Good morning, we will conclude 1900 Island with the Industrial Revolution hitting the fishing community.  It is the final week for the families.  At the start of the episode, the women are preparing the fish that the men caught on their long trip.  The retired fisherman is teaching the women how to gut the fish.  The men are checking on the lobster pots.  The pots are empty again so they do some hand fishing.  Every extra fish is extra money and food for the community.
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In the boat shed, the finishing touches are put on the dingy for the community.  The dingy will be used to fish in the shallower waters.  The community comes together to launch the dingy and go fishing.  Although women did not fish on the open ocean, there is evidence that they used dinghy’s and fished close to the shoreline.

However, there is another boat that looms on the horizon: a steam-powered boat.  These steam-powered boats meant the end for smaller communities that used sailboats.  The men comment on the sight and talk about the impact that steam powerboats would have had on the communities.  The families saw the boat as a threat.  In the 1900’s the fishermen would have moved on to bigger harbors or changed occupations.

The families then sell their fish and the women are doing the negotiating.  The sale is not going their way.  The fish prices are lower this time.  Even though it was their largest catch to date, the price they got was thirty percent lower.  The families have made seventeen pennies each and it is a bitter blow for the families.  At the start, the fishermen were making fifty-five pennies for their wages.  The families' spirits are low after the low price shock.

The families have been relying on secondary incomes to help supplement their incomes.  One family has been selling eggs and that was a steady income.  They talk about giving up fishing, which would have been the same questions the fishermen back in the 1900s would have faced.

The crash in fish prices has hit home and so the families come together to hunt for shellfish.  Shellfish prices are rising.  Gout had flared up again and so one man remains behind to keep the fires burning.  The families walk ten miles to start hunting shellfish.  The men are hunting muscles and the women are hunting cockles.  This time the families have to come up with something.  Finding cockles will be a challenge for the women.  They have to go further out, where the mud is deeper.  The women finally have hit the jackpot.

The men are hunting muscles and are having better luck.  The work is easy and the muscles are easy to find.  Harvesting muscles is not for everyone and the men are questioning why they are doing “women’s work.”  These types of feelings were the same that the 1900’s fisherman would have faced.  The men also hit a good spot for the muscles and start thinking about the money they will make from the venture.  It was a good day's work for the hunters.  It will be two days of prep before the shellfish are ready to sell.  Two families work on preparing the cockles to sell because prepared cockles will fetch a higher price.

To continue to learn more about the 1900’s Island, watch this episode.  What have the families learned from this experience?  What will they take back to their modern lives?  This would be a good episode to show in the class because it showed the struggles of the families as they tried to make money.

It is week 3 on the 1900 Island and life is a challenge for our modern families.  The men plan a three-day fishing trip, leaving their wives and children behind.  The women fish for lobster but the food is running short. 

​At the start of the episode, the men are learning about setting lobster pots from Mickey, an expert fisherman.  The men are using handwoven lobster pots, putting the bait in, and setting them out at sea.  It was another way the families could make money.  Lobsters were highly prized fish that the wealthy wanted to eat.  The lobster potting would help one of the families eat well.

A new member of the community has moved in with one of the families.  He is proving to be an asset to the family.  He collects wood and works with the island shipwright as an apprentice.  As an apprentice, his personal life would have been strictly regulated by the master.  This practice goes back to Medieval times.  He will be building a new dingy for the community.  The apprentice works on making oars for the new boat.

Mickey works on getting the pots set up and one of the members helps get the pots set up.  He is finally allowed to get out on the water after suffering from gout.  The lobster pots will be dropped nearby the rocks.  The pots are set and it is a waiting game to see what they catch.  The fishing communities had to be self-reliant and they would have to be highly skilled to keep boats in good repair.

The food situation for one family is proving to be a challenge.  The mother is not eating enough and the father is not happy with the situation.  The shop keepers are concerned about their neighbors because it is clear that they are not eating well.  So they come up with a charity scheme for the island.  Individuals had to help out people in need.  One family puts together a food hamper for the bigger family.

The fishermen check on the lobster pots to see if there is anything in them.  The first pot that is pulled is empty and so it is reset.  Another pot comes up empty.  One of the women is finding it a challenge to be stuck on land.  The women were tied to the home in the 1900s.  Women’s suffrage was starting to become a fight.
One family rethinks their charitable initiative and believes that charity should be done quietly and should retain a person’s dignity.  However, the family is grateful for receiving the food.  It is a boost for the family.  With food supplies and money running low, they plan for some overnights on the boat.  It will be a challenge for novice fishermen.  Fishing was a dangerous occupation, and in the 1900s one in ten fishermen apprentices were lost at sea.

The men head out to sea for a longer fishing trip.  While the men are away, the lobster pots will still need to be checked and so the women had to row to check lobster pots.  The families have one final night together before the long fishing trip.  The men go off to sea to go fishing.  There will be no communication between the island and the women left behind.  Will this trip be a success for the men? 

While the men are away, how will the women handle being left on their own?  Tune into this episode to find out more. 

