I wrote:
> In another example, many building codes in Pennsylvania are the same today > as they were in 1790. > I happen to know this because I own a house in the barn in Pennsylvania which were constructed in 1790. The man who reconstructed them is an expert in colonial and early American buildings, stone masonry and building codes. > Naturally, government experts at places like NIST contribute to the > standards, but no standard is ever implemented without consultation and > expert input from industry. > I know this because my late father was a top official at NIST (then called the national Bureau of Standards). The main difference between the present day and the colonial period and the 18th and 19th century is that today people have far more autonomy and freedom to do as they please. Guilds, industry and government have much less control over our lives. Right-wing people often say just the opposite, but this is because they have no knowledge of history. I will give four examples, but you can find hundreds more in any history book: Personal appearance was much more controlled. In New England in the 1840s, beards were out of fashion. That is to say, men who wore beards were sometimes accosted by crowds, beaten, forcibly shaved and jailed. In the 1960s long hair was unfashionable and a sign of antiwar protest. On some occasions young men with long hair were treated in a similar way, but this was rare, rather than being the rule. Until 1963 people's sex lives were far more restricted by laws than they are today. Adultery, homosexuality, contraception and pornography and much else were forbidden. Divorce was forbidden or difficult. Interracial marriage was forbidden in many states until 1967. In the 18th and early 19th century, hostels and hotels in the U.S. had to meet various strict, detailed standards. They had to provide fixed amounts of specific foods to travelers; and the room charges were fixed in a narrow range. The specifics varied by state but they were a matter of law. Nowadays, the only thing covered by law in a hotel or motel is the charge per room and the fire escape route posted on the door. Parents in the 17th, 18th and early 19th century had little control over the education or upbringing of their children. When parents did not teach their children how to read by age 6, or when parents set a bad example, or did not take the children to church, local governments could -- and did -- take the children away and assign them to foster parents. The notion that parents have the right to raise their children away from society by their own lights, or to home-school them, is from the 1960s. It did not exist in the U.S. before that, for good reason. In my opinion, and it should not be allowed today. Although I will grant that government had too much power in 1642. For details, see: Massachusetts Bay School Law (1642) "Forasmuch as the good education of children is of singular behoof and benefit to any Common-wealth; and wheras many parents & masters are too indulgent and negligent of their duty in that kinde. It is therfore ordered that the Select men of everie town, in the severall precincts and quarters where they dwell, shall have a vigilant eye over their brethren & neighbours, to see, first that none of them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of their families as not to indeavour to teach by themselves or others, their children & apprentices so much learning as may inable them perfectly to read the english tongue, & knowledge of the Capital Lawes: upon penaltie of twentie shillings for each neglect therin. Also that all masters of families doe once a week (at the least) catechize their children and servants in the grounds & principles of Religion, & if any be unable to doe so much: that then at the least they procure such children or apprentices to learn some short orthodox catechism without book, that they may be able to answer unto the questions that shall be propounded to them out of such catechism by their parents or masters or any of the Select men when they shall call them to a tryall of what they have learned of this kinde. And further that all parents and masters do breed & bring up their children & apprentices in some honest lawful calling, labour or imployment, either in husbandry, or some other trade profitable for themselves, and the Common-wealth if they will not or cannot train them up in learning to fit them for higher imployments. And if any of the Select men after admonition by them given to such masters of families shal finde them still negligent of their dutie in the particulars aforementioned, wherby children and servants become rude, stubborn & unruly; the said Select men with the help of two Magistrates, or the next County court for that Shire, shall take such children or apprentices from them & place them with some masters for years (boyes till they come to twenty one, and girls eighteen years of age compleat) which will more strictly look unto, and force them to submit unto government according to the rules of this order, if by fair means and former instructions they will not be drawn into it." http://www.constitution.org/primarysources/schoollaw1642.html Note it says "force them to submit unto government." So much for the ridiculous notion that Americans in the old days were rugged individualists free to do as they pleased. Read actual laws, diaries, newspapers and other original sources and you will see that society and government were far more authoritarian in ever era of the past than they are today. - Jed
