1. The Victorian Period: 1832–1901 Introduction to the Literary Period
Feature Menu
Interactive Time Line
Milestone: Reign of Queen Victoria
Milestone: Riots and Reforms
Milestone: Prosperity
Milestone: A Society of Propriety
Milestone: The March of the Mind
What Have You Learned?

2. The Victorian Period: 1832–1901
Choose a link on the time line to go to a milestone.
1832–1848
Riots and Reforms
1848–1870
Prosperity
1837–1901
Reign of Queen Victoria
1800
1850
1900
1800s
March of the Mind
1800s
Society of Propriety

3. Reign of Queen Victoria
Victoria Brought Respect to the Throne
Worked hard to ensure the welfare of her people
Became symbolic rather than political ruler, ensuring continuation of monarchy
Married her cousin, Prince Albert, the love of her life
Many royal families of Europe descended from their nine children

4. Reign of Queen Victoria
During Victoria’s reign (1837–1901) England experienced
political and social stability
prosperity and progress
movement toward more democratic government
growth of British empire
expansion of Industrial Revolution
QUESTION
• Victoria’s reign was relatively peaceful. Why would peaceful times make colonization, industrialization, and scientific inquiry possible? Why would these activities have been less pressing and more difficult in a time of war?
[Possible response: During war, a nation’s resources get funneled to winning the war and protecting the nation. People’s abilities and lots of money go toward this effort, and not much attention, energy, or funds are left over to deal with expansion or problems at home. Without the costs of war, England had the money and resources to invest in colonization and industrialization. Also, scientists then had time to research their interests rather than focusing on war efforts.]
BACKGROUND
• In 1876, Queen Victoria gained the title of Empress of India, and it was said that the sun never set on her empire.
scientific discovery

5. Riots and Reforms The Hungry Forties High unemployment
Soaring bread prices
Severe economic depression
Poor working and living conditions
BACKGROUND
• One of the main reasons for the hard times of the 1840s was the overcapitalization of the textile industry, which was subject to increasing competition from the United States. New inventions demanded new capital outlays, even as the return on capital dwindled. In this atmosphere real wages failed to keep pace with the rising cost of urban living.
• The Irish potato famine killed about a million people and forced two million others to emigrate. Some went to English cities. In the slums of the cities, ten or twelve people would live in a single room.
• The mass Irish emigration began in the early 1840s and continued during the next decade, reaching its peak in Besides England, the Irish emigrants’ destinations included the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.
Cities filthy, polluted, disorderly
Potato famine in Ireland

6. Riots and Reforms In the 1840s . . .
government policies keep price of bread high
all women and most working men denied the vote
riots at protest rallies
Parliament and queen petitioned
revolutions sweeping Europe; British politicians nervous
Parliament repeals tax on imported grains; price of bread drops
reform bills passed to extend vote, improve conditions
BACKGROUND
• During the 1840s, England’s upper classes were gripped by an intense fear of revolution. After all, only fifty years previously the French Revolution had overturned the established order across the English Channel, giving rise to decades of violence and war. In addition, a wave of revolution was spreading across Europe by 1848.

7. Riots and Reforms The Reform Bills
Eventually extended vote to almost all adult males
Reduced working day to ten hours
Limited child labor
Established state-supported schools
QUESTIONS
• Are you surprised that Victorian men gained the right to vote, whereas Victorian women did not? Explain your answer.
[Possible response: No. Women’s roles were pretty limited at this time, and politics weren’t part of most women’s lives. Women would have to fight for the right to vote.]
BACKGROUND
• In 1832, the First Reform Bill extended the vote to all men who owned property worth a certain amount. The Second Reform Act, in 1867, gave most working-class men (except farm workers) the right to vote. It was not until the next century that the struggle for women’s suffrage finally succeeded: Women age thirty and over were allowed to vote starting in 1918, and in 1928 universal adult suffrage extended the vote to women age twenty-one and over.
• State-supported schools were established in They were made compulsory in 1880 and were made free in 1891.
• The Education Act of 1880 made school compulsory only for children between the ages of five and ten. By 1901, however, the minimum working age had been raised to twelve, and children up to age fourteen could work only half a day, so more young people were able to go to school.

8. Riots and Reforms Women in the Reform Movement Octavia Hill
Authority on housing reform
Founded National Trust (protected historic landmarks)
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale
Army nurse
Authority on public health
BACKGROUND
• Victorian society imposed a strict separation between home and business. Upper- and middle-class women were generally not part of the worlds of commerce and intellect. Therefore, women as high-profile reformers were the exception, not the rule.
• Reformers such as Hill and Nightingale agitated for better conditions and improved educational opportunities. To do this work, such women often had to step outside the bounds of “ladylike” behavior. At the same time that they were redefining the idea of “women’s work,” they were establishing public policies that curbed abuses and saved lives.
• Nightingale was a meticulous statistician. She collected data on the benefits of improved sanitation in her Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army.
Improved hospitals

9. Prosperity
1848–1870
Drop in food prices—due to increased trade with other countries, growth of empire
Improved nutrition—meat and fruit available to working class people
Industrial Revolution—new goods, wealth, jobs
Education reform—literacy rates rise
BACKGROUND
• Most Londoners purchased much of their food from street vendors. Bakers and milkmaids would hawk their wares early in the morning; vendors selling fish, jellied eels, pea soup, and hot pies followed soon after.
Victorians believed social and economic problems could be solved by progress.

