What was life like in the early 1900s?

Answer 1

There would be variations in peoples lives, depending on what kind of jobs they did, where they lived etc. Some working class people would be better off than others, a skilled artisan would make a better living than an unskilled labourer for instance.

Generally, people worked very hard, and often for very small wages. Their homes would most often be small, and probably dingy from the smoke from factories and fires if they lived in a town. But they would brighten them with cheap ornaments and pictures cut from newspapers and magazines. Working class women were often very houseproud, especially if they had been in domestic service, as a great many of them would have been. Married women might have to go out to work, or they might take in sewing or washing which they could do at home while watching the children. Taking in a lodger was a way a working class family often made a little extra money.

By the late 1800s, all children were entitled to a basic education, so even the children of the very poor would go to school, at least for a few years. They would leave probably at the age of 12 or 14 to go to work. In the UK, some bright children might stay at school as pupil teachers, and some exceptionally bright children might win a scholarship to a grammar school. This happened to the historian A.L. Rows for example, who was born in the early 1900s into a poor clay miner's family, but went to grammar school, and then to Oxford University.

Working class people enjoyed going to the music hall, a very popular form of entertainment. At the music hall there would be a variety of different 'turns', singers, dancers, comedians, acrobats, conjurer's etc.

Owing to the railways, it was possible to travel quite cheaply, so a working class family could afford the occasional day at the seaside for example, or on the river (boating was enormously popular with all classes in this period).

A lot of working class people worked as domestic servants during this period. Over a million women worked as servants in England in the early 1900s. In her autobiography, Agatha Christie (who was born in 1890) wrote about their household servants in around 1900:

'Servants did an incredible amount of work. Jane cooked five-course dinners for seven or eight people as a matter of daily routine. For grand dinner parties of twelve or more, each course contained alternatives - two soups, two fish courses, etc. The housemaid cleaned about forty silver photograph frames and toilet silver ad lib, took in and emptied a 'hip bath' (we had a bathroom but my mother thought it a revolting idea to use a bath others had used), brought hot water to bedrooms four times a day, lit bedroom fires in winter, and mended linen etc, every afternoon. The parlourmaid cleaned incredible amounts of silver and washed glasses with loving care in a papier-mache bowl, besides providing perfect waiting at table.

In spite of these arduous duties servants were, I think, actively happy, mainly because they knew they were appreciated - as experts, doing expert work. As such they had that mysterious thing, prestige, and looked down with scorn on shop assistants and such.'

Of course, some servants would have been happier than others, in some households they were probably appreciated more than in others. However, a good servant was certainly in much demand, and a good cook, for instance, could pick and choose who she worked for, she would always be in demand.

Answer 2

Life in the 1900's was very simple. Families were very close and did things together, everyone went to church, communities did things with each other and helped each other.