The Victorian Slum Online

Our PBS affiliate just aired the first episode of this series. When I first heard about it, I thought it sounded silly, but I did want to check it out for myself.

While this can be considered entertainment, because it is (real life) drama, I place this in the educational genre. The premise is that modern folk live and work within a fictional world that approximates life in 1860.

Frankly, I don't think many people realize how much human existence has changed in 150 years. This show is a reminder. Since the participants are placed into this micro-society directly from the 21st century, their experience might bear a resemblance to those who left an agrarian lifestyle for the big city or those who left other nations seeking a new start. In this experiment, all are assigned roles, i.e. occupations, when they arrive. A modern-day tailor learns to make or repurpose articles of clothing from used clothing or rags. A retired gentleman reports for day work at a bell-making factory that uses the same methods as those in the Victorian Era. Some women learn to make matchboxes from scratch.

Hanging over all the volunteer participants is the need to earn enough money for shelter and food. This is no simple task in this new-but-old world, and those with families really feel the pressure.

Along the way, the viewer learns much about how some people struggled to survive in what is typically called a dog eat dog world. Conversely, some families find that the proximity and the sharing of labor and daily challenges can bring them closer together.

Those who watch this show should consider what life was like in 1500 or 1300. Such exercises teach us much about society and ourselves.

We need more of these shows. Not only is it entertaining, but it is educational. Both older and younger generations could benefit . It is easy to get bored with books at school for many. Don't get me wrong,i like good books. Then again, i was raised to think like, and have a heart like 2 generations older than me, before set alone with my generation and younger. Most adults or kids do not appreciate what they have. maybe this show, and similar scenes, should be the new way to teach them, i mean both historical, AND to concider if they reeeeally have it so bad? You could see the positive effect on the families as well.

Stumbled on this by accident, but it quickly became a must watch show, pulling ordinary people out of their 21st Century lives and dropping them in the middle of a recreated Victorian slum and making them fight for survival gives a captivating view into what life might have been like for the real people that lived this life from 1860-1900. The participants have to scrape money together the meet their rent and food obligations by doing any work they can find, sometimes they get to eat and sometimes not, they move up and down the ladder of the life as they either make it or fall behind in their own personal battle to get out of the slums, some make it and some don't. They are subject to humiliation and pity when they realize they can't work and support or feed their families, they find out what it's like to run a sweatshop or be a working in one. The host offers background on why something is happening and the social events of the time that moved things the way they did, the participants are surprised by events that cause them to think they are going to get ahead and then the next week they are further behind than before. Do the people really get the full effect of being poor in Victorian England, no but they get a really good idea what their ancestors might have gone through and how hard they really had to struggle to meet ends meet. A brilliant program, that should be watched by all to understand the plight of the poor then, now and in the future.

I love this series. This is a part of British history that I knew nothing about.

The only reason I didn't give it a 10 is that I was a bit put off by Maria's false eyelashes and lipstick. I doubt these were even available at the time, let alone affordable.