1. The Victorian Age
An era of rapid change

2. Queen Victoria

3. From Rural to City
When Queen Victoria took her throne in 1837, most of England’s people lived in the country; by the time she died in 1901, most lived and worked in towns and cities. But, in either locale, life for the poor was extremely difficult, as dramatized in the novels by Charles Dickens. Here is a snapshot of some living conditions for Victoria’s less fortunate subjects.

4. The middle class

5. Housing
A typical working-class dwelling in London had one room. The family cooked (over an open fire), ate, bathed (weekly in a tin tub on the kitchen floor), and slept in the same space. There was no toilet or running water. The waste, kept in “slop jars” was dumped into cesspools or the nearest river. Not until 1875, when the Public Health Act was passed, were all newly built homes required to have a privy.

6. Nutrition
Working-class diets were short on protein and vegetables. The staple foods for rural workers were bread, potatoes, and tea; in prosperous times milk and cheese were available. When there was meat, the biggest portion went to the man of the house, because he did hard physical labor. Men from this class were noticeably shorter than upper-class males.

7. The Poor
While middle class became more prosperous, the poor often worked in untenable conditions. Sixteen hour days in dangerous factories, and children suffered.
Who is to blame for poverty?

8. Child Labor
Children often began working by age five, with those as young as three helping their mother with piecework in the home up to 16 hours a day. Others took dangerous jobs in coal mines or factories. Children late for work were severely punished, but often the family was too poor to buy a clock. Many children from orphanages and city workhouses were “purchased” by the owners of large textile mills, making them the virtual property of the mill owner until they turned 21. The Factory Act of 1844 limited the workers under age 18 to “only” 12 hours of labor; a subsequent act reduced that to ten hours. Finally, in 1899, employment of children under age ten was prohibited.” (Biography Magazine, November 2001, 85).

9. Life expectancy
In 1840, the average life span for upper-class Londoners was 45 years. Laborers and servants, on average, lived only 22 years. In general, rural dwellers lived longer than city dwellers, the rich lived longer than the poor, and men lived longer than women. The leading killer in the 19th century was tuberculosis, then called “consumption.”

10. Irish Potato Famine-2 million forced to emigrate

11. British Census Commissioners in 1841 had declared the population of Ireland to be 8,175,124. During the Famine years, , Ireland's population declined in the millions due to deaths from starvation and disease and from mass emigration to North America and England. However, nobody was keeping count of the actual number of people involved. Famine victims often died unseen in mud huts or along the roadside only to be quickly buried in shallow unmarked graves or in mass graves.

12. After the Famine, Ireland's slow economic progress resulted in a continued drain of talented, hard-working young people. Between 1851 and 1921, an estimated 4.5 million Irish left home and headed mainly to the United States.
Continued emigration combined with a lowered birth rate resulted in a steady decline of Ireland's population until the 1960s when it leveled off at about four million. (

13. Mothers & Children

14. Childbearing
Childbearing: Printed information about birth control was illegal. The typical working-class wife was either pregnant or nursing from her first year of marriage until menopause. In mid-century, the average number of children per family was 6; about 20% of families had 10 or more children. The morality rate was high: One-half of all children of farmers, laborers, and other workers died before reaching their fifth birthday (compared to 1 in 11 children of the land-owning gentry). Crying babies were often silenced with a mixture of opium and alcohol, and overdoses did lead to deaths.

15. Influences of Romanticism
Revere poetry and the poets
Poets ignored the grim reality and focused on exotic locales, nature, romance, and heroic times; thereby making themselves irrelevant
Which leads to the rise of the
NOVEL.

16. Science
Published 1859

17. Literacy
According to the 1841 census, 67% of men and 51% of women were literate. But few people in the working class had more than two or three years of full-time schooling, which typically took place in a one-room schoolhouse attended by children of many ages.

18. The Novel
Arguably, the first novel was Robinson Crusoe written in the mid 1700’s.
Middle class readers loved to read about people like themselves, so novels were long, the “three decker,”often serialized. Types:
Social problem expose
Psychological realism focused on internal realities
Light entertainment “penny dreadfuls,” and “shilling shockers”

19. Realism Characteristics: complex characters Settings Dialogue Focus on
psychology

20. Victorian Authors
Matthew Arnold
Charles Dickins
The Brownings
Charlotte Bronte

21. White Cliffs of Dover Now go to page 1034
Now turn to page 1034 in your textbook
Now go to page 1034