Introduction to the victorian Exp sl
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This document provides historical context about the Victorian period in Britain from 1837-1901. It describes the immense poverty and poor living/working conditions during the early Victorian period of industrialization. The mid-Victorian period from 1848-1870 saw Britain's Golden Age with the peak of the British Empire and advances in science. The late Victorian period from 1870-1901 involved a decline of the empire and fears of decay as art/literature moved away from "stuffy" Victorian styles and values. The document outlines the major economic, social, and political developments that characterized these periods of the Victorian era in Britain.
![ ‘‘350,000 working-people […] live, almost all of them,
in wretched, damp, filthy cottages […] In the working-
men's dwellings of Manchester, no cleanliness, no
convenience, and consequently no comfortable family
life is possible […] in such dwellings only a physically
degenerate race, robbed of all humanity, degraded,
reduced morally and physically to bestiality, could feel
comfortable and at home.’](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/introductiontothevictorianexpsl-161030172315/85/Introduction-to-the-victorian-Exp-sl-5-320.jpg)
![ ‘A town, such as London, where a man may wander for
hours together without reaching the beginning of the end,
without meeting the slightest hint which could lead to the
inference that there is open country within reach, is a
strange thing. This colossal centralisation, this heaping
together of two and a half millions of human beings at one
point, has multiplied the power of this two and a half
millions a hundredfold; has raised London to the
commercial capital of the world, created the giant docks
and assembled the thousand vessels that continually cover
the Thames […] All this is so vast, so impressive, that a man
cannot collect himself, but is lost in the marvel of
England's greatness before he sets foot upon English soil.’
Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in
England](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/introductiontothevictorianexpsl-161030172315/85/Introduction-to-the-victorian-Exp-sl-9-320.jpg)
Introduction to the victorian Exp sl
- 1. Dr Sarah Law
- 2. 1837 - 1901
- 3. Early Victorian Period - 1830-1848 A time of troubles characterised by immense poverty and hardship among the working classes. The shift to industrialisation led to an exodus from the countryside to the cities and the creation of slum dwellings with workers crammed into unsanitary cramped housing and terrible working conditions for men, women and children. Mid-Victorian Period – 1848-1870 The Golden Age: The British Empire is at its pinnacle, major advances in science are being made and the country is wealthy. Also a time of religious doubt and gender debate (The Woman Question). Late Victorian Period – 1870- 1901 Decline of the empire, fears of decay. Art and literature move away from the practices and styles of the “stuffy” Victorians.
- 5. ‘‘350,000 working-people […] live, almost all of them, in wretched, damp, filthy cottages […] In the working- men's dwellings of Manchester, no cleanliness, no convenience, and consequently no comfortable family life is possible […] in such dwellings only a physically degenerate race, robbed of all humanity, degraded, reduced morally and physically to bestiality, could feel comfortable and at home.’
- 6. Cotton and wool textiles - economy fundamentally affected by cotton price. Cotton price had boomed between 1834-7 then crashed causing a credit crunch and the 1837 recession. Trade from West Indies. By 1800, 25% of Britain’s income came from imports from the Caribbean Steel & iron industry Engineering industry By mid-century Britain is world-renowned for its engineering and manufacturing economy. The British economy is the biggest in the world.
- 8. Steam Travel Railways Embankments, tunnels, viaducts, bridges – feature of landscape, great defining national engineering projects Associated with the railway was the telegraph, built as part of the infrastructure of the rail network.
- 9. ‘A town, such as London, where a man may wander for hours together without reaching the beginning of the end, without meeting the slightest hint which could lead to the inference that there is open country within reach, is a strange thing. This colossal centralisation, this heaping together of two and a half millions of human beings at one point, has multiplied the power of this two and a half millions a hundredfold; has raised London to the commercial capital of the world, created the giant docks and assembled the thousand vessels that continually cover the Thames […] All this is so vast, so impressive, that a man cannot collect himself, but is lost in the marvel of England's greatness before he sets foot upon English soil.’ Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England
- 11. The 19th century is a century of upheaval as economic, cultural and political elites try to manage the conditions and demands of the working class. Surely, workers unions argue, at some point capital surplus must be used to better the conditions of the working classes? But there is no Labour party, no representation of working people in parliament. This is the political fight of the 19th century.
- 12. Peterloo Massacre 1819 Reform Act crisis 1829-1832 Tolpuddle Martyrs - 1834 Mills and Factories Act 1833 Slavery Abolition Act 1833 Poor Law 1834 Chartism 1838-48 1844 – Factory Act limiting working hours 1867 – Second Reform Act 1870 – Elementary Education Act
- 13. J.S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy 1848 – free trade and liberal economy Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto 1848 – political force of industrial working class Darwin, Origin of Species 1859 – transformation of understanding of biological life and origins of life on earth, associated religious changes
- 14. The activity of reading benefited hugely from wider schooling and increased literacy rates, from the cheapening costs of publication, from improved distribution that resulted from better transportation, and, towards the end of the century, from the arrival of gas and electric lighting in homes, which meant that reading after dark no longer had to take place by candlelight or oil lamp. Many novels were available in monthly parts especially through magazine serialisation
- 16. “Old Leisure…knew nothing of weekday services, and thought none the worse of the Sunday sermon if it allowed him to sleep from the text to the blessing…for he had an easy, jolly conscience, broad-backed like himself, and able to carry a great deal of beer or port- wine – not being made squeamish by doubts and qualms and lofty aspirations. Life was not a task to him, but a sinecure: he fingered the guineas in his pocket, and ate his dinners, and slept the sleep of the irresponsible.” from George Eliot, Adam Bede (1859)
- 18. In his book The Victorians AN Wilson suggests that if “returning to the nineteenth century in a time machine , the twenty-first-century traveller would notice immediately dozens of differences between our world and theirs … But the greatest and the most extraordinary difference is the difference between women then and now”. Victorian period and particularly the decades from the 1860s saw vast legislative changes affecting the lives of Victorian women. Many of these changes brought about as a result of campaigning and consciousness raising by women. These discussions about the Woman Question can also be seen to be taking place in the literature of the period and in sensation fiction in particular. Characteristics of Sensation fiction / sensation fiction and the canon It was said that sensation novels such as Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White (1860) and Lady Audley’s Secret (1862) “offered pleasures so intense that their detractors claimed they could drive you to drink, insanity or copycat crime”. Sensation in the news
- 19. 25 June 1870 22 September 1888
- 20. The break-up of the middle-class, Victorian culture .. The Rise of Aestheticism A conscious revolt against Victorian values by the decadent movement Artists e.g. Aubrey Beardsley; writers e.g. Oscar Wilde. Seminar Thursday: selected poems Next Week: Jane Eyre