The Victorians get credit for a lot of things, but I don’t feel like they get enough credit for being the unfortunate guinea pigs of modern convenience.

"People were afraid of each other due to germs which is horrific" This aged like milk.

I LOVE the redheaded lady. You can tell she enjoys the hell out of history and teaching it.

Victorian era in a nutshell: I may be poisoning and scarring myself but AT LEAST IM NOT P O O R

Trying not to die in the Victorian era is like a daily challenge lol

I worked in a paper factory not too long ago and while I worked in the warehouse part, I was told by many about the injuries. One of the managers there's lost a finger or two on a machine when he was young working there. One boy got crushed and his best mate was the first responder. No lives lost but lives scarred. But what made me cringe was the hand getting caught in the rollers. They called it gloving I think. Like they said here, the skin just being stripped and one guy did it to one of his hands, got it all sorted came back to work and managed to do it again to the other like a year after. Guys still there now, obviously nothing will stop him lol. But ahhh doesn't it make your skin crawl?

This is how the History Channel used to be before they sold out and became a reality TV station. This is some great educational content!

I love how the woman with red hair smirks after she talked about wives poisoning their husbands with arsenic

Victorians: “EW GERMS” Also Victorians: “wanna have some bread with your alum?”

the victorian era was basically mankind’s “testing” phase

the man who invented the toilet... was called Thomas Crapper... everything makes sense now... edit: i just googled him and he invented something called the floating ballcock this man just keeps getting better and better-

You know what? I’m genuinely surprised that the human race has lasted this long 😂

The Victorian era should be renamed “a thousand ways to die”

I was born (1971) into a victorian terrace house with no bathroom, central heating or toilet in the house. Mum and dad had a tin bath in front of a coal fire and I was washed in the kitchen sink. The toilet (lavvy) was outside in the back garden and had no electric light. When I was three we moved into a council house with central heating, a bathroom and an indoor toilet, we thought we had won the lottery! My kids don't believe me when I tell them.

The fact that so many men were afraid their wives would slip arsenic into their tea says a lot about how men were treating their wives, and that they knew how they were treating their wives...

When I was a child over 70 years ago my mother mixed a few drops of carbolic acid with salt water to use as a gargle for a sore throat. It was red & sometimes I can still remember the taste. We didn’t know how dangerous it was.

Victorian mothers: "Sometimes you need to let the child touch the mangle so they learn to never do it again or are incapable of ever doing it again."

I have a younger cousin (now an adult) who at about 3 years old "helped" her mom do laundry in their wringer washer. She was feeding clothes thru the ringer(mangler) and caught her arm above her elbow in that wringer. The scaring on her arm was ghastly, but she was so brave about it. She still has those scars on her arm.

I'd like to give a special shoutout to all the inventors, engineers, chemists, idealists, philosophers, anti-manglers and anyone who's contributed to non-explosive toilets, non-lethal washing machines, non-boiling bathtubs, etc that I have benefited from.

Imagine sitting in a bath so hot you’re literally making soup out of yourself and thinking, “Oh, yeah, this is fine! The burning just means it’s working.”

Is it me or is the redhead like really excited to describe dark things. The brunette is very calm and collected and the redhead woman is theatrical hahaha

"Didn't want to kiss their children because of germs." Yes, it was and IS terrible. The past has repeated itself once again.

Some of the ways the victorians died seem almost too clever to be an accident

I grew up in an ancestral home in the late 1970s. Old houses often have bathrooms located at the back near the back door. This is so the odors from the bath will air out the door & not in. Same with our old home, but there was also a second bath or outhouse not far from the house. Male members of the family often use the outhouse. Needless to say that us Girls & the Ladies use the Bath inside. In cold mornings I remember that my grandmum often boils water to add to the collected water in our large covered barrel & buckets. So all of us can have warm water to bathe with.

