If you missed the PBS airing of The 1900 House during June, don't fret. You can order the full four-hour docu-soap on video from PBS (if you don't mind the wait, as it is backordered due to its popularity.) Or you can take advantage of the technology of the new millennium and visit the PBS web site to find out about this living experiment that follows the Bowler family in jolly "old" England as they cope with life in 1900 London.
Selected from 400 families who competed to appear in what became the most popular series on England's Channel 4, the close-knit Bowler family dressed in period garments (including corsets for the ladies) and kept a video diary of their experiences including the dreary, damp rooms, dirty clothing and all-day laundry chores and meals preparation.
The experiment required living in a typical Victorian townhome in Greenwich, a suburb of London, that had to be 'unmodernized' to create the real living conditions of the time - gas lamps and no electricity, central heat, or indoor toilet. The didn't use lead paint and arsenic-laced wallpaper because of their toxicity and they couldn't install a "gas geyser" for heating bath water because it would have been too dangerous.
The four one-hour long episodes - The Time Machine, A Rude Awakening, A Woman's Place, and The End of An Era - show the parents Joyce and Paul and four of their five children living in the spring of 1990 in the late-Victorian townhome for three months. The children are 17-year-old Kathryn, 11-year old twin girls Hilary and Ruth and nine-year-old Joe. The fifth child stayed at the family home to care for it while the others time traveled back to 1900.
The family members learned how to use antique household tools and cooking implements and how to take care of cleaning and personal hygiene, 1900s -style. The romance and glamour of earlier times turned to harsh reality when they learn that laundry is an all-day affair, there is never enough hot water from the coal-burning range and they had to cope with chamber pots, dirty hair and cold baths.
And we haven't seen the end of the popularity of 'reality television' yet. The Frontier House is an American version of The 1900 House that is currently in development. Can you imagine having to hunt for your food?
