The Victorian Period

“Paradox of
Progress”
 The Victorian
Period
• Victorians thought of themselves living in a
time of great change.
– Growth
– Prosperity
– Progress
 Peace and Economic
Growth: Britannia
Rules
• Empire grew steadily until 1900
– India
– North America
• Queen Victoria
was the ruler of
more than 200
million people
living OUTSIDE
of Great Britain
 Economic Growth
• Industrial Revolution expanded
– New towns, new goods, new wealth, and new jobs
for people maneuvering through levels of the
middle class.
– Middle class and working class politicians and
voters achieved
political power while
leaving the monarchy
and aristocracy in place.
 The Idea Progress
• Thomas Babington Macauley voiced
middle class Victorian attitude
– History = progress
• Progress= material improvement that could
be seen and touched, counted and
measured
• Cleanliness and order

• Victorians have confidence that all social and material

problems can be solved by “progress.”
– By the end of the era, disruption and materialism led to a
reevaluation of these values.
 The Hungry Forties
• 1st decade of Queen Victoria’s
reign was troubled
– She came to the throne in the first
year of a depression
– 1.5 million unemployed workers
(out of 16 million people)were on
some form of relief
 The Hungry Forties
• Poor working conditions
– Government commissions investigated poor
working conditions
• Children were mangled at machines when they fell
asleep at the end of 12-hour work days.
• Children hauled coal in the mines
 The Hungry Forties
• Potato Famine
– Ireland (1845-1849) – potato blight caused famine
that killed a million and forced 2 million to
emigrate.
– Some went to England – caused severe
overcrowding in cities
 The Hungry Forties
• Pollution and Filth
– Rapid growth of the cities
• Filthy and disorderly
• Major cities were expanding
because of industry
– Streets were unpaved; Thames River
was polluted with sewage, industrial
waste, and drainage from
graveyards
– Bodies were buried six or eight deep
 Reform: Food,
Factories, and
Optimism
• Violence and massive political rallies (1840)
- To protest government policies that kept the
price of food high and deprived most working
men of the vote and representation in
Parliament
• Political reformers organized a
“monster rally” to protest
 Movements of Reform
• Improvements in Diet
– Mid-century – Price of food dropped because of
increased trade with other countries and the
growing empire
• Diet improved – meat, fruit, and margarine (Victorian
invention) was available to working-class households
– Factories and railroads made items and services
cheap
 Movements of Reform
• Florence Nightingale
– Transformed public’s perception of
modern nursing
– Reformed hospital management
• Octavia Hill – became authority on housing
reform
– Believed that adequate housing could “make
individual life noble, homes happy, and family life
good.”
 Movements in Reform
• Reform Bills
– Almost all adult males got to vote by the last
decades of the century
• First Reform Act – All men who owned property worth 10
pounds or more in yearly rent could vote
• Second Reform Act – Right to vote to
most working-class men except for
farm workers
• Women age 30 and over won the
right to vote – 1918
• Woman age 21 and over – 1921
 Reform Bills
• Factory Acts – Limited child labor and reduced
usual working to 10 hours with ½ holiday on
Saturday
• State supported schools established – 1870
– Compulsory education – 1880
– Free education – 1891

• By 1900 – 90% of population was literate

 “Blushing Cheeks”:
Decorum & Prudery
• Middle class obsession with gentility or decorum
– Censored books/magazines of things that could bring
“a blush to the cheek”
– In fiction – sex, birth, and death were softened into
tender courtships, joyous motherhoods, and deathbed
scenes in which old people
were saints and babies were angels
– Seduced/adulterous women = “fallen”
into the margins of society
 Authoritarian Values
• Family
– Autocratic father of middle class households (in
both fact and fiction)
– Women were subject to male authority
• Women marry to make comfortable homes as a refuge
for their husbands to escape the male domain of
business
 Authoritarian Values
• Few occupations for unmarried women
– Working class – servants in wealthy homes
– Middle class – governesses/teachers
• Unmarried women had painful, difficult lives
 Prudery and Social Control
• Used to control immorality and sexual excess
associated with violent political revolutions of
the 18th century and social corruption of
regency of George IV
 Intellectual Progress:
The March of the Mind
• Humans began to
understand more about
the earth, its creatures,
and natural laws
– Charles Darwin – Evolution
of the Species
– Technology, chemistry, and
engineering aided with the
industrial movement
Questions and Doubts
• Victorians questioned
the cost of exploiting
the earth and human
beings to achieve
material comfort
• Protested or mocked
codes of decorum and
authority
The Popular Mr. Dickens
• Most popular and
important figure in
Victorian literature
– Thanks to the high literacy
rate
– Son of a debt-ridden clerk,
but due to his talents and
energy rose from poverty to
become a wealthy and
famous man
 Mr. Dickens
• His books had happy endings, but many characters
were neglected, abused, and exploited (esp.
children).
– Oliver Twist (hungry) “Please sir, may I have some more?”
– Tiny Tim (handicapped) “God bless us, everyone!”
– David Copperfield (abused by stepfather) “Whether I shall
turn out to be the hero of my own life, or
whether that station will be held by anybody
else, these pages must show.”
• Attacked hollow, superficial excess of the Victorian
Age
 Trust in the
Transcendental &
Skepticism
• Transcendentalists (Romantics) – Purpose of
the poet (or any writer) was to make readers
aware of the connection between earth and
heaven, body and soul, material and ideal
• Mid-century- a withdrawal of God from the
world
– Matthew Arnold’s
“Dover Beach”
– No certainty about God
 Trust in the
Transcendental &
• By the end ofSkepticism
the century
– Skepticism and denial of God dominated
– Thomas Hardy and A. E. Houseman