Recommended Video: Back in Time for the Weekend

Not so long ago I recommended Back in Time for Dinner.  Now the BBC has another series called Back in Time for the Weekend.   The BBC site says:  For one summer the Ashby Hawkins family give up their 21st-century technology and travel back in time to discover the radical transformation of our leisure time since 1950.

 I can't find a decent copy on YouTube but I found this site.

Back in Time for the Weekend


Here is a review.  It was harder to be female in the 50's.

The BBC remodeled the house for each decade:

  "Every era we completely redecorated their house, even putting in extra walls, doors, garden fences and a shed. Our art department repainted, wallpapered, carpeted and re-furnished their house, often in just three days, whilst the family were living in a rented house nearby. The family moved out of their house before filming began for the 50s and before every decade, only saw the changes as they stepped through the door on the first day of filming for each episode."

Recommended Video... "Back in Time for Dinner"

I found this British series:  "One British family embarks on an extraordinary time-traveling adventure to discover how a post-war revolutions in the food we eat has transformed the way we live."

It starts in 1950.  England was still on food rationing through much of the fifties.   There is an episode from each decade.  It's really interesting.

There is also a series with the same family call Back in Time for Christmas, covering the 40's, 50's and 60's.

Women working on the railroad during World War II

"With enlisted men heading overseas, railroad companies turned to women to keep their overtaxed locomotives maintained and running smoothly. By 1945, some 116,000 women were working on railroads.

In April 1943, Office of War Information photographer Jack Delano photographed the women of the Chicago & North Western Railroad roundhouse in Clinton, Iowa, as they kept the hulking engines cleaned, lubricated and ready to support the war effort."

Lots more photos here.

source

Wartime Kitchen and Garden

The BBC did a series about how people in England cooked and gardened and lived during World War II.   It's a well done piece.  It's hard to find but it pops up from time to time on YouTube and it is there right now.  I can't recommend it enough.  It's great watching for quilting on a dark day.

Wartime Kitchen Series

Old photos

My favorite houses are the ordinary homes from the early part of the twentieth century.  I've been looking at the archive of old government photos and here are some of my favorites.

This is a kitchen from Westmoreland Homesteads, which was a New Deal subsistance housing project.

 Here it is with people!

And here is the bedroom....

This is a migrant camp on the Willamette River.

I like their clothes.  Notice how the apron has no neck straps.  In those days apron bibs were pinned on.

Depression era kitchen

I think this kitchen is very interesting.  It certainly is a work room.  The newspaper above the stove looks like a terrible fire hazard.  But the little girl, who is clearly poor, looks so happy and healthy.

Depression era poverty

Kalamazoo Gals

Women worked in all sorts of jobs usually done by men during World War II.... one of them was making Gibson Guitars.  And apparently they made EXCELLENT guitars that are sought after for their wonderful sound.

I found out about this from Lauren Sheehan, a local blues musician who participated in the Kalamazoo project.  She recorded a CD where she played guitars made by these wartime women workers.

Dolley Madison

i had no idea dolley madison was such an important figure in american history!  i used netflix instant play to watch it but i see that pbs also provides online viewing.

Dolley Madison . American Experience . WGBH | PBS

Call the Midwife

The series "Call the Midwife" is playing now on PBS.  It's BBC show set in the 1950's in East London.  The midwives are a group of young women living and working with an Order of Nuns.



You can watch episodes here on the PBS website:


Call the Midwife

Secret Rosies

I watched a really interesting documentary about women computers, as they were called.  These women were called human computers because they developed the steps and then performed the series of calculations to figure bullet and bomb trajectories.  They also were the key programmers on the Eniac, though they got little credit at the time.

The documentary is "Top Secret Rosies" ; I watched it on instant play Netflix, but I think it is widely available.

You can learn more about it here

Top Secret Rosies

History and the kitchen

I love details about women's history.... how women worked and lived in the past.  I've been watching a tv  series on YouTube called the Victorian Kitchen.  It's about working in a kitchen on a big estate in that era (sort of like Downton Abby but with none of the intrigue and more focus on the cooking).  In the show, they actually prepare different sorts of meals in a real Victorian kitchen.

Victorian Kitchen episodes

It stars a woman who started life as a scullery maid in such a kitchen and became a cook.  As she cooks, she shares stories from that time in her life.  She was actually working during a post-Victorian time, but apparently kitchen life on big estates stayed the same well past the actual Victorian period.  For example, they continued to cook using wood fires even though gas cook stoves existed.  Their was a distrust of cooking with gas; they thought it would somehow taint the food.  And it was the servants who did all that hard labor anyway so there wasn't much motivation to make life easier for them.

There is another show I like even better about cooking in England during World War II, with rationing and such.  Did you know that one of the first foods that became unavailable in England was the onion?  Imagine how difficult it would be to cook without onions.

Unfortunately only a few episodes of that show are available.  Here is a link for the Wartime Kitchen episodes.

Wartime Kitchen and Garden

We've been watching another show about England in World War II called Foyle's War and there is an episode where someone gets really excited about an onion, which I didn't understand until I learned that onions were mostly unavailable then.