Escapism

"The theater becomes to them a 'veritable house of dreams' infinitely more real than the noisy streets and the crowded factories."

The need for this type of escapism would be inconcievable to us now, but Jane Addams wrote "The House of Dreams" in 1910. The following year, the biggest work related disaster until 9/11 claimed the lives of 146 women, primarily because of uncaring supervisors and unbelievable sub-par factory construction.

With such terrible conditions, I'd imagine that I would have stooped to theivery and other underhanded methods to escape into a fantasy world, as well.