COLONIAL HOUSE ON TV TONIGHT + Quiz: How would You Fare In 1628?

[KittyWampus]

Colonial House, brings the rigors, adventures, colors, tastes, scents and sounds of a vibrant 17th century to life. You'll want to watch what happen as two dozen modern-day men, women and children live in the year 1628 for five months,working together to build a functioning colony on an isolated stretch of the misty Maine coast.

The eight-hour series premieres Monday, May 17 and continues Tuesday, May 18, and concludes the following week, Monday, May 24 and Tuesday, May 25 from 8-10 PM.

The colonists' day-to-day lives present both personal and communal challenges including both the expected -backbreaking labor, battling bad weather and primitive living conditions - as well as the unexpected - religious conflicts,surprising colonist confessions, devastating news from the outside world and even an AWOL colonist.

The 26 hardy souls chosen from more than 5,000 applications, some of which were for entire families, to participate in the time-travel experiment include: the Voorhees family from Massachusetts etc. and individuals from New York City, North Carolina etc. At one point, all participants were housed in just four single-story cottages measuring only 15 x 20 feet each - with as many as 12 per house! Among the colonists' many points of dissension were the rigid class and gender roles, mandatory religious worship and the puritanical civil laws of the era, particularly those pertaining to profanity.

How would you fare in 1628? Take the Colonial House quiz and find out. (See link for interactive History)

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/colonialhouse/history/index.html

[BlackVelvetElvis]

1. I know without taking the quiz

that I would curl up in a fetal position and cry like a little girl.

[roguevalley]

2. SNICKER! That was so adorable. Personally, it would be like going

home again. :-D

[BlackVelvetElvis]

7. It's true! I'm too city-fied.

This girl's gotta have frequent baths and a working toilet!
I admire people who can live like that, so I do plan on watching the show.

[KittyWampus]

3. I Am Pretty Sure I'd End Up In The Stocks

if not a Scarlet Letter.

[billybob537]

4. If I had a bow and arrow

I'd never be hungry.

[ForrestGump]

12. If you had a bow and arrow

They'd probably hunt you down and kill you. Or convert you. Sometimes both.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. The lack of hygene would be my downfall

Realize forks weren't introduced to the colonies yet. People shared a common bowl, using bread to sop up gravy from stews. If they got individual portions, they were placed on hollowed out bits of wood called trenchers. Bones and stuff not eaten were put in a basket called a voider. Huge towel like napkins were used for an entire week, and one didn't wash one's hands as much as wipe them on this napkin.

But, believe it or not, people lived and thrived in those times. Andrew Foster lived over 100 years, dying in the 1680s in North Andover, MA. Since he was my direct ancestor, I hope I've inherited his genes for longevity!

[bbernardini]

6. One of my coworkers was a finalist for this!

Shame she didn't get on, as she would have had the producers scrambling for new ways to try and make her family break down. :)

[KittyWampus]

8. The Psychology Is Fascinating! Watched Prairie House By Chance

and ended up loving it.

It's just so interesting watching people interact along with all the other included historical stuff.

[Bunny]

9. I wouldn't last a day and that's a fact.

No running water would be bad, but no flush toilet would be out of the question! I think I've just reached a stage in my life where I simply cannot be inconvenienced. Not very flattering, but there it is.

When I was little my dad used to take us to his hunting camp. No running water, and an outhouse to boot. We were kids and we didn't care, unless we had to pee at night. Then we just KNEW that bears would get us as we walked to the outhouse!

[KittyWampus]

10. Here's The Questions In The Quiz

Your life is Comfortably Contemporary.
Your habits, values, and lifestyle are indicative of the modern society
in which you live. We hope you'll explore colonial life by frequenting
this site, watching the TV series, and reading books. But don't try this
yourself.

1. How do you like to spend your free time?
You Answered: Attending a gathering in my community
Fact: With few books and no newspapers or theater, colonists relied
on communal events and ceremonies for an escape from the routines
of agricultural, pre-industrial life. Idle behavior was considered
inappropriate, so any free time was put to good use.

2. How would you describe your clothing preferences?
You Answered: I wear rugged gear that can last for years
Fact: For most of the 17th century, few homes had a spinning wheel to
make thread or a loom to convert it to cloth. Since cloth was imported
and expensive to buy, clothing had to be durable enough to pass
along to the generation coming up. The fashion for underwear does
not seem to appear until the end of the 17th century and possibly
even later for women; even then, it passed by many people. The
essential item of underwear in this period was a loose linen shift worn
next to the skin called a "smock" for women or a "shirt" for men.

