INQUIRY IDEA B -THE CENTURY OF INVENTIONS?

Consult these excerpts linked to the Web activity Inquiry Idea B "The century of inventions?."

25. What was the impact of technological change on domestic life at the turn of the 20th century?
26. What was the impact of new household devices on the lives of women at the turn of the 20th century?
27. What was the impact of technological change on diet?

 25) What was the impact of technological change on domestic life at the turn of the 20th century? 

“Technological change modified only slightly the nature of working-class women’s workplace or the daily tasks they performed within the household. By the end of this period the technology existed to lighten work within the home. Indoor plumbing, better toilets, and gas and electricity for lighting and heating were available in the later decades of the nineteenth century. Fancy stoves, steam heating, and some new household gadgets were making life more comfortable for the mistress of the house in the homes of wealthier Montreal families, while posing new challenges to their servants. Not till well into the twentieth century, however, were gas and electricity installed in most working-class homes. A water connection, a cast-iron cooking stove, and, for the best-paid workers’ families, an indoor toilet constituted the major advances for wives in working-class households during the second half of the century.”

Bradbury, Bettina. Working Families: Age, Gender and Daily Survival in Industrializing Montreal, Toronto, McClelland & Stewart, 1993, p. 155, 156.

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 26) What was the impact of new household devices on the lives of women at the turn of the 20th century?

“[There is] (…) a considerable lapse between the time a household appliance was invented and the time it was distributed. Although many appliances  were invented before 1900, only a few fortunate women felt the “beneficial effects” of the technology. In the United States, technological innovation spread slowly, and had little impact on domestic life before 1920. Women in cities were the first to be affected; women in small towns would have to wait until after 1930. Some inventions such as electricity and gas, had no effect on women’s lives. The Compagnie du gaz de Montréal (Montreal Gas Company), established in 1847, concentrated at first on street lighting, as did the electric companies established in Montreal after 1878. Private electrical and gas companies, primarily served industrial concerns, municipalities and a few fortunate citizens.

“The 1901 Eaton’s catalogue tells us what was available to prospective customers. Eaton’s offered only a few electrically powered products such as fans, bells and lamps, and there were as many oil and gas lamps as there were electric lamps. (Electricity was not yet the primary source lighting in Canadian homes.)

“Technological innovations were slow to appear in the kitchen. In Montreal, Meilleur & Co. produced a coal-fired stove in 1864. The new stove was much more efficient than the traditional wood stove, but the housewife’s work was hardly less onerous. Lighting the fire, for example, was a time-consuming and dirty chore.”

Clio Collective. Quebec Women: a History, Toronto, Women’s Press, 1987, p. 149.

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 27) What was the impact of technological change on diet?

“The development of a railway network brought variety into the diet. Fruits and vegetables could be transported in refrigerated cars, which appeared in the United States in 1865, after the Civil War. The canning industry also experienced some growth during the last decades of the century. Canneries started up in Quebec after 1870, and their products entered the market. They were, however, expensive: in 1901 a can of corned beef or peaches cost fifteen cents approximately an hour’s wages. The working-class housewife could not afford to give her children ready-to-serve food.”

Clio Collective. Quebec Women: a History, Toronto, Women’s Press, 1987, p. 150.

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