The Nineteen-Twenty Essay

Sophie A. Westin could not believe she was grounded over New Year's. This was a consequence of potentially failing her English class. Now she had to spend the evening writing an essay while her friends celebrated. The assignment was given ahead of a unit studying turn-of-the-century stories like The Secret Garden, The Metamorphosis, and Ethan Frome. So its topic was to discuss what life was like one hundred years ago.

 "As if Shakespeare and Pride and Prejudice weren't far enough in history." Sophie sneered at the thought of more centuries-old literature to stagger through. In her mind, some of those dusty old stories turned into films for a reason. She especially enjoyed the action and zombie elements added to the Jane Austen work that came out a few years ago. But she'd rather be one of the undead than sit and read old stuff in any format. Not in print, not an audio recording, not even on an electronic device. Reading and writing weren't difficult for her as much as they weren't her favorite things to do. In some way or other, she managed to skirt by with a bare minimum of her classwork for half the year. Her "helicopter parents" finally caught her evasions when they checked the online grade postings and held a conference with her teacher. All leading to her being home at 11:45 pm on New Year's Eve 2019, staring at a blank word document on the computer screen instead of watching the ball drop with her friends.

"One hundred years ago was the Stone Age." She started typing. "Coming right after when dinosaurs were wiped out, but before anybody had electricity, cell phones, cars, and the internet."

"Nineteen-twenty seems so boring!" The thought only added to her indifference. But a fun spring break was on the line if she didn't apply herself and bring up her grades. After some deliberation, she had to start again. She held down the backspace button and watched the cursor eat the product of her bad mood.

"Downton Abbey wasn't right after the Stone Age anyways." She corrected her train of thought using one of the few pop culture references she knew related to the previous century. She stretched out of her desk chair and got up to lay across her bed and think of another way to start. "Maybe something will come to me in a dream." She mused and yawned as she sunk into her cushy comforter. "All the best stuff does, right?" The next thing she knew her eyes would not stay open, her breath deepened, and she rolled over onto her side to sleep.

Sophie went blind when she did open her eyes again. "Good morning, Sophie!" Greeted a pleasant voice that pulled back thick curtains to let the morning light right in her face. Her eyes adjusted to find the speaker in a maid's uniform who moved from the room's single window to smoothing and adjusting the coverings on what Sophie assumed was her own bed. The room she woke up in was like a smaller dorm room to her. It was modestly furnished, but like a standard bedroom in her mind. It seemed antiquated too, with an armoire, a washbasin, a small table, and a wooden nightstand for each bed. Their blankets and few personal belongings gave sparse color to the room. The place reminded her of the servants quarters in Downton Abbey.

"Happy New Year's!" Her roommate spoke as she moved away from her bed to pick up a flat, skinny parcel set against the armoire. "Happy New Year's." Sophie politely responded, though confused by where she was. Stretching and sitting up, she continued to watch the maid open the package.

"Turning the page on a calendar is exciting," The maid started as she pulled an advertising calendar from the wall to change it. "Even more so to turn it to a new year and a new decade too at that!" Sliding out of bed, Sophie shuffled over to take a closer look. The new one had a picture of a cheerful woman reading a magazine. Underneath the image was a tagline saying, "I stay up-to-date with McClean Magazines!" Sophie had to stifle a gasp when she looked at the calendar part though. She had woken up in 1920!

"It's lovely, isn't it?" The maid asked, thinking she was admiring the poster. "Master McLean was inspired by the ones from the fashion, farm equipment, and soda companies. Everybody's getting a leg in anywhere, aren't they?" The maid laughed, but all Sophie could think about wash how she was apparently working as a housemaid for the owner of the McLean printing company in 1920. "The Great War is over, women can vote, air freight, Charlie Chaplin, Picasso…one can only imagine what the coming years can bring!" The maid went on as she brought a matching uniform over to Sophie. "Don't start yours as a goldbrick though. We still have our work from day-to-day. Come on, the family's awake!" The maid trotted off to whatever she had to do next and left Sophie with a spinning head.

"I am in 1920 and I am a housemaid!" Sophie was still wrapping her head around it all as she slipped out of her nightgown and into the maid's frock. Finally dressed, she hurried down the corridor in the direction she saw her roommate go, brisking right into a busy kitchen with several other staff trafficking a narrow spot. She seemed to disrupt an otherwise orderly flow as she tried to dodge everyone or everyone tried to dodge her.

Breathing a sigh of relief when the kitchen cleared, she finally caught up to her roommate who had a vacuum cleaner in tow. "Come on!" The roommate took her by the hand to lead her through the house. "We're cleaning the rugs today. What's eating you? You've been goofy this morning."

