1940s House on PBS

[jazzzbaby]

I didn't see where this was covered, but this premiered tonight on PBS in the Los Angeles/OC area.

"One modern family takes on the challenger of domestic life on Britain's home front in this gritty re-creation of a World War II household."

Check it in your listings!

 

[Warden]

I love this programme, even visited the mock 1940s house at the Imperial War Museum in London 4 times.

Hey I even went so far as to write a blog about the series

Harry

Harrys blogs, the one about the 1940s house is from the 28th June 2006

 

[J. M. Stovall]

Pretty sure that is a couple of years old, but it's very interesting show. I think we have this cotton candy view of living in the 40's, but daily life was a lot more difficult than we can imagine.

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

Thanks for the info. I have seen other programmes like this on PBS, and have really enjoyed them. I'll have to check this one out.

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

I love this programme, even visited the mock 1940s house at the Imperial War Museum in London 4 times.

Hey I even went so far as to write a blog about the series

Harry

Harrys blogs, the one about the 1940s house is from the 28th June 2006

fftopic: I just checked out your site on Yahoo. What a great site it is, and you have a beautiful family. Congratulations on your latest addition
Daisy

 

[J. M. Stovall]

The show originally aired in 2001, and it's also available on DVD:
http://www.shoppbs.org/sm-pbs-s-house-vhs--pi-1404974.html

 

[Paisley]

My mother said she wouldn't relive the 1940s for $1 million. After seeing that show, I wouldn't be eager to live in the 1940s, either. But I really enjoyed watching it.

 

[Warden]

Thanks Daisy thats really kind of you.

My family did a 72 hour experiment living as if in the 1940s for UKTV History, To say the experiment was fun would be wrong but it was a great experience.

A night in the Anderson with special affects going off around you was a very moving experience.

Photo from the TV programme

I did a write up of the days filming on your website, click here to read.

Chin chin

Harry

 

[MrBern]

blitz house

These series are great intelligent experiments.

I must say , tho that i was a bit dissappointed that 1940s Home was much smaller in scale. The previous Frontier Home, Texas Ranch House, &Colonial House featured several families, so there was a larger social dynamic.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/frontierhouse/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ranchhouse/about.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/colonialhouse/

Did anyone view the 1930's fishing village project? I cant find info on it, but I saw some episodes earlier this year. Was funny when the teenage daughter find out the magazines in the outhouse werent for reading...

 

[Lena_Horne]

These series are great intelligent experiments.

I must say , tho that i was a bit dissappointed that 1940s Home was much smaller in scale. The previous Frontier Home, Texas Ranch House, &Colonial House featured several families, so there was a larger social dynamic.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/frontierhouse/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ranchhouse/about.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/colonialhouse/

Did anyone view the 1930's fishing village project? I cant find info on it, but I saw some episodes earlier this year. Was funny when the teenage daughter find out the magazines in the outhouse werent for reading...

I saw that on History International, but I only the second half of the series. It was wonderful and I enjoyed the fact that so many of them gained a greater understanding of their older relatives' lives. The utter seriousness of something as simple as a cut on the finger killing a man and essentially taking out the family's ability to earn income in one swoop was eye-opening.

L_H

 

[MrBern]

I saw that on History International, but I only the second half of the series. It was wonderful and I enjoyed the fact that so many of them gained a greater understanding of their older relatives' lives. The utter seriousness of something as simple as a cut on the finger killing a man and essentially taking out the family's ability to earn income in one swoop was eye-opening.

L_H

I saw a marathon ofthem. ....I cant recall the title. Something like Return to the Sea. Funny to see the young teen daughter mope & roll her eyes at everything.
Rather disconcerting to see them spend the summer fishing & salting the catch, but hardly cover costs. A real disaster.
It was nice that the show was immersed in the region.

As for 1940 house, its hard to simulate wartime england...but they did a good job of showign how hard it was on the women. All the stress even w/o the combat. No shampoo, no cigarettes, not enuff food for the kids....
And those kids looked adorable in the period clothing. A shame to return to jeans & sweats...

 

[Lena_Horne]

I saw a marathon ofthem. ....I cant recall the title. Something like Return to the Sea. Funny to see the young teen daughter mope & roll her eyes at everything.
Rather disconcerting to see them spend the summer fishing & salting the catch, but hardly cover costs. A real disaster.
It was nice that the show was immersed in the region.

As for 1940 house, its hard to simulate wartime england...but they did a good job of showign how hard it was on the women. All the stress even w/o the combat. No shampoo, no cigarettes, not enuff food for the kids....
And those kids looked adorable in the period clothing. A shame to return to jeans & sweats...

In the opposite direction, I saw this other special that sent men--as well as one woman--from Northeastern Canada (Nova Scotia perhaps?) over what were the old fishing routes during the mid-1800s. It was great! Only this time, I saw the first few episodes and not the last ones. So I have no idea if they made it in time or not.

L_H

 

[ITG]

Here is another thread on the topic. I got this on DVD for Christmas a few years ago and must say it's a must for any 1940s lover.
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=6968&highlight=1940s+House

 

[Jack Armstrong]

Pretty sure that is a couple of years old, but it's very interesting show. I think we have this cotton candy view of living in the 40's, but daily life was a lot more difficult than we can imagine.