Nobody: Victorians: lets find the most deadly way to do literally anything

Novella warning LOL: When I was little my father dealt in antiques. I also grew up reading about 'old timey days'. So when he brought a mangler home (not an industrial one, a simple home countertop one that could be mounted) I was beside myself. My brother and I proceeded to put everything we could get our hands on through the thing. Some went, some didn't. Naturally at some point we decided to put our fingers in it. He was first being the elder brother of course. I went too fast and when he screamed he jerked back pulling a tiny bit of skin off the meaty pad of his finger but not enough that it couldn't be explained by some random kid roughhousing we always did. We were blown away how tight it was and how you could get an entire garment through there with sheer muscle power (though we struggled much doing that at ages 9 & 10). My turn. We thought we were being 'wise' by not just jamming the tips of our fingers in, I mean we didn't want to get in trouble for breaking bones, so we had agreed to just test the palm side part of our fingertips. I was much smaller than he and my hands were tiny. When I lay my finger against the rollers the very real possibility of getting my hand actually mangled crossed my mind. My brother verrrrryyy sllooowwwwly turned the crank and I felt it grab the flesh instantly. I gasped and my brother stopped. He held the crank in place and leaned around my side so we could both get a good look at my finger meat pinched by the ever so smallest piece. It was Science at work. Our minds were exploding with questions during our little experiment and I told him to roll it a little more. He did. Now a larger portion of flesh was pinched and I gave it a small tug to test it. I was going nowhere unless I wanted to lose the flesh off my fingertips, this was very clear to us. My eyes were foggy with snuffly tears as we both leaned closer to see the pinched flesh beginning to turn purple. It was just the tiny tiniest fraction of flesh that was caught but I can assure you, once you're caught...you're caught. Fortunately this mangler cranked both ways as it was a much older version and all my brother had to do to release me was let go of the handle. He did. And we sat there wondering all sorts of things while we stared at the tip of my finger that now had a bit of a star shape on it, purple in hue. it later turned to black as blood became trapped under the skin. That was another experiment for another day... Point is...a lot of people here are asking or saying 'How could you crank your baby up?!' And I'm here to tell you...Easily. She wasn't cranking slow like my brother and I, she was in full Go Mode trying to get a households worth of wash through the mangler in the fastest time possible so she didn't have to be there all night. The baby got too close. It happened. It's why we live in a world now with health and saftey rules and regulations, insurance policies and waivers. Because stuff like this happened. Whether it was flesh or gown that was initially grabbed, it was all going through. Many manglers had multiple rollers to avoid having to put it through more than once to get a better wring, so it's entirely possible she never saw a speck of blood come through on her side as fortunately the brother drew the mothers attention and she could stop, though sadly to no good end. So go easy on our ancestors and those who came before. They were what taught us to do better today. it's called Evolution. Welcome to it.

I’m in my mid sixties. I remember a friend (in my teens) who had dreadful scarring on her harm, and she said it had got caught in a mangle. She was mangled! Living history folks!

Me: * invents time traveling machine* Also me: *invents a TV game show where people have to survive the Victorian era*

This explains why my old roommate never took baths or showers. He was a timer traveler from the Victorian era. It makes perfect sense now.

Some Victorian issues are still issues today. Exploding sewers happened in my childhood in a certain area of Staten Island, NY. There continues to be a battle with sanitation and property rights ("don't dig up my lawn, government man!" Or "well you pay for it, then") and upkeep and updating/replacing issues. It sounds so crazy I googled to make sure I wasn't imagining it. Forty souls died.

“Afraid of each other because of germs” Me during the coronavirus pandemic: *laughing through my gas mask*

