Differences Between 1800's And Today

Shaping of the modern world has occurred through numerous changes since the 1800’s. The purpose of this essay is to explore a few key differences between the periods of 1500-1800 and today’s modern world. It will provide a summary of Blainey’s (2000) work and outline the following , food production and diet, gender roles and finally beliefs and knowledge of the 1800’s. Focusing on how food was produced and what was eaten in the 1800’s, what was expected of women and men in their roles and where people of the 1800’s got their information and what they believed. A comparison will parallel these feature with today’s modern society with the 1800’s as well as highlighting several key differences of these periods drawing attention to how substantial
In addition to the variety we have today our access is vast, due to transportation and availability. We receive and ship food from our ports multiple times a day from all over the world and have access to most of them through our local stores compared to the 1800’s were almost all food consumed was from local sources. Important also to note that alcohol of all kinds is restricted to adults only by law due to research regarding the affects and addictive properties.

In the early stages of the 1800’s women and children were in charge of rural upkeep while men worked either on farms or in trade roles (Blainey, 2001). Later as industry improved men’s roles became specialised while women’s roles did not vary substantially with many rural jobs became secondary to the importance of male roles (Henslin, Possamai & Possamai-Insedy, 2011). Woman had specialization in trades relating to fabric and childcare but there were seen as home duties and not as important as male
Famine seen in the 1800 as described by Blainey (2001) is near non-existent in first world countries and due to how accessible information is society is aware of the plights of third world countries and assistance is given where possible. This is a major improvement on the societies of the 1800’s who had to deal with famine within their own community and very little could be done. Today the improvement in information access and education has improved society in many ways in regards to mental health, education for the majority and equality. There is still inequality in gender when it comes to pay but it is vastly improves from the 1800’s and we can hope to see more improvement in this arena as more information is shared and process by the masses that will affect