3. Which of the following would you most like to eat for dinner?
You Answered: Vegetarian stir-fry with tofu
Fact: Early settlers ate what they brought with them from the Old
World -- salted meats and fish, grains, and few other supplies.
Occasionally, imported foods like sugar and spices could be obtained
from passing ships, but mostly the colonists had to produce their own
foods -- grow crops, fish and gather shellfish and berries, and hunt.
Bread, meat, and beer were considered the best foods; the settlers
generally disliked and distrusted vegetables and drinking both milk
and water.

4. To quench my thirst, I prefer:
You Answered: a glass of water
Fact: Everyone consumed alcohol, including children, women, and
ministers. English people on both sides of the Atlantic thought alcohol
to be helpful in warding off disease, and many colonists harbored
doubts about the safety of drinking water; water mixed with a little
alcohol was considered much safer than ordinary water. The colonists
generally disliked drinking milk, and they didn't drink juice -- unless,
of course, it had been fermented into alcohol!

5. Rank the importance of the following hygienic customs:
You Answered: Showering daily: Extremely important, Brushing my
teeth: Extremely important, Shampooing/washing my hair: Important,
Wearing deodorant: Not important
Fact: The English were not in the habit of bathing, washing their hair,
or brushing their teeth. They considered it unnecessary, and possibly
even unhealthy and dangerous to do so -- especially in the cold winter
months! They washed their visible parts -- faces, arms, and hands --
with water or "dry-washed" by simply rubbing with a cloth. Instead of
washing their hair they might apply Fuller's Earth, a fine clay that was
good for absorbing grease.

6. How big a role does religion play in your life?
You Answered: Religion is very important to me, but I tend not to put
my beliefs on public display.
Fact: Religion was a fundamental part of life in this time period and
was basically how people interpreted their world. Churchgoing was
mandated by law but was more than an obligation -- the Church and
worship were at the center of civic and social life.

7. What are your feelings about respecting authority?
You Answered: I respect authority only if the authorities have earned
my respect.
Fact: Seventeenth-century society was ordered on hierarchy, from the
king and the nobility down to the vagabonds, beggars, and the dregs
of society. Everyone had a rank, and the idea that everyone was
created equal wouldn't have made sense back then.

8. How would you assess your feelings about spending time inside
versus embracing the Great Outdoors?
You Answered: My trust of Mother Nature is implicit. She has never let
me down and never will. I'm as comfortable in a tent as I am in a bed.
Fact: The colonists did not idealize Mother Nature. To them, she was
often the antagonist, for settler life meant getting plenty of fresh air
and sunlight as a result of spending long days at work in the fields.
Further, pioneer conditions meant that newcomers had to settle for
rudimentary and temporary shelter. Without the tools and technology
to take advantage of the abundance of lumber in the New World,
settlers knew it would take months or years before they could build
substantial houses. Early on they might have copied the homes of the
Indians or lived in dug-out caves until they built what the English
called "cottages" -- small, one-story, one-room buildings that to us
might seem little more than wattle and daub huts.

[ForrestGump]

11. Like most

such quizzes, the results are skewed by the highly constrained nature of the options given.

I received a "Your life is Comfortably Contemporary" rating: "Your habits, values, and lifestyle are indicative of the modern society in which you live." Well, duh...


Of the choices given for how I like to spend my free time, I opted for movies because I've chosen that lately (too much heavy stuff going on, and movies are an escape -- less effort than the reading that I also love -- when I have a break), but if the options included certain physical/outdoors activities I'd have chosen that.

They say that "Idle behavior was considered inappropriate, so any free time was put to good use." I guess I should have realized that we're talking American, Puritan 1600s, rather than the 1600s as practiced in other cultures that were demonstrably more 'enlightened.'

I think I scored well on the clothing choices, but tanked again on what I like for dinner -- my preferences weren't given but I can definitely say that I'm not with the colonial types in having meat, bread, and beer as my favorites. They say that "the settlers generally disliked and distrusted vegetables and drinking both milk and water." I hate these fad diets...

