Could someone tell me about basic life in the late 1700s through the early 1800s?

Question

What did kind of jobs did common people have?

You know, things of that nature.

Just facts about the way life went back then.

Thanks. :)

OH!

I'm mostly aiming at answers pertaining to Europe at that time.

Answer 1

Thanks for Clarifying !!!   Oddly enough life does not change all that much merely the tools of the trade and a few subtle surface trimmings.

Let us start literally from the begining; you are age 8 to 13, your parents set you up for a job by apprenticing you a 'shop.'  Your duties are grunge work; emptying the slop bucket (yea, sh^t & p^ss), sweeping and mopping the shop, in a cold climate you would split firewood, carrying it in to the stove or fireplace, maintain the fire through the day.  No fast food so you would be sent to get a load of bread and perhaps meat mid day and a bottle of wine or ale, you would also fetch water from the local well and woe to you if you think one or two ten to fifteen gallon wooden buckets are hard to carry.

At age 13 to 18 for most you would start to learn a trade.  In the Neatrherlands you might learn to keep accounts, in a pre-computer age you would be expected to REMEMBER all sorts of currencies & their value and their value might fluctuate daily so you would have to develope a knack for 'reading the market.'  You would have to write down figures  and since paper is expensive that means tiny writing and cramming in figures & letters - -- --- example Ten Gld (ten guldens) Mr Tannehauser Due 22/8/1799  (Europeans write their dates by day month year)...

Other trades you might learn;  blacksmithing (which does NOT mean Horseshoes that is a seperate profession),  Farrier (they make & fit horseshoes), Gold or Silver Smithing.   Clothing was made by hand & loom as was making shoes;  shoes might be made from leather and it was brutal on the hands to hammer nails into cork & leather.  But in Europe especially for the Poor, shoes were carved out of wood.  

Other comon jobs;  grooming & maintaining horses.  Farming a perenial favorite has many aspects.   Masons - - - Carpenters who built buildings and Carpenters who made furniture.  Sawyers - - - sawed wood into boards.  A commoner might also dig ditches or graves those were all common people jobs.  Oh and fighting - - - there were a lot of Wars in Europe so many commers became cannon fodder - - - but soldiering was more than fighting it was digging latrine trenches and marching endlessly here & there.

Oh getting back to clerks & people keeping accounts they were commonly called Scriveners.    

Well I have blathered enough - - - Peace////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\...