ANSWERS: 14
  • Work long hours at a job, unless they were rich.
  • Dating girls/guys, finding good hobbies, following interests, and also Getting drunk and doing some occasional vandalism, just like today lol
  • Same thing that all the adults were doing. You were more or less an adult as soon as you hit age 10. Depending on where you were living, you could be married by 9 years old as a girl, 14 as a guy.
  • maybe this will help? http://www.osv.org/kids_zone/askjack.html
  • Work the farm with their family, which today is your summer vacation.
  • Work 14 hours a day for little or no pay.
  • They often went to work at 10 or 11, worked long hours, got paid very little (apprentice-they were learning lol). Got married very young. Became the drummer boy in the military, became a thief or criminal, roamed the streets, became a pickpocket, became a vandal, some even attended school and college. Lots of things they do today!! But without the electronic devices to corrupt them.
  • Seen but not heard
  • I'm finding many historical inaccuracies in some of the answers. If you're a MALE....you'll start school. Work did not begin for them until age 10 or 14. During that time they have limited freedom. Discipline is strict. Hobbies include: playing toys, reading, singing, work (not all boys farm and not all boys work. Some became a newsboy, which is distributing newspapers throughout the cities riding on bikes or just holding them up), flirting, curse, smoke tobacco, drink alcohol, hanging out with friends, dancing. If you're a FEMALE...you'll start school. Work did not begin for them until they are 16 years old. During that time they have limited freedom. Discipline is strict. Hobbies include: playing toys, cooking, sewing, learning to care for a family, work (some did become teachers or nurses, which were popular jobs for ladies), reading, singing, hanging out with friends, dancing, gossip.
  • work in coal mines. Also play conkers and tops in the park
  • They would run around behind the little animals in back of the barn! We won't talk about what happened when they caught one of them!
  • If you mean by what they did for fun, it depends on where they lived and what their income level was. A poor farm teen spent most of their lives working. The only way to socialize was if the family went to church, but if the farm was isolated the family worshiped at home. "fun" meant playing with siblings. You used your imagination instead of sitting in front of a computer. Marriages were usually arranged by word of mouth: "My cousin has a son who's just about right for your daughter..." Girls were quite often "sold" and it was often to a much older man. If they lived in a small community they were lucky to go to a "barn dance", "county fair", "church social", or "hay ride" to socialize. All was done under strict supervision. (there were always the defiant ones who got into the home brew and "hid" in the haystacks) If you lived in the city and were poor you probably worked. Leisure time meant sleeping. You were lucky to even get enough to eat. You made games up or if you had toys it was very few--"jacks", marbles, or a rag doll. There were also the "defiant ones" who ran the streets, either runaways, orphans trying to survive, or even the children of criminals. If you were "well off" and lived in the city you might have gone for buggy rides, "socials", parties, dances, theater, opera, church. Or even "strolling": young ladies and men would walk up and down to meet, flirt and check each other out. (kinda like "crusin" in your car) Again all of this was done under strict supervision, but there were always rebels. Males did what teens do today: drink, smoke, take drugs, gamble, fight, etc. Girls stayed at home and read, did craft work, charity work, or visited, "gossipped", etc. Girls that got pregnant were sent away to relatives or even a nunnery. It was desperately tried to cover up because it ruined her chances of marriage. Elite males were "spoiled" and merely chastized. Marriages were often, but not always arranged. In all socio-economic levels you obeyed your parents or you could be (and often were) severely beaten. How bad it got all depended on how mad your father was..
  • In the early 1860s, the were riders for the Pony Express. Average age for those American heroes? 16. Orphans preferred.
  • Read Mark Twain. He lived in that age, and he would know. Tom and Huck might be exaggerations, but the other characters were quite normal.

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