And I don't drink, so my preference for water as a thirst-quencher (juice would be next in line, though less so for basic thirst quenching) made me a bad fit with those puritan drunkards: "Everyone consumed alcohol, including children, women, and ministers." Guess they were permanently dehydrated, especially with such an aversion to quaffing water...no wonder they were so uptight. well, that and starching their underwear.

"English people on both sides of the Atlantic thought alcohol to be helpful in warding off disease"...this seems to still hold up, though Australians long ago stole the Nothern Hemispherers' thunder in this respect.

"...and many colonists harbored doubts about the safety of drinking water." Well, it was okay before municipalities started 'purifying' it and contaminating it with cryptosporidium.

Frighteningly enough, my personal-hygiene habits matched quite well, but solely because the nature of some of my activities forces changes in my schedule in that respect. I think we all know of the English aversion to bathing, that's obviously a thing of the past now. ...not that English bathrooms feature showers, by gum....

I crashed and burned on the religion question. Big surprise. Color me nonPuritan.

Ditto with respecting authority.

Ditto again with my feelings about Nature and being outside. I understand their adversarial relationship with nature -- I've certainly felt that way when weather patterns or other prevented me from getting out and doing my work (or destroyed a project in progress) -- but I've no more catergorized nature as the villain than I would consider her benevolent toward me. I do know one thing: the biblical idea that we have dominion over the planet and that it was created for us is a very dangerous one, and it's at the heart of a lot of our environmental problems (especially in tandem with the quest for the Almighty Dollar).

So it looks like I'd have been a poor fit in 1600s proto-America, not that I'm a great fit in today's USA. If I was there I'd probably have been some hermit who lives in a cave, bathes and brushes his teeth on a mostly-regular basis, cooks up a mean black-bean burrito, drew very artistic erotic pictures on my cave's walls that depict Hester Prynne in various states of undress and ecstasy, and spent my days drinking water as I wander the forests in a Thoreau-like state of pondering. And, yes, trying to avoid those uptight, dehydrated, beef-gobbling drunken Puritans who cluster together like sheep.

Actually, that's frighteningly like my reality today... :o

[KittyWampus]

13. It Was Interesting To Find How Much Beer They Drank

fits perfectly with the misogyny BUT now when we say puritanical we think of NOT drinking beer.

[BlackVelvetElvis]

14. Back then the alehouses would be open for breakfast

They would down a pint in the morning, at least in England.
I believe they equated it with bread and that it was nutrious.

[ForrestGump]

16. Wasn't it pretty yeasty stuff?

Sounds sorta more like liquid bread, anyway (and not Wonder Bread) than Heinecken.

[ikojo]

20. Back then some of the colonies outlawed the observance

of Christmas because it was seen as a raucous holiday.

http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/holidays/christmas/real3.html

The pilgrims, English separatists that came to America in 1620, were even more orthodox in their Puritan beliefs than Cromwell. As a result, Christmas was not a holiday in early America. From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings. By contrast, in the Jamestown settlement, Captain John Smith reported that Christmas was enjoyed by all and passed without incident.

After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favor, including Christmas. In fact, Congress was in session on December 25, 1789, the first Christmas under America's new constitution. Christmas wasn't declared a federal holiday until June 26, 1870.

[ForrestGump]

15. It's those darned NEO-Puritans!

I think they prefer Oxycontin, anyway.

[DivinBreuvage]

37. Actually the Puritans were pretty enlightened white folks for their time

apart from the issue of religion, of course, which was aggravated in America because in England the Puritans couldn't get away from their neighbors so had to learn to get along. But their views on things like child-rearing, the status of women and servants, and public education and welfare were ahead of their time.

[SarahB]

17. I'm an Imminent Immigrant

"You're not quite ready to make a smooth transition to life in the colonies, but you're close. If you adjust some of your priorities, you can begin your journey across the Atlantic!"

I actually like to sew and have done woodworking. I have spent time on farms (Many Summers as a kid for years) and fully understand the attitude of healthy respect for nature, plus, I'm a survivor in life. I may look like a candy ass, but when it comes down to it, I have no fear of getting dirty and hard work. In fact, I do it quite frequently. In fact, I don't do much else. Some days I wish I could burn my TV and go live on some self-sufficient commune away from this f*cked up world, but that's not happening anytime soon, so I remain in utter non-bliss in suburbia.