As recently as the 1980, or around that time, I remember seeing articles in the newspapers about a hospital that had kept sugar and salt in identical galvanized cans. Bad enough that the cans were galvanized, since this allowed small amounts of cadmium or zinc or both to get into the product, but the were stored next to each other. The salt was intended for use in the kitchen and the sugar was intended for use in baby formula, as well as for use in the kitchen. The hospital had a maternity ward, with lots of little babees in it, as well as mothers. Someone making up the baby formula put salt in the formula instead of sugar. Then the formula was fed to about 75 babies - all of whom were more perceptive than the doctors and the nurses, and all of whom knew there was something wrong with it, and refused to partake of it. The hospital staff thought they were smarter than the babies, decided it was important for the babies to be nourished - and FORCE FED THE BABIES WITH FORMULA CONTAINING LETHAL AMOUNTS OF SALT. Just imagine you, as an adult, being forced to swallow a glass of milk with a tablespoon of salt in it, instead of a tablespoon of sugar. And being force-fed this concoction 3 or 4 times a day. The doctors and nurses, when they saw the babies didn't like the formula, instead of just tasting the formula, just assumed the formula was fine, assumed it was the babies, rather than themselves, who were stupid - and force-fed the babies. Those doctors and nurses knew they were well educated and had a great deal of confidence in their ability to feed babies properly. About 3/4 of the babies died. All of them were sick for a long time, and I don't know if they had permanent damage or not but it seems likely. The doctors and nurses had noticed that the babies who were breast fed were mostly happy healthy babies, and that the bottle fed babies were getting sick and dying, but they STILL didn't bother to taste the formula, and the STILL exhibited the confidence borne of education and achievement, and they still force fed the babies.

A story I was told a lifetime ago. A Mother is bathing her baby in a tin bath on a lit stove. She hears a knock on her front door so She hurriedly goes to the door and gets engrossed in conversation with her friend. The baby... Not necessarily a Victorian tragedy though.

“The Victorian age was the age of the poisoner”. The historian at 17.02 is fantastic! The clinical psychologist is brilliant also.

I just happened to come upon this channel, and my insatiable need for documentaries and learning is forever grateful :) wonderful and informative content. Thank you for existing!!

My great Aunt(although gone long before I've been born) who was my granny's little sister, died as a kid of gangrene from infection after getting her whole right arm crushed in a laundry mangle. [That wasn't literally Victorian period, but just after it, in about 1915. Mangles were better by then but could still be just as dangerous.]

So living in a victorian household was like playing russian roulette everyday

Oh my god it just occurred to me- that’s why we say something is “mangled” if it’s bloody/injured in a significant way

17:01 that lady describes everything in such a Gothic and horrifying tone throughout this whole episode Just loved her narration on this topic💜💜💜💜 Also at 6:21 6:38

I love all the videos about Victorian period. Such beautiful documentaries

"The fact that people were afraid of each other, because of germs. Which is a horrific thing, when you think about it." It's only over a year later, but now I can promise you we don't have to think about it that hard.

The redhead gives major serial killer vibes. I love her! And this should be renamed Absolute horror history, the Victorian's were something else!

Must've been rather easy to murder someone in the Victorian era then play innocent. "Oh dear! I've mistakenly poisoned my darling husband! I only wanted to make him a cup of tea! Silly me! It's a good thing I encouraged him not to put off signing those insurance papers one day longer! First his meddling mother boiling to death in that bath I'd run her; and now this! She'd always been so disapproving of me, but still! Lackaday! Lack-a-day-de! Luckily hubby was in the will." "Oh no! I've accidentally mangled my least favourite (and insured) child's head through the mangle!" "Heavens! That clumsy parlourmaid, who ruined my tea service in front of Lottie Browning and Emma Shaftesbury, must've taken a tumble down the stairs! Oh well!" "So much stress! At least I'll be able to relax on my new asbestos sheets, tho!" Its also no wonder Britons have been so good at penning some of the best crime, mystery, and horror novels/literature. They have a lot to draw from!

"The fact that people were afraid of each other, because of germs." That didn't age well.

Imagine going to the bathroom at a friend's house, walking away only for the toilet to explode! Friend: "Damn! What did you eat?!"

Honestly it is a wonder anyone lived to adulthood in Victorian times!

Just another day in the Victorian home: Wasn't boiled alive or exploded out of my bathroom. What a lovely day this shall be.

