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I found this after a short search:

Did you both search for "dissertations" or Forsyte Saga at .edu domains? I was getting mostly commercial sites.

Incidentally, I just read that Irene was 19, almost a child, at the start of AMofP. That puts her in a diff light for me.

Millions of women are married at age 19, have babies, keep house, support households etc. Some have ruled kingdoms at even younger ages, like Queen Victoria and Cleopatra, who took the throne of Egypt age 17. Joan of Arc led the French Army to victory at the age of 18. We have 'babied' teenagers in the past two centuries because they live a lot longer but at one time people matured younger because they jolly well had to and women were likely to have died in childbirth in their 20s, so had to get on with life.

In the Fortunes of the Rougons, Miette is 13 in Chapter 1 and already planning marriage to Silvres, who is 17.

MadgeUK wrote: "Incidentally, I just read that Irene was 19, almost a child, at the start of AMofP. That puts her in a diff light for me.

Millions of women are married at age 19, have babies, keep house, support ..."

All your examples are from earlier eras, although I'm not familiar with Fortunes of Rougons. Would that early maturation have applied to roughly 1880-1900?

Rochelle wrote: "Did you both search for "dissertations" or Forsyte Saga at .edu domains? I was getting mostly commercial sites."

Rochelle, if you are asking me, yes, I was searching the .edu domain. I didn't search for "dissertations" per se -- that might have cut off other interesting possibilities. Depending on what comes up, I'll sometimes play with the search parameters. Course descriptions or library resources are other frequently found useful materials in that domain; sometimes journal articles or a special collection (e.g., Dreiser in Pennsylvania.)

Rochelle: Life expectancy for adults was 37 in the 1800s and 50 in the 1900s. Zola portrayed the family of the Rougon-Macquarts from 1851 onwards.

Having a shorter life meant that marriage and having children happened sooner and high mortality rates in children meant that women started having children sooner. In the late 1800s and early 1900s infant mortality rates were on average 100 per 1,000 live births with some European countries like Russia and Germany reaching rates as high as 250 deaths per 1,000 live births. A gradual decline began in the last years of the eighteenth century. Some historians attribute this decline to the decrease in epidemic diseases and to medical advances. Edward Jenner’s discovery of a small pox vaccine and other small medical advances made an impact. However, most historians feel that improvements in living conditions, particularly improvements in the diets of the lower class, may have had an even greater impact. Improved nutrition kept people healthier and women generally have to achieve a certain body weight before the onset of the menarche.

MadgeUK wrote: "Rochelle: Life expectancy for adults was 37 in the 1800s and 50 in the 1900s...."

That sounds awfully low. Sure that isn't the mean or average without excluding infant deaths, which tended to bring that value down?

Life expectancy figures apply to live births typically.

An upper-middle class family like the Forsytes would be better fed, clothed, and housed than the average. They would be less exposed to diseases like typhus and smallpox, but all classes were in danger from water born diseases like typhoid and airborne diseases like TB, pertussis, and scarlet fever.

And cholera:-




Life expectancy:-

TMI.TMI.TMI.
:-;

So Irene, you're saying, born about 1865, had a life expectancy of 31.

Did Galsworthy have a problem with credibility filling his book with characters in their 80's? Did his publishers get buried under an avalanche of letters claiming this was absurd because it's so rare, let alone all in one family?

I love the description of the photo. Not only did John Snow get a memorial with his name, but also a pub honoring him!

Rochelle wrote: "TMI.TMI.TMI.
:-;

So Irene, you're saying, born about 1865, had a life expectancy of 31.

Did Galsworthy have a problem with credibility filling his book with characters in their 80's? Did his pub..."

I believe that if a child survived to five, his life expectancy was much greater than 31. Most of my relatives who were born from 1800 or later lived into their 70's and 80's. They were poor, migrating farmers and still lived a long time. Many of those ancestors buried quite a few babies and young children. This scenario is also true on my husband's side. Of course this was in America. Maybe it was different in England, the world power of that time.

☯E³¾¾±±ô²â wrote: "I believe that if a child survived to five, his life expectancy was much greater than 31."

I thought that number was a bit off, but it's Wikipedia, so......

Life expectancy in England was lower than in the US then because living conditions during and after the Industrial Revolution were very poor. Just because some people survive longer does not invalidate the national average. Galsworthy was not writing about average people.

Those in towns had a lower life expectancy than in the country because of the polluted water supply and proximity to contagious and infectious diseases. My grandmother died of TB at 48 and my grandfather lived to 92 but that proves nothing. Life expectancy also has an hereditary factor, which is affected by some genetic conditions or lack thereof, like heart disease or diabetes.

BTW I forgot to mention that I was married at age 19 as were a number of my friends. Getting married before your boy friend did his National Service was common then, just as getting married young at the beginning of a war always has been.

(Before knocking Wikipedia, look at the sources given.)

