What are the differences between a typical famliy from the year 1905 and the year 2005?

Question

what were the conditions of the families?

good things, and bad things?

Answer 1

A family would be more likely to have the mother at home than nowadays, but if she was a member of a poor family then she might be out at work, or she might take in washing or sewing to supplement the family income.  Taking in lodgers was another way a poor family might supplement their income.

Although the father was considered to be the head of the household and the rest of the family was supposed to defer to him, many fathers were very affectionate towards their families, and many wives found they could get their own way with their husbands quite easily.  Read 'Life with Father' by Clarence Day, for instance, for a lively description of life in a middle-class American family in the late 19th century.

Children would go to school, but if they were from poorer families then they would leave school a good deal earlier than they would now, at twelve or fourteen, to go to work.  

Children of both sexes from poor families would start work when they were old enough.  if they were from better-off families then they would continue in education longer.  In America, it was quite common in the early 1900s for girls as well as boys to go to college if they could afford it.  For a wonderful description of life at a girl's college in this era read 'Daddy Long-Legs' by Jean Webster.

A lot of houses did have indoor plumbing by the early 1900s, and many had inside toilets, but poorer households would probably still be using an outdoor toilet and might be getting their water from a pump outside rather than having it piped into their houses.

Housework was a lot harder then that it is now, because there were few labour-saving devices available, and houses got dirty very quickly from the soot and smoke from fires and oil lamps.  Gaslighting became more common in the late 19th century, but it was generally only availabel to better-off households.  Washing had to be done by hand.  people who could afford it would send their clothes to laundries to be washed, otherwise they would do it themselves at home.

People who could afford it employed servants.  You didn't have to be rich to have servants, even quite a humble household might be able to afford a maid-of-all-work to help the mistress of the house, and a moderately well-off middle-class family would be able to afford a cook and a couple of maids, and  a nanny for the children.

With few ready-made entertainments, more people in those days learned to play a musical instrument.  Every household that could afford it had a piano, and the daughters of the house would learn to play and sing so they could entertain the family and guests.  Some households would have gramophones, but making your own music was still very popular at this time.

In the early 1900s, bicycling was a hugely popular activity with men and women, and any children and young adults in the family would be very likely to go cycling, and very possibly the grown-ups too.  Tennis, archery and croquet were popular games because they could be played by both sexes, and croquet sets were even sold with attachments for candles so that you could play at night.  Dancing of course was popular with everyone.  Children often had to go to dancing classes, which many of them hated, especially the boys.

Women's clubs were very popular in America at this time.  A lot of women, especially housewives, would get together to discuss history, literature, or current affairs.  Women were also often involved in social reform.  the Women's Christian Temperence Movement was a hugely popular organization with women at this time, and the campaign for women's suffrage also drew a lot of support, though Temperence was a more important issue for many more women.

The comment above which says that women were just starting to be nurses at this time is not true.  Women had been going into nursing in America and Britain since the 1850s, there were thousands of women who were nurses during the Civil War for instance.  And women had been working in many other occupations as well, teaching of course was always one of the main areas of employment for women, but during the second half of the 19th century many more women were employed in government jobs (a third of all government jobs were done by women by 1900) and in offices (three-quarters of all typists and stenographers were women by 1900).  many women became telephone switchboard operators, and the new big department stores employed large numbers of women as salesclerks.

Answer 2

Woman mostly stayed home, few girls were educated past grade school and only some boys got to go to college. Most only finished somewhere between and 3-8th grade education.

Although the woman were starting to do things they had never done before like learn to be nurses, before that time nurses had mostly been men. Babies were starting to be born in hospitals more although that still was not the norm having them at home was. Men worked, and carried the finical responsibility of taking care of himself and his family.

The world was already seeing changes in transportation and other advances. But only the wealthy could afford these conveniences.

People were still talking about the tragedy of the Civil War as opposed to the many wars we have to discus today and in 2005.

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

In 1905 you communicate with your family;  in 2005 you communicate with your computer.

Answer 4

In 1905 women almost exclusively stayed at home raising children and had few rights. Families tended to be larger but it was not uncommon to lose several children before adulthood because their were no vaccines. Jobs that required physical labor were the norm and when times were tough it was not uncommon for children to be working in factories. Discipline was the rule not the exception and you worked hard for what you had. Fast forward to 2005 families have gotten smaller but kids with vaccinations and advanced medical care almost always make it to adulthood. Women typically work outside the home either by choice or necessity. Discipline is now the exception not the rule, we use time outs and fear spanking our kids because it's now considered abuse. Many familes are blended due to a sky high divorce rate.