It was in London, during the Blitz. In the United States, living in the 40s wasn't bad at all (if you weren't dying in WWII, of course).

And let us not forget that WWII didn't last for the entire decade. August 1945 through 1949 were The Forties, too.

 

[missjo]

I loved that series and although the 1940s were even worse here in the Netherlands, I hear from quite a few elderly people that things were better then.
I'd love to live 1940s style, my house is pretty much ready for that, the moment I learn to cook ill live full time ww2 for 5 months.

 

[nightandthecity]

I watched this series when it first came out. It followed the success of a series called Victorian House. I had - and still have - a real problem with the whole concept. Look at it this way, if you took a family from the Victorian era or the 1940s and isolated them in a 2006 house they‘d have a hard time too.

If you uproot people from their familiar culture and social context you are bound to create problems and even serious trauma. This was made even worse by the absence of any kind of real social context - real people don’t live in isolated families like this. It would have been at least a bit more valid an experiment if it had been 1940s STREET or even village.

Many things that the participants found really difficult would have simply been accepted at the time. To take one example mentioned earlier - yes, we used newspaper for certain intimate purposes when I was a kid in the 50s. I wouldn‘t go back to it now, but it certainly didn‘t bother us in the slightest at the time. It just was.

Similarly, many problems that affected these people as a family would have been less problematic within a community. I remember them getting in a tizzy about making black out curtains, but in reality the handy guy down the road would have done it for them, and doubtless they‘d have returned the favour sometime.

Plus the concept is quite unable to deal with things like the relative richness of everyday culture. For example, home-made music was central to popular culture at the time and added a richness to daily life that we have lost. But how do you begin to plunge modern people into something so fundamental, normal, everyday and yet difficult, especially when the music itself is totally unfamiliar and wouldn't relate to their previous life experience?

Add to this that the makers weren’t conducting a genuine social experiment but were trying to make dramatic TV - and chose the participants accordingly - and that's all you end up with - dramatic TV that proves absolutely nothing.

 

[missjo]

I watched this series when it first came out. It followed the success of a series called Victorian House. I had - and still have - a real problem with the whole concept. Look at it this way, if you took a family from the Victorian era or the 1940s and isolated them in a 2006 house they‘d have a hard time too.

Well I guess thats why its such interesting viewing.

If you uproot people from their familiar culture and social context you are bound to create problems and even serious trauma. This was made even worse by the absence of any kind of real social context - real people don’t live in isolated families like this. It would have been at least a bit more valid an experiment if it had been 1940s STREET or even village.

They did that with some of the other series.
Mind you of course if you move to a new neighbourhood you are a bit isolated as well, that happened back then also.
I live a 1940s lifestyle and have just moved to a new area

Many things that the participants found really difficult would have simply been accepted at the time.

Of course, that again makes it extra interesting to watch.
They could have used reenactors or other specialists like in "The green valley", also interesting tv but of course its more fun for the average viewer to see modern people who know as much or little about the era as themself go trough the problems.

To take one example mentioned earlier - yes, we used newspaper for certain intimate purposes when I was a kid in the 50s. I wouldn‘t go back to it now, but it certainly didn‘t bother us in the slightest at the time. It just was.

It wouldnt bother me today.

Similarly, many problems that affected these people as a family would have been less problematic within a community. I remember them getting in a tizzy about making black out curtains, but in reality the handy guy down the road would have done it for them, and doubtless they‘d have returned the favour sometime.

Well only if they were lucky enough to know someone to do it for them and who they didnt mind going trough their entire house.
Or if you have a father who feels he can do it all on his own, remember the Anderson Shelter?
Neihbours helped there.

Plus the concept is quite unable to deal with things like the relative richness of everyday culture. For example, home-made music was central to popular culture at the time and added a richness to daily life that we have lost. But how do you begin to plunge modern people into something so fundamental, normal, everyday and yet difficult, especially when the music itself is totally unfamiliar and wouldn't relate to their previous life experience?

Of course there is a culture clash there, im not so sure about the music though.
Not everybody was musical back then,
Either way, the conflict is whats so interesting.

Add to this that the makers weren’t conducting a genuine social experiment but were trying to make dramatic TV - and chose the participants accordingly - and that's all you end up with - dramatic TV that proves absolutely nothing.

Except that it proves how modern day people cope with trying a old fashioned way of live, although only a tiny percentage of what it was really like.
And the show has educational value, it teaches the viewers a few things about life during the war, and thats always good.
Either way, its great to watch and very similair to what I do every single day and to what we do at Living History events.

 

[nightandthecity]

the problem I have is that many people (this was made clear by newspaper reviews, phone ins etc) took the show as "proof" that things were simply unbelievably awful back in the 1940s. That seems to me as unrealistic a view of the past as the rose tinted golden-agery that oten afflicts this site.

 

[missjo]

the problem I have is that many people (this was made clear by newspaper reviews, phone ins etc) took the show as "proof" that things were simply unbelievably awful back in the 1940s. That seems to me as unrealistic a view of the past as the rose tinted golden-agery that oten afflicts this site.

Amazing.
Mind you, the bad things do stick easier to ones mind.
Its quite clear even in the show that there were many positive things, the family told us several times about the things they liked but of course many of the things they went trough were awful.