This episode was more interesting because of the fishing trip and the women being left on their own.  

Good morning!  We are back visiting the 1900 Island.  The families are entering their second week and the weather is finally good enough to go fishing.  Food rations are running low again, even after the boost of cash.  One family struggles to feed their large family.  Another family struggles to keep a tight rein on their finances as well.  A flair-up of gout is to blame for the situation.
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Additionally, there are questions as to how the community should function.  What does communal living mean in the 1900s?  Each of the families has a different vision for communal living.  The men need to fish and they need to make money.  The one compromise for this experience is the modern life vest.

While the men are off fishing, the women are taking care of the chores.  It has been nonstop since they arrived on the island.  It is Monday and it is wash day.  The women find handwashing the challenge.  The fishermen return triumph with a bit of a catch.  At last, the fishermen are successful in catching forty-four mackerel and three dogfish.  They sell the mackerel and eat the dogfish.  The families have their first fish supper and it lifts the spirits of the people on the island.  One man comments that it was either feast for famine with the 1900’s man.

The triumph is short-lived as the weather turns against them.  The men will not be heading out to fish.  The families do have a second source of protein: chickens.  However, the eggs are three pennies for eggs.  One family is making a good trade on eggs.  Another family runs a small grocery store in their cottage.  A third family is making bread to sell.

The children then head off to school.  Children between the ages of five and twelve had to go to school.  So the modern children are going to school on the 1900 Island.  They are being taught by a modern teacher and she comes daily for lessons.  There were only a select group of women who became teachers and the rest went into domestic service.  The teens are working at home and are finally contributing to the chores.  As teens, the girls would have been sent to wealthy households to work.

The teens are finding working a bit of a challenge.  So they find work at another family's cottage and they earned three pennies for two hours of work.  In their modern life, they did not do any chores.  The father of the family comments that he would have been pushing them out of the house as they would have been “one less mouth to feed.”

The wind and the swell are still putting fishing on hold for the men.  The families are tightening their belts.  Less money is coming into the community and the egg business is suffering.  The chicken farmers are trying to figure out a new marketing technique to sell the eggs.  To continue to learn more about what the families went through on the 1900 Island continue to watch this episode.

Week two proved to be interesting as the families tried to adjust to the realities of 1900 living.  The teen girls were annoying and lazy.  It was too bad that the weather was against them and perhaps it should have been filmed at a different time.  There were also some creeping in of modern ideas into this episode as well that I did not care too much for.  I enjoyed the retired couple and was a bit sad that the old man could not go fishing because of his gout.   If I was a teacher, I would bypass this episode.

Good morning!  Today I am going to feature the 1900 Island.  This is a historically based reality TV series.
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Four families are heading back to 1900 and living in a small fishing village.  The men will go fishing and the women will take care of the home.  The children will be educated in the 1900 schoolhouse.  So what hardships will these families face living this lifestyle?  Will the families come together to help each other?  Will they fall in love with the past?

In this first episode, we meet our four families and they are on an Island off of Anglesey living on an island on the Irish Sea.  Nobody lived on the island for the past seventy years.  Now four families are going to experience life on the 1900 Island.  They will experience the harsh realities of a fishing village.  One family has seven members while another has five members and speaks Welsh.  One family has experience living off the grid.  Another family is a retired couple and is an experienced fisherman.  Each family talks about the challenges they will face and what they think they will learn from the experience.

The weather is proving to be a challenge on the families' first day as they approach the island.  Eventually, they make it to the island the cottages they are going to live in.  Each of the cottages has the family name on it.  There is a community hall and a boathouse.  They will have a small amount of money at the start and will have to use an outhouse or a chamber pot.  They will be living on this island for a month.  The families explore the cottages.  For one family the cottage will be a squeeze.  It was common for the children to share a bed.  One cottage is sparse with few possessions and it is owned by the man of the family.  Living in the 1900s will be a challenge for the children.  How will modern children cope with the changes?  Will the community come together to help each other?

The biggest change the families will face will be the clothing.  The families remove their Twenty-First-century clothing and change it into the clothing of the 1900s.  Quite a few people are finding the clothing amusing.  Not everyone is finding the clothing amusing.  The clothing would have been made from wool and would have been for warmth.  The corsets and the layers of clothing are proving to be a challenge to the women. 

The weather proves to be stormy so the families shelter in the cottages for the night.  They prepare to fire up the stove for the first night.  The stove will be the source of heat and cooking.  The families will also have to rely on candles for light as well.  The weather prevents the men from fishing for the day.  So they will help the women adjust to life on the 1900 Island.  In 1900 the women and girls were responsible for the household chores.

The families will have to live frugally as well and stockpile provisions to see them through.  With rationing, it should see them through the next few days.  There is also a small vegetable patch available.  With the weather against them, they will have to be careful with their food situation.  Will the men be able to find work besides fishing?

So how will modern families cope on the 1900 Island?  What will they learn about their experience?  Watch this series to find out about life on the 1900 Island.

This is a fascinating history-meets-reality-TV series that could be shown in a history classroom.