"I just can't believe its 1920," Sophie claimed, feeling homesick for her own century. "The time's gone in a blink, isn't it?" "We've all come through hell or high water the last few years, but we've made it now." Her roommate comforted. "Like I said this morning, we've turned the page onto a new year. We can only wait and see what's next!"

"You're right," Sophie agreed, and they went to work on the rugs in the house. All the while, Sophie wished she knew more about what everybody had gone through or what was ahead of them. She had that kind of advantage coming from a hundred years into the future and she took it for granted. If she ever got back home, she'd write the best essay she ever wrote.

Cleaning the rugs for Sophie and her friend entailed shaking the dust out of the smaller floor coverings. Followed by sweeping the hardwood floors and vacuuming over the rugs or carpeted floors in several of the McLean House public rooms. After that, they spent the rest of the day keeping things tidy and waiting on the family and their guests. Then they helped with the washing and sewing. Throughout the day, Sophie recalled times when only taking care of the dishwasher or cleaning her room seemed like a lot. They were nothing compared to spending an actual entire day doing housework in 1920.

Her feet ached from all the time she spent on her feet. Her hands throbbed and blistered from all the dexterous tasks she had done. Her fingers smarted from fumbling with needles. All the holding and lifting she had done today tired her arm muscles. Dirt and grime tinted the white fringes of her apron. By the end of her day, her bed was a little squeaky and springy, but she couldn't have been more relieved to be back in it.

She thought she heard her name as she dozed off as if her roommate wanted to talk to her some more. She was almost too tired to acknowledge, but she heard her name again. This time more emphatic and repetitive, as if someone were trying to wake her up. Sophie finally opened her eyes and saw her dad, sitting next to her on her bed in her own bedroom, just a few minutes after midnight.

"Sophie, since you're writing your paper on 1920, I thought some family history could help." Sophie's dad offered a memory book of old photos and keepsakes.

"This is your great-grandmother, Alwinda." He introduced as he opened the book. "Your mother and I gave you her name as your middle name." He picked up a couple of pictures she strangely recognized. One was her great-grandmother's own portrait, looking just like the roommate and friend Sophie had in her 1920 experience. The other one was a lineup of servants outside of a mansion; her great-grandmother among them. She sat up to listen, situating herself at her dad's side to better view the heirlooms in his lap.

"She was a housemaid for a Mr. Nelson Blake McLean. He was a millionaire who owned a successful publishing company in that day." Sophie picked up another keepsake from the book. She unfolded a worn, faded poster advertising McLean magazines, just like the calendar she saw. At that point, history, once so dull and distant to her, was physically at her fingertips. And not like in the sense of the internet. It was personal to her now too. So interesting all of a sudden!

"This assignment would be cake if I could still talk to her." Sophie thought, knowing she was laid to rest some time ago. But the snapshots and mementos left behind from her life spoke all Sophie needed to know. She took notes from the stories her dad told her about the photographs. Eventually, Sophie pinned the pictures and things across her memory board above her desk and accompanied them with ideas and highlights written on sticky notes.

Satisfied with the arrangement, she stood back and looked over it with pried. She forgot it was the wee hours of the new year. Filling her mind instead was how she had a lot of exciting things to write about in her essay, and couldn't wait to take her fresh start.

“My great-grandmother, Alwinda Catherine Brady, helps bring the former century to life for me." She typed. "She was a young adult one hundred years ago so she was in the perfect position to experience the changing tides of society and technology."

She drew from her memory board as she continued the essay. The staff photo and poster lent well to talking about the upper-class back then. Her great-grandmother kept a journal and correspondences from her pen-pals, so Sophie easily found details to portray daily life and events of the time. She especially liked the letters and entries about voting for the first time, riding in a Model T, dancing to jazz music, and seeing the black-and-white movies. Liking movies, music, and car rides herself, Sophie imagined she'd get along well with her great-grandmother if she knew her in the 1920s. "Maybe I get it from her." She mused with a smile as she gazed at her portrait on the board.

Sophie fought sleep until she finished typing, concluding her first draft at three in the morning. While her effort just to put together a well-written essay would be a big step in the direction of a passing grade, for good measure she spent the rest of the week proofreading. She figured she couldn’t take any more chances on her work, that every little detail she could get would count, and that she had to do her grandmother proud with her own hard work.

After reviewing Sophie’s essay, her English teacher offered her an extra credit opportunity in the form of giving a presentation about her essay, as only a few other students took such a unique approach to the assignment. Sophie couldn’t pass up the chance. Not only for the sake of her grade but for the pleasure of talking about all she learned from her great-grandmother. From there, Sophie resolved in 2020 to learn more about Alwinda’s lifetime and be attentive and diligent enough to pass her English class in the process too.