Victorian Era Advancements
The Industrial Revolution in the Victorian Era brought about many advancements and inventions that promised to make life easier. However, many of these had hidden dangers lurking within.
Some advancements during this time were: food processing, compacted houses, bathrooms, mangles, cleaning chemicals, and celluloid.
Food processing was an innovation in the Victorian Era. Instead of making all the food themselves, people could just buy prepared food from stores. However, sometimes dangerous ingredients replaced more expensive ones in processed food, such as borax instead of flour on top of breads.
Compacted houses, or townhouses, were made popular in Victorian times because they could fit more people in the crowded cities. However, due to their narrow and compacted nature, the stairs to the second floor would often be too steep and people would fall down on them.
The bathroom was another Victorian invention. Early bathtubs were heated with gas, and if you got in before turning off the gas, you could boil to death! Early toilets were prone to methane leakages from the poo clogged in pipes, and in the gas-lit homes of Victorian times, spontaneous explosions were not uncommon.
The mangle was a time-saving device for drying clothes. The clothes were passed between the rollers, and they were dried much faster. However, if someone put their hand there, it would be crushed in a matter of seconds.
The discovery of cleaning chemicals was another potentially dangerous Victorian innovation. Back then, they were stored in the same type of containers as baking soda and other innocent household products and were sometimes ingested instead of these.
Finally, celluloid, an early version of plastic, was highly flammable and used in various fashionable, but cheap products, for example, dresses or shirt cuffs. However, electricity was not discovered yet and most of the lighting was still gas and candle, so many people would get seriously injured from burns caused by these flammable products.
