1. The Victorian Period

2. Queen Victoria and the Victorian Temperment
Ruled England from
Exemplifies Victorian qualities: earnestness, moral responsibility, domestic propriety
An age characterized by energy and high moral purpose

3. Victorian Period London becomes most important city in Europe
Population of London expands from two million to six million
England became wealthiest nation
British Empire expansion
“The sun never sets on England.”
Queen-empress over 200 million people living outside Great Britain
India, North America, South Pacific, etc.

4. A Time of Change Shift from ownership of land to modern urban economy
Impact of industrialism
Increase in wealth
World’s foremost imperial power
Victorian people suffered from anxiety, a sense of being displaced persons in an age of technological advances.

5. Victorian Period Industrial Revolution - booms & depressions
Created new towns, goods, wealth, jobs for people climbing through middle class
Social & economic changes expressed in gradual political reforms
First Reform Bill in 1832 extended vote to all men who owned property worth 10 lbs
Second Reform Act in 1867 gave the right to vote to working-class men (except agricultural workers)
Reform bills reduced the power fo upper-class landowners by redistributing parliamentary representation. Demonstrated that social change could take place peacefully, without violence, marked emergence of middle class as dominate force.
Depression of 1840s – known as The Hungry Forties because so many people were literally starving. Economic conditions led to protest and rioting. Lower classes suffered from potato blight in Ireland in 1845 & from Corn Laws – import tariffs that protected price of grain for English farmers but mad price of bread and other foods very high. Repeal of Corn Laws in 1846, establishment of Free Trade moved England towards greater prosperity & living conditions that characterize the later years of Victorian Age. Real wages did not keep up with price of urban living. Along with repeal of Corn Laws and the development of the railroad in 1850, England emerged from the depression.

6. Victorian Period
Women for suffrage – did not succeed until 1918 (30 & over)
Universal adult suffrage 1928 extended vote to women at age 21
Factory Acts – limited child & women labor
State supported schools est. in 1870; compulsory in 1880; free in 1891
Literacy rate increased from 40% to 90% from

7. Decorum and Authority
The belief that life would be improved if it became more refined, more rationally organized, and better policed…therefore, England would become a safer and better place.

8. Decorum & Authority
Victorians saw themselves progressing morally & intellectually
Powerful middle-class obsessed with “gentility, decorum” = prudery/Victorianism
Censorship of writers: no mention of “sex, birth, or death”
People arrested for distributing information about sexually transmitted diseases. Double standards for sexes: adulterous women (but not male counterparts) seen as “fallen.”

9. Victorian Period Decorum – powerful ideas about authority
Victorian private lives – autocratic father figure
Women – subject to male authority
Middle-class women expected to marry & make home a “refuge” for husband
Women had few occupations open to them
Unmarried women often portrayed by comedy by male writers
Excesses, cruelties, and hypocrisies of all these repressions were obvious to Victorians. But the codes and barriers fo decorum changed slowly because they were part of the ideology of progress.
Prudery and social order were intended to control licentiousness that the Victorians associated with political revolutions of the 18th Century and the social corruption of the regency of George IV.

10. Victorian Period Intellectual Progress
Understanding of earth, its creatures & natural laws (geology, Darwin – theory of evolution)
Industrialization of England depended on and supported science and technology.

11. Optimism
Advances in science and technology convinced intellectuals and reformers that human efforts could overcome all problems.
However, the materialism, secularism, and waste led some writers to wonder if their culture really were advancing.

12. The Mid-Victorian Period 1848-1870
A time of prosperity, improvement, stability, optimism
Living conditions improved,
Food and other commodities became more available
Laws regulated child labor
Compulsory education

13. The Crystal Palace
Erected to display the exhibits of modern industry and science at the 1851 Great Exhibition
One of the first buildings constructed according to modern architectural principles
The building symbolized the triumphs of Victorian industry

14. Challenges to Religious Belief
Science
Huxley
Darwin- the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man
Higher Criticism
Examination of the Bible as a mere text of history
Source studies
Geology
Astronomy

15. The Late Victorian Period 1870-1901
Decay of Victorian values
British imperialism
Boer War
Irish question
Bismarck's Germany became a rival power
United States became a rival power
Economic depression led to mass immigration
Socialism

16. Reality of the Era at Its End
The writing reflects the dangers and benefits of rapid industrialization, while encouraging readers to examine closely their own understanding of the era’s progress.