10. A Society of Propriety Decorum and Prudery
Victorians thought of themselves as progressing morally and intellectually
Books and magazines censored
“Fallen women” pushed to margins of society
BACKGROUND
• Perhaps the most famous literary censor of all time was Thomas Bowdler, who is best known for changing hundreds of words and even cutting entire scenes from Shakespeare’s plays. Bowdler’s Family Shakespeare (1818) was embraced by Victorian readers. Bowdler’s efforts have been immortalized in the verb bowdlerize. The word, which means “cut or modify a work,” suggests prudery and violation of textual integrity.
• One of the most prominent victims of Victorian censorship was the novelist and poet Thomas Hardy. Magazine editors (who published novels in serial form) constantly rejected scenes from his novels or suggested alterations, mainly to eliminate any mention of sex. Hardy stubbornly resisted these efforts to change his work.

11. A Society of Propriety Fallen Women
Women who behaved in a way unacceptable to Victorian society, including
prostitutes
alcoholic women
unmarried mothers
childless women
seamstresses
anorexic women
mentally ill women
women who left their husbands
in some cases, women writers

12. A Society of Propriety Authoritarian Values
Women subject to male authority
Middle-class women expected to marry; confined to role of homemaker
Unmarried women had few options
Social order intended to control immorality and excess

13. The March of the Mind Progress in Science
Greater understanding of earth, its creatures, and natural laws
Darwin and the theory of evolution
early microscope
Advances in technology, chemistry, and engineering
Scientists such as Thomas Huxley—confident humans could figure out the laws of the physical universe
QUESTIONS
• Some of the new scientific ideas were unsettling for Victorian people. “Was the earth really so very old?” “Did complex life really arise from simpler life?” How do you think people greeted these new theories?
[Possible response: Some people probably found them fascinating and wanted to know more. Others might have found them unbelievable, frightening, or even insulting. These ideas contradicted common beliefs and teachings, so some people probably didn’t take them very seriously.]
• The Victorians hoped that new technologies would solve problems, and that did in fact happen to a certain degree. However, sometimes new technologies created new problems. Can you think of an example of this process, either from the Victorian period or from our day?
[Possible response: Well, the Industrial Revolution caused pollution problems, and we’re still trying to find ways to reduce industrial pollution. Also, scientific discoveries and technologies are sometimes used as weapons against people to cause pain, suffering, or death rather than to improve people’s lives. For example, nuclear energy has both positive and negative uses. It can be used to produce electricity for large numbers of people, or it can be used to create nuclear weapons.]
BACKGROUND
• No other work rocked the nineteenth century as profoundly as Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species. It shook religious faith by suggesting that human beings were not directly created by God but instead evolved from nonhuman ancestors. Darwin himself was disturbed by the implications of his ideas and delayed publication of his work for many years. Yet he was moved to write of his theory, “There is grandeur in this view of life.”
• S. C. Burchell writes that the period between the mid-1800s and the early 1900s “saw the formation of four of the major concepts on which modern science is based: the idea of evolution; the idea of conservation of energy; the idea of space as a continuum that is pervaded by fields of physical activity (such as electromagnetic fields); and the idea that all action is dependent on the existence of certain basic units—the atom in chemistry, the cell in biology, the quantum in physics and so on.”

14. The March of the Mind Questions and Doubts
Some Victorian writers . . .
asked whether material comfort was enough
protested or mocked codes of decorum
questioned whether the natural world really made sense
A. E. Housman

15. The March of the Mind Charles Dickens—most popular Victorian writer
Depicted abused and exploited people
Attacked superficiality and excesses of Victorian affluence
Raised questions about the costs of progress
QUESTIONS
• Have you ever read one of Dickens’s novels or seen a movie based on Dickens’s work? What social criticisms did the story make?
[Possible response: I saw a movie based on A Christmas Carol, which is about a rich man named Scrooge, who doesn’t share any of his wealth until he learns to value other people. There’s a little boy in the movie who can’t get medical care because his father doesn’t make enough money working for Scrooge. By the end of the movie, though, Scrooge has a change of heart and helps the sick child get treatment so that he doesn’t die. I guess Dickens is saying that people who have wealth need to look out for people who don’t.]
• This illustration from Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist shows Fagin and his band of child thieves. Fagin is a character who organizes and trains young orphans to pick pockets on the streets of London. What does this illustration suggest we should think about Fagin and his gang of thieves?
[Possible responses: Although Fagin is smiling, the thieves’ tattered clothes reveal their poverty and desperation. The boys smoke pipes and wear men’s clothing, implying that they have lost their childhood.]
BACKGROUND
• Another Victorian thinker who pointed out the costs of progress was the art historian and social critic John Ruskin. Describing the new phenomenon of smog, he wrote, “[M]ere smoke would not blow to and fro in that wild way. It looks more to me as if it were made of dead men’s souls.”
Ruskin advocated individual responsibility and collective action to combat injustice, such as boycotting products made by industries that exploited workers.
Scene from Oliver Twist

16. a. Florence Nightingale
What Have You Learned?
Choose the word that correctly completes the sentence.
1. In general, most Victorians valued _____ .
a. progress b. decorum c. order
d. all of the above
2. _____ was an authority on public health.
a. Florence Nightingale b. Octavia Hill
c. Queen Victoria
3. The most popular Victorian writer was _____.
a. Hardy b. Dickens c. Housman
d. all of the above
a. Florence Nightingale
b. Dickens

17. END

18. Viewing the Art The Railway Station
William Powell Frith (1819–1909) strove for photographic realism in his paintings. Crowds, like the one in this painting, were a common subject in Frith’s works.
Activity: What details in the painting create a sense of motion and activity?
Possible responses: the sweeping lines of the women’s dresses; the representation of the workmen carrying out their tasks.

19. Frith’s paintings offer a reliable guide to the daily lives and customs of his middle-class subjects.