"People were afraid of each other due to germs" Watching this in 2021 this goes deep

"People were afraid of each other, because of germs. Which is a horrific thing if you think about it. " Me in 2020 😬😷

I’m seriously surprised ppl survived the Victorian era. Like how did we not go extinct? Edit: to all the ppl commenting, thinking they’re smart and shit.... shut up😂 stop commenting like anybody cares.

i remember as a small child helping my grandma doing laundry in her wringer washer machine. it was cool feeding stuff through and watching it come out the other side almost like a sheet of paper. she taught me to be real careful around stuff like that since it could easily mangle your hand if you weren't paying attention. common sense...it did exist

My heart felt thanks to my ancestors and yours for figuring this out long ago!

The Victorian Era was a walking death zone. It's a wonder humans still exist today.

16:12 I live in Bradford! I ran straight to the internet right after this video, the killer was named ‘Humbug Billy’, also known as William Hardaker. He sold sweets in central Bradford, the ones mentioned in this video were peppermint lozenges. There’s a detailed history on wiki, if any fellow bradfordians are interested!

Oh now I understand why haunted houses are often victorian ones

Dr. Lipscombe is such a fantastic presenter, and these videos are amazing and educational. Love it!

I miss how vivid and blunt news papers were

This is fascinating. Thank you for making these videos!

The wringer washer is similar to the mangle. My dad got his arm caught in a wringer washer when he was about three. Luckily he didn’t lose his arm but even now at 84, the back of his arm is a constant purple color.

Thank you Absolute History for a posting a fascinating episode. I have a new found interest in history especially English history, the Victorian Age and history of Rome. Thanks again. 😊

In a century, they'll talk about our creams, shampoos, deodorants full of chemicals, of tanning beds, botox injections and plastic surgery

I used something very similar to a mangle when I was a child. It was called a ringer washer. My childhood was very oldschool. Everything was outdated but it worked and I learned a lot. My mom ever had an old sewing machine that used a foot peddle. I loved it all.

I have heard of bath rooms in the homes of the wealthy in the early 1700s, even with running water with boilers. There may not have been a lot of them but they existed.

This is a fabulous series, showing vividly and entertainingly how this was such a unique time: scientific ingenuity coupled with inexperience because everything was so new; lack of regulation coupled with a boom in profiteering; the huge rise in population, with the expansion of the middle classes, pushing demand for compromise. Cutting edge, exciting, ignorant and dangerous. We've all heard about the poverty and the pollution of the era, but this is a superb look at how danger crept into the most mundane things we all take for granted nowadays (having sorted out most of the problems!) I would love to see them take the same approach to modern life and the dangers we all take for granted but which maybe in the future, people will look back on with the same manner of horrified amazement.

My grandmother still owned a mangle as recently as 2012. I remember being told every time, very firmly, that I was *not* allowed to even touch it, even though I was old enough to know better by then. 😅

Similarities in packaging lasted much longer than the Victorian era. In the early-1960s, my Father accidentally consumed some industrial cleaning solution that he mistook for a bottle of soda. Happily he was rushed to hospital, and he suffered no long-term ill effects.

Nobody: Victorians: Everyday tasks, but make them ✨deadly✨

Something random i learned in school: Archie was a chemist. Archie is no more, because what he thought was H2O was H2SO4 Labels are important

I just know I WOULD NOT have been one of the survivors of the victorian era lol

When my son was about 11 years old he entered a Jaycee Relay Race. He’d never ran track before and didn’t know everybody wore shorts. He came in jeans, to everyone’s amusement. He ran the last leg for his team - and came away the fastest runner of the day, and made up considerable distance to win. This video made me think of that day. How I wish I had been able to see it, instead of only hear and read about it. I was a single mom and had to work. My son was an amazing athlete. ❤️

So weird. There's a story about my great grandmother accidentally making a recipe with pinesol rather than oil. They recognized the taste issue immediately and my great grandfather spit it out, but it was normal to store these side by side even in the thirties if the last century!

My mom had one of those washers w mangle attached. My brother and I were playing in the basement one day when his arm got stuck. He survived, no long term damage to report. Boy that brought back memories.

Victorians: “If we boil, explode, mangle, or poison ourselves then the germs can’t get us!”

