UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DEL SANTA

FACULTAD DE EDUCACIÓN Y HUMANIDADES

ESCUELA PROFESIONAL DE EDUCACIÓN SECUNDARIA
ESPECIALIDAD DE IDIOMAS: INGLÉS – FRANCÉS

“THE VICTORIAN BRITISH: ECONOMY, CULTURE, ART AND THE END OF

THE VICTORIAN ERA”

Student:

MIÑANO POMA, Brenda Estefani.

Professor:

MG. Leiva Cilio, Luis.

Nuevo Chimbote - PERÚ

 2023

THE VICTORIAN BRITISH ECONOMY

Britain’s status as a world political power was bolstered by a strong economy, which

grew rapidly between 1820 and 1873. This half-century of growth was followed by an

economic depression and from 1896 until 1914 by a modest recovery.

With the earliest phases of industrialization over by about 1840, the British economy

expanded. Britain became the richest country in the world, but many people worked long hours

in harsh conditions. Yet, standards of living were rising. While the 1840s were a bad time for

workers and the poor—they were dubbed “the hungry forties”—overall the trend was toward a

less precarious life. Most families not only had a home and enough to eat but also had something

leftover for alcohol, tobacco, and even vacations to the countryside or the seaside. In short they

were marked by unemployment, poverty, riots, slums in the big cities and the working conditions

of women and children were terrible. The mid-Victorian period (1848-1870) was a time of

prosperity, improvement, stability and optimism.

Prosperity meant that Britain was a nation not only of shopkeepers but of shoppers (with

the rise of the department store from mid-century transforming the shopping experience), the

growth of the textile industry and the railway revolution with trains and steamships. Increased

wealth, including higher real wages from the 1870s, meant that even working-class people could

purchase discretionary items. Mass production meant that clothes, souvenirs, newspapers, and

more were affordable to almost everyone.

So Britain went from a rural country to an industrial powerhouse in just over 60 years,

with a huge increase in trade, transport, mining and industry.

 VICTORIAN CULTURE AND ART

Britain was the cultural capital of the English-speaking world. The Victorian culture of

performance and print was rich and varied, a mixture of melodrama, spectacle and morality.

The print culture was large and diverse, aided by relatively high literacy rates. Hundreds

of magazines and newspapers were available at increasingly cheap prices. Thus the 1880s saw

the rise of the "New Journalism," which attracted readers with articles about violent crime and

high society scandals. Novels were another key feature of Victorian print culture. By mid-

century, Britons of all classes could afford and read novels. They were aimed at everyone from

the highly educated and well-to-do to less educated readers looking for engaging and exciting

stories. One of the writers who stood out was Penny Dreadfuls and sensation novels, seen at their

best in the work of Wilkie Collins, thrilled his readers. Victorian novels tended to be quite long,

with complicated plots (often centered on marriages) and many characters. Charles Dickens was

also a renowned writer whose writings are still read today, despite the decades.

About art, the theater thrived. Melodrama, which took history as a source of inspiration,

to present evil villains, virtuous heroines and intricate plots, was also considered the most

important and popular genre from the beginning; later, there appeared the sensational drama,

very popular at that time, the music halls, which presented varied programs of singing, dancing,

sketches and more; these emerged in the 1850s that attracted people of all classes in the music

halls.
 THE END OF THE VICTORIAN ERA

During the Victorian period, Britain was a powerful nation with a rich culture because it

is in that period that the modern world as we know it today was consolidated, a period of both

innovations and traditions. This was due to industrialization and its imperial possessions and

despite the fact that three quarters or more of its population was working class.

It also had a stable government, a growing state and an expanding franchise.

But at the end of the period, Britain began to decline as a global political and economic

power compared to other great powers, but after World War II this decline meant more for the

British.

The Victorian era culminated with the death of Queen Victoria in January 1901, giving

way to the Edwardian period, that is, the brief rule of her son Edward VII (1901-1910).

Bibliography

Alexander, M. (2000). A History of English Literature. London: MACMILLAN PRESS LTD.

Retrieved from https://manavata.org/able/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/07/A-

History-of-English-Literature.pdf

Steinbach, S. (2023, January 5). Victorian era. Retrieved from Britannica:

https://www.britannica.com/event/Victorian-era#ref343824

Victorian Era. (2022). Victorian Era Economy. Retrieved from Victorian Era: https://victorian-

era.org/victorian-era-economy.html