The article says the following: "The following information is derived from Encyclopædia Britannica, 1961. and other sources, some with a questionable accuracy. Unless otherwise stated, it represents estimates of the life expectancies of the population as a whole. In many instances life expectancy varied considerably according to class and gender.
Life expectancy at birth takes account of infant mortality but not pre-natal mortality."

This low number includes children who died young in the whole world. To get a more accurate picture of how old people lived to be in the early 20th century would be to show life expectancy after one reached the age of 5. This number of 31 really tells us nothing about how long people lived in England in the early 20th century.

BTW: The USA had many deaths in associated with the terrible conditions in the cities, mines, etc. as well as the general poor health of the immigrants. Later, we tried to limit the entry of the ill at Ellis Island.

☯E³¾¾±±ô²â wrote: "This low number includes children who died young in the whole world. To get a more accurate picture of how old people lived to be in the early 20th century would be to show life expectancy after one reached the age of 5. This number of 31 really tells us nothing about how long people lived in England in the early 20th century...."

Given what I had found in past looks at this issue, at the time more ancient Roman and Greece than later centuries, this makes more sense (than 31 years), Emily. I did see evidence in a little searching this time that life expectancy did begin to change drastically between the 1800's and the 1900's, which does also follow given the advances in medical skills, medicines, knowledge, ...

There was social pressure among all classes for women to marry early. Even for royalty. The age of marriage for Queen Victoria's daughters:

- Victoria 18
- Alice 19
- Helena 20
- Louise 23
- Beatrice 28

Victoria herself was 20 when she married Albert.

Kirk wrote: "There was social pressure among all classes for women to marry early. Even for royalty. The age of marriage for Queen Victoria's daughters:

- Victoria 18
- Alice 19
- Helena 20
- Louise
- Beatrice 28
"

Beatrice was a real loser!

☯E³¾¾±±ô²â wrote: "
BTW: The USA had many deaths in associated with the terrible conditions in the cities, mines, etc. as well as the general poor health of the immigrants. Later, we tried to limit the entry of the ill at Ellis Island.
..."

And their handicaps were indicated on the ships' manifests. Madge already knows this story: None of my grandparents left much documentation for my genealogical research. My maternal grandfather, who died before I was born, was named Samuel Silverman, a hopelessly common name in Eastern Europe. The Ellis Is. archives was still a work in progress, but 7 years into my search, I found a manifest for 1904, on which one Samuel Silverman was missing a knuckle of his right index finger. My grandfather had shot it off to avoid serving in the Tsar's army. I danced and sang and called all my closest friends immediately. :-D.

BTW: It took another 8 years to verify that my father's parents had come through Boston, not NYC.

The effects of the Industrial Revolution in England, where it started, have been well documented and are generally considered to be worse than in the US or Europe because of the severe overcrowding which took place, and the pollution of our ancient water supplies. There was far more room for building in the US and I have yet to see details of a US city which was as overcrowded as London or Manchester at that time. In 1810 London was the largest city in the world and had a population of 3m whereas New York had a population of only 70,000 (Manchester 95,000, Chicago 5,000).

The UK was also the destination of thousands of immigrants (especially those escaping the Irish famines and Russian pogroms)) but there was far less land for them to disperse into so they swelled numbers in our already overcrowded cities. London has been a magnet for immigrants for centuries, especially for those escaping religious persecution in mainland Europe. According to the last Census, 20% of Londoners are immigrants and 12% of the UK population are foreign born. Until the 1970s every Commonwealth citizen was entitled to a British passport and had the right to reside here and as the Commonwealth included one-third of the world's citizens that meant an awful lot of potential immigrants. Postwar modern travel translated that right into a reality for millions. We might not have a Statute of Liberty proclaiming 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses..' but they arrive here nevertheless.

MadgeUK wrote: "The effects of the Industrial Revolution in England, where it started, have been well documented and are generally considered to be worse than in the US or Europe because of the severe overcrowding..."

You'll find similar overcrowding in NYC, mostly lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, between roughly 1880 and 1920. The numbers in your source are a bit off, in an OTT way. ;-)

The population of both cities in 1860 was vastly different to that in 1810 and many of the conditions in London which led to high mortality through water borne diseases had been vastly improved by better sanitation and knowledge of what bad hygiene could cause. Edwin Chadwick's promotion of public health reforms and the building of new sewers between 1848 and 1854 considerably improved many UK cities (and some in the Commonwealth too).

Bad as they may have been, I really do not think there is any comparison with New York or any other American city at this time, which is why so much fiction and non-fiction has been written about London and why there were so many public inquiries into the situation.

Try this for another set of figures on U.S. cities. It does show the tremendous growth in the 1800's.

Thanks Lily. But still nothing like the 3m for London (7m by 1910). In 1840 the total population of the 10 US cities was only 884,291 people. It was the density of population coupled with polluted water sources and the likelihood of getting contagious diseases, which led to the very high mortality rates in UK cities. I include Manchester because it was a big manufacturing city about which Engels wrote in The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844. Dickens and Zola both wrote to expose the horrors of such living conditions. Was there an equivalent American author?