Fascinating, horrifying, entertaining, educational, really well produced and presented; I had no idea about ANY of this. So thank you. And all the women interviewed here seem to be enjoying the macabre subject just a little too much! Haha! Fun stuff!

* Falling asleep in the bathroom * Maid:* looks at her and puts potatoes and salt in the tub * Lady: * wakes up * wyd? Maid: shhhh nothing nothing go back to sleeep

11:32 "The fact that people were afraid of each other, because of germs, which is a horrific thing, when you think about it." Watching this post-2020, this sentence really caught my attention :D

I feel so lucky to live in this era

A have watched all of your Victorian documentaries today, and it's absolutely fascinating.

Taking bath bombs to a whole new level

!An amazingly informative episode! Scientific expertise combined with accurate and absorbing presentation. Thank you . Stay safe.

“People were fearful of each other because of germs which is quite horrific” Me in 2021: “yes, it is”

I love your experts! I would have never made the connection between doilies and an insect scare... so interesting

Wow... Got to the bit about the mangle and besides the fact that the name itself is ominous, my mom actually had a sort-of DIY built mangle that would be put over the tub. The thing was unsteady to begin with. Now that I know what it was based on, I'm so glad that we ended up using the thing for firewood...

“People were afraid of each other because of germs - which is a horrific thing, if you think about it.” That quote aged richly.

who sits in their scalding hot bath realizing its getting more hot and just says "aight ima just sit here"

This series is what my morbid little heart needed 🖤

"The fact that people were afraid of each other because of germs, which is a horrific thing if you think about it" Me living in corona tines: "... well you see-"

I didn't know a mangle could be that dangerous, when I was little I helped my mom hand wash on a washboard and mangle laundry since there was no washing machine in our summer house in the countryside even in the 2000s. Of course I was careful, but didn't think of it as possibly deadly, I had lots of fun 😅

How the hell did we survive the victorian era? And fingers getting stuck in a machine or loosing fingers/hand/arm is like my worst fear beside the weeping angels from Doctor Who

We live in some great times. Never take it for granted

In a hundred years or so they'll be talking about tanning beds.

This whole channel is comical. How everyday items we take for granted were actually during their Alpha & beta testing, lethal to testers.

This old time history stuff really fascinates me. I knew about them putting plaster of Paris and foods and other things but to really get research into a lot of stuff style of living and quality of living people went through back then is intriguing

11:32 "the fact that people are afraid of each other because of germs, is a horrific thing when you think about it" couldn't have aged any better

And yet it’s still impressive how we don’t put ourselves trough extinction due to the rash conditions and how we still managed to thrived trough all of this.. resilient species is what we are indeed..

I've lived in apartments in China that still have methane leak out of the toilets and other drains connected to the sewer (including kitchen sink). These are not old apartments, at most 10 years old. Not all apartments had this problem, but having a toilet (and in one apartment, the kitchen sink) that farted methane into my home was very unpleasant.

I like how they were scared of flies, and noticed that they were attracted to the manure, and instead of cleaning it, they would just lift their skirts, and continued being scared of the flies

When I was a kid my family had a contraption with rubber rollers for drying clothes. It doesn't seem dangerous if it is manually operated and stops immediately when not cranked. Caustic soda is good for cleaning up old grease. I keep it in a bottle near the kitchen sink.

In our lovely Victorian family home we had a proper washhouse, in which was a huge (and rusty) cast iron bath; a WC located within a small cubicle, with a cistern above head height and pull flush on a chain; and two huge porcelain sinks with a hand powered mangle in between. All our washing was done in these sinks, the mangle was great - we kids never got body parts caught in it’s rollers, though it was tempting, in a contrary way, to put fingers in to experiment. The items that suffered the most destruction were buttons on shirts. Laundry was then hung on big pulleys hanging from the ceiling, or put outside on the line. Very eco! We ultimately got a variety of old bangers of washing machines to help Mum with the wash load of four kids plus husband. Great days, in a marvellous house.

When you realize people living in the Victorian era we're playing life in Hardcore mode: 👁️👄👁️