lot when a society does not care that you’re being killed for your work, only that you aren’t wearing the right clothes while doing it, and shaming the women who would be in such levels of undress rather than the work that requires it.
The good old days were never good
Yes they were.
The old ways of life tought people how to be tough and to live their lives with respect and discipline to value life and live long lives if they stayed healthy enough.
I remember reading The Little Match Girl as a kid, it sounds like it'd suck.
That story always makes me cry.
@@sashaconrad3939 At least she was finally out of her misery
@@nunyabiznes33 What’s the story about? I’ve never heard of it.
@@LM-xw1hf oh...go read it then. It's a short story. The saddest thing ever written.
@@X-Prime123 can you tell me what it’s about?
"the slums were so bad they were almost as disgusting as london's" 💀looool
Programs like this always make me wonder what people a century or two from now will look back on from today and think we're behind the times when we think we're ahead of them.
It would probably be like a victorian era person looking back at rome
With the rate of improvement in medical and life extension technologies, you might very well be around to see it. I hope I am. Despite it all, I try to be optimistic about the future. Things tend to improve over time because most people want better, and want better for everyone. Not all, but a solid majority.
@@ElectromagNick Death is a necessary part of life. We die so that those who come after is can have their chance.
@@Author.Noelle.Alexandria We're not even close to the carrying capacity of the solar system. A proper Kardashev 2 dyson swarm with O'neill cylinders and terraformed planets, all possible under known science and maybe even practical within a century or two (the O'neill cylinders part, terraforming is a centuries or millennia-long application of sheer brute force), has a carrying capacity measured septillions. Thar's just this solar ststem. Throw in the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, and the fact that we can conceive of propulsion systems that would make travel the galaxies in our local cluster also possible, and the seeming absence of any other life in the universe (there's something, somewhere, almost certaintly, but the Fermi Paradox is complicated), and we could conceivably support every human to ever live even if no one dies anymore, right up until the heat death of the universe.
And hey, for anyone that decides that kind of a lifespan isn't for them, or if they get bored with life, there's always an exist stategy. Just stop using the life extension technology.
Sorry, I just never get the "people aren't meant to live that long because it isn't natural" argument. Nothing in our modern world is natural. Even our "all-natural, non-GMO" crops were genetically modified by selective cultivation over generations. They're about as artificial as whatever building you're in, whatever device you're using to access the internet, and honestly, about as natural as you or I.
Cyberpunk 2077
I just cant watch something with this absurd amount of commercials. dear lord.
Skip past them 1st. It's free.
Love your show! The series is complete and I'm super grateful for that since I tried PBS Secrets if the Dead and Its bunk. They don't really have many videos. Speaking of mines, my dad got a summer job mining Uranium in Colorado. Que the bizarre songs about the Uranium Mining Fad in the early 50's (incredibly surreal ) So being a teen he chucked a stone in his pocket to keep, uranium seemed so Neat! It glowed. My gramps grabbed him and said, Boy, don't you go putting that in your pocket."
Why am I waiting for him to say he has a cunning plan?
I love these Absolute History videos! They are very interesting, and Tony Robinson is a great presenter, and you can see how he really feels like he's going back to the Victorian era as he's telling us about it, helps make us feel we're going back there with him
Now I see why so many of my ancestors left England
Hopefully they didn't end up in American tenements and sweatshops.
My great great grandfather had x6 big shires horses that pulled beer wagons in London. Also some of my family brought shell fish on boats down the Thames to trade. My great grandmother had a grocery store.
If you haven't read the fairy tale "The little match girl" by H C Andersen, you should. It's a heartbreaking little story.
Actually; I recommend reading all his stories if you haven't. They're so beautiful, but it feels like they're often overshadowed by their Disney adaptations.
I'm from Denmark, and a lot of us grew up being read these stories at evening, and still read them to our own children, they are beautiful as adult to read too, and his danish language is SO beautiful, So I somehow feel a little sorry for all the worlds people who can't read his original language, but has to read it in others
I have even read som of his fairytales being tranlsated to more modern danish, but it lacks his deep poetic sense, and very precise use of words, rythm etc
It is important to note that at the same time described by this documentary, Germany was establishing universal healthcare and welfare for the masses. England had no such concern for the masses. Germany was much more concerned for the masses than England at this time.
Wait....What happened to Mary Ann? I thought he was going to say, "...and when Edwin returned home, Mary Ann was still in bed, where he left her...though _now_ he realized she was stone cold..."...
I thought she was dead too!
Same!
So glad to hear I'm not the only one that had that thought
So did I
Great vid as always! Incredibly underrated channel
I completely agree with your comment Randominter! I get very excited every time a notification pops up. It never fails to surprise me that there aren't more people commenting and liking on these videos. Not only are they informative but they're very interesting and Incredibly well made
The video was made available 47 minutes agos. It lasts 43 minutes. And yet, 37 minutes ago, you posted on it. How did you see it all ?
@@sachadavid8410 (edited to correct spelling of other commenter's name) Hello Sacha! I never said I finished watching it I said that I agreed with the other poster about it being informative and interesting. I'm about to go and drive somewhere so I wanted to make sure the comment was posted since I don't text and drive or comment and drive! LOL
I hope you have a wonderful day!
I've learned more about British history uere than in any world history class i took in school. Always interesting content!
26:26 In the 1930's my Grandad worked for Gartsides brewery in Ashton under Lyne. He told me that a drayman was only paid by the brewery to deliver the keg to the pavement. If the pub didn't have a cellarman then they would pay the drayman in liquid form if he helped bring the kegs down to the cellar. Depending on the delivery run a drayman could have done a dozen drops a day. He told me of having seen one at the end of his shift fall 6' or 7' out of a steam wagon whilst asleep, still snoring as he lay on the ground!