This website shows a pic of New York in the 1840s, when it was still rural:-



London was a bit different to this, as the descriptions given by Dickens and illustrated by Boz show.

MadgeUK wrote: "Dickens and Zola both wrote to expose the horrors of such living conditions. Was there an equivalent American author? ..."

Those I think of off hand came later and were as much about sanitation for products as living conditions, e.g., Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906) on the meatpacking industry.



Theodore Dreiser also wrote about city conditions for the working classes, e.g., Sister Carrie (1900).

American literary contributions were slow to develop. Some of the early commentary was on the so-called "Robber Barons" who developed, and exploited, the resources of the country. Our early well-known authors included James Fenimore Cooper (1789 � 1851) known for his historical romances of frontier and Indian life, Herman Melville (1819 � 1891)-- Moby-Dick, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 � 1864) who explored the Puritan heritage of New England, Henry Longfellow (1807 � 1882) who romanticized and popularized much of which he touched although his translation of Dante still remains respected as quite readable, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 � 1882) led the Transcendentalist movement, and Henry Thoreau (1817 � 1862) produced his tracts on individualism and simple living. Sinclair Lewis (1885 � 1951) was the first American author to receive the Nobel in Literature in 1930; "his works are known for their insightful and critical views of American capitalism and materialism between the wars; he is also respected for his strong characterizations of modern working women."

One of my favorite books is Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie (1923-27) by Ole Rolvaag that speaks to the difficulties of Norwegian immigrants settling on the plains, far from mountains and water.

During the Dirty Thirties, Dust Bowl days, John Steinbeck (1902 � 1968) wrote of the difficult conditions as in The Grapes of Wrath (1939).

That's a once over lightly -- others of you who know American literature, please suggest the big misses in this hodgepodge.]

Thanks Lily, I know those except for Sister Carrie which I will now read. A lot of American lit of the period seems to deal more with rural poverty (like Steinbeck) rather than urban poverty. Upton Sinclair comes nearest to describing the sort of factory conditions Manchester mill workers experienced.

I don't know of any literature that writes about the horrific conditions of the mine workers all around the country. However, if one visits the numerous mines today you learn about the working conditions, the accidents, the lives of the workers who were virtual slaves to the owners, etc. The conditions were just as bad in Canada at that time.

And there have been several PBS documentaries about those conditions during the building of our bridges, subways, etc. But I don't recall any lit.

MadgeUK wrote: "Thanks Lily, I know those except for Sister Carrie which I will now read. A lot of American lit of the period seems to deal more with rural poverty (like Steinbeck) rather than urban poverty. Upton..."

Madge -- if you are going to read Sister Carrie, make certain you get your hands on the original version. It can be rather hard to come by. I'll dig for the information for you, but not tonight. Off the top of my head, it may be the Modern Library version. Anyway, one of the Pennsylvania universities has a whole site dedicated to the topic. I've read both, almost side by side. It is a rather fascinating story of censorship.

Just remembered one about urban poverty I read in college: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets,1900, by Stephen Crane. But I don't remember if it was good.

A key start on resources re: Sister Carrie. As I recall, it was quite difficult to find the edition wanted -- labeling was confusing. Much of the duplicitous story can be pulled from this site. I probably have both editions in my book list.



The blurb claims this to be the restored version.

Thanks folks.

MadgeUK wrote: "Thanks folks."



I believe this pdf is the restored version of Sister Carrie. You might want to check the associated commentary. I don't know how to transfer a pdf to an ereader, but perhaps you or your family do.

Thanks Lily.

I've had the FS for 10 weeks from the library, and I have to return it. I hope I can find another copy fast, as I have 350 pages more to go. Will report back tonight.

MadgeUK wrote: "Thanks folks."
I think his real masterpiece was An American Tragedy, if you want to move on after SC.

At least in its original form, I think Sister Carrie is an under-rated book. We don't particularly like it, probably because it depicts a rather grasping, self-aggrandizing woman. But, it seems to me it captures many elements of the early migration to the Chicago from the rural Midwest, as well as the lure, opportunities and danger of NYC in that period. I'd place Carrie as comparable to Hardy's characters, although not necessarily his greats like Tess or Jude.

Yes, Dreiser's masterpiece is considered to be An American Tragedy. I've not read it, nor have I seen the movie.

Rochelle wrote: "TMI.TMI.TMI.
:-;

So Irene, you're saying, born about 1865, had a life expectancy of 31.

Did Galsworthy have a problem with credibility filling his book with characters in their 80's? Did his pub..."

There is an interesting stat in the Wiki info that was posted-in Mediaeval Britain the life expectancy was around 30 BUT if you lived to 21 you had on average another 43 years left.

Also, we know longevity has a strong genetic/familial component so I am much less surprised by a set of siblings all living to their 80's than I would be if it was a set of unrelated characters