[KittyWampus]

19. You Definately Sound Like A Survivor

High maintance women need not apply :)

[SarahB]

25. As long as no one puts me on some lame show

making me eats bugs, I could handle anything.

Hear me roar!

[TheMightyFavog]

18. Heh! They picked a fundie to be governor.

Typical.

[Bertha Venation]

21. thanks for the tip! just set up Tivo to get it all

:bounce:

[Bombero1956]

22. it's not just a fundie

but his wife 2 daughters and a son. Out of the 25 participants they comprise 1/5 of the total. No surprise that the "governor" leads the first prayer at the first meal when the lay preacher opts out of the communal meal.

[KittyWampus]

23. Colonies Without Women Were Failures

The women spent up to 6 months aboard ship while colony set up.

They would take care of homes so men could work in fields etc.

[TheMightyFavog]

24. 21st century tragedy?

Can't be 9/11.

9/11 happened during the filming of Frontier House, IIRC

[TheMightyFavog]

26. Uggghhhhhh the church Service.....

Someone please shoot me with a tranquilizer rifle before I go spare!


Damn fundie rants.....

[KittyWampus]

28. The Governor Is The Fundie

the layman preacher is a liberal, religious studies guy.

But still, TWO 3-hour prayer meetings on the Sabbath sounds BORING.

[TheMightyFavog]

30. Did you see the previews for the next show....

The fundie governor shows his true colors, dealing out 17th century Puritan punishments. I'll bet he got a real kick out of thorwing people in the stocks for skipping church.....


This episode should serve as a warning to every American citizen. This is what America will look like if the fundies get their way. It will also show just exactly why the foundig fathers built a wall seperating church and state.

[KittyWampus]

31. Observation: Without Governor's Leadership The Colony Was Failing

without someone to take charge... colonists were skipping work etc.

In real life, the colonists could have died. The program is re-enacting a do or die situation.

As I mentioned in the other thread, sometimes Democracy isn't the best option. Other examples, expedition or aboard a ship.

[TheMightyFavog]

27. A gallon of beer per day?

:beer: :beer::beer::beer:

Sweet jeebus!

The 17th Century had its perks!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

29. There was an article in Scientific American about this a couple of

years ago.

The article mentioned that people must have gone around vaguely sloshed all the time, even in the Puritan areas.

In the book An Instance of the Fingerpost, which takes place in seventeenth century England, the author refers to a character drinking "only" a quart of wine at lunch.

[dolo amber]

32. I've watched all of these historical *experiment* shows

on PBS...is it just me, or is this bunch REALLY whiny and annoying?? I wasn't sure I was gonna make it through last night's episode because of it. The fundie governor and his clan didn't help much, either. They're showing the "Pioneer Quest" episodes here again, so I've been watching them as well; compared to the 'colonists', they had it 9 billion times harder (their homes weren't built for them, it's rained constantly for WEEKS on end while they've slept in canvas tents, mold all over everything, mosquito swarms of biblical proportions, etc) and they've had VERY few tears and little bitching.

I dunno, just seems to me you shouldn't sign up for something like this if the second your 21st century soft-American comfort zone is breached you start blubbering like an idiot. :shrug:

[KittyWampus]

33. Yes, The Governor's Family Seems A Bit Weepy.

and there seems to be a MAJOR storm brewing over differences in religion.

Back then, religion was overt and you HAD to conform.

That is an essential part of the time period they are re-creating.

Edit: as someone noted already, the Governor's family took up a very significant part of the whole number. This seemed unfair from the start. When they had to leave it really caused a major shift.

[slinkerwink]

34. I know I'd be deaf and mute because they didn't have deaf education

or cochlear implants back then. I'd be the "deaf and dumb" daughter or possibly be killed before I reach eighteen.

[Sapphocrat]

35. Quiz Schmiz...

Don't need to take it. I'd strap down the bazooms, do a Ballad of Little Jo, and live happily ever after as the Master of my domain. I've got the muscle to do the hard work, and a little hair transplant from scalp to jaw would complete the illusion.

(As far as procreation goes, I'd feign fanatical religiosity -- maybe even become the village minister -- and claim that God told me it wasn't my place to sire offspring. Who would argue with me? Burn, witch, burn! :D)

[lazarus]

36. I'm waiting for Medieval House

You know it's coming. :evilgrin: