THE VICTORIAN AGE

THE EARLY YEARS OF QUEEN VICTORIA’S REIGN (1837-1861)

The first years of Victoria's reign were a period of social reforms and political developments,
unprecedented material progress and also one of imperial expansion. The merits of these
achievements partly belonged to the queen, who reigned constitutionally, avoiding the storm of
revolution which spread all over Europe in 1848. During these years, there was a strong working-
class movement calling for social reform. The Great Reform Act of 1832 had extended the vote to
almost all male members of the middle classes but had done little for the working class. The
movement of Chartism played an important role, drawing up the 'People's Charter' in 1838, which
called for social reforms and the extension of the right to vote to all male adults. Other social reforms
regulating factory life followed, like the Ten Hours Act of 1847, which limited working hours to ten a
day for all labourers. On a political level, the two main parties were the Liberals, mainly formed from
the former Whigs, and the Conservatives, who evolved from the old Tories. The Liberals promoted
a strong campaign for free trade that led to the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. These laws had
maintained the price of corn artificially high to protect the landowners' interests. The repeal of the
Corn Laws was also an attempt to help the situation in Ireland, where a disease affecting potatoes,
their main produce, had led to the Potato Famine and numerous deaths. Social unrest did not prevent
the increasing power of the middle classes or the expansion of industry and trade. This was also
aided by the considerable scientific and technological developments taking place. In foreign policy,
this was a period of great expansion in trade, as the abundance of manufactured goods needed
new markets. There were two Opium Wars against China, which gave Britain access to five Chinese
ports and the control of Hong Kong. Along with France, Britain sided with the Ottoman Empire against
Russia during the Crimean War, as a way of containing Russian influence in this sensitive area. The
most important and lucrative zone of influence for Britain, however, was undoubtedly India. A
dangerous crisis arose here in 1857 with the so-called 'Indian Mutiny', when Indian soldiers rebelled
against their British commanders. They were backed by local rulers and thousands of local people.
The uprising was against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a
sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The East India Company was dissolved, and India
was administered directly by the British government. Queen Victoria issued a proclamation to Indians
in November 1858 which promised them rights like those of other British subjects.

CITY LIFE IN VICTORIAN BRITAIN

By the middle of the 19th century, Britain had become a nation of town dwellers due to its
extraordinary industrial development. The census of 1851 recorded half of the population of Britain
as living in towns, and finding solutions to problems linked to the overcrowded urban environment
was at the top of Victorian political and social reforms. The majority of Victorian city poor lived in
unhealthy slum districts overrun by disease and crime. Here the mortality rate was high and the
terrible working conditions in polluted environments had a disastrous effect. Two Housing Acts were
passed in 1851 to clean up the towns which had been devastated by frequent epidemics of cholera
and typhoid carried by polluted water. There was widespread poverty with relief only available to
those who agreed to live in workhouses. The homeless, unemployed, orphaned and abandoned
children as well as the disabled, elderly and unmarried mothers were given a place to live in these
institutions in return for their labour. Medicine also underwent a radical change. Modern hospitals
were built, and professional organisations were founded to regulate and control medical education
and research. Other changes concerned the gradual introduction of services such as running
water, gas, street lighting and paved roads. Places of entertainment like public houses, music halls,
parks and stadiums were built.

THE VICTORIAN FRAME OF MIND

The Victorians were great moralisers: they faced a large number of problems on such a scale that
they felt obliged to support certain values which offered solutions or a way out. Thus, they promoted
a code of values that reflected the world as they wanted it to be, not as it really was, based on
duties, hard work, respectability, and charity. These values were refined by the upper and middle
classes, who had political and economic power, but they were equally applied to all strata of
society. In fact, one of the most important notions throughout the 19th century was the need to work
hard. The idea of being respectable distinguished the middle from the lower classes. Respectability
was a mixture of both morality and hypocrisy, severity, and conformity to social standards. It implied
the possession of good manners, the ownership of a comfortable house with servants and a carriage,
regular attendance at church and charitable activities. Philanthropy was a widespread
phenomenon: it applied to every kind of poverty, to 'stray children, fallen women and drunken men.
Middle-class ideals dominated Victorian family life. The family was a patriarchal unit where the
husband represented authority and the key role of women concerned the education of children and
the management of the house. Victorian society was deeply concerned about female chastity and
unmarried mothers were marginalised as 'fallen women’. Sexuality was generally repressed in its
public and private forms, and moralising prudery in its most extreme manifestations led to the
denunciation of nudity in art, the veiling of sculptured genitals and the rejection of words with a sexual
connotation from everyday vocabulary.

THE BEGINNING OF AN AMERICAN IDENTITY

The new federal American republic, grew as a nation in the 19th century, expanding its territory from
the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. It developed a unique American identity that also found its original
expression in literature and in the arts. Puritanism was one of the important cultural factors that
helped shape the American mind. It was the religious faith of the first settlers in the 17th century, the
Pilgrim Fathers. As the 18th century progressed, more and more immigrants from all over Europe
moved to America. This was fast becoming a 'melting pot', where different races were brought
together and were eventually to shape the new ‘American’. The development of the American mind
was also influenced by faith in reason and human progress. The belief that man's own efforts can
lead him to success was the most important element of the so-called 'American dream’. The spirit
of democracy and the idea of justice and equality were brought about by the War of Independence.
Though still influenced by European traditions and manners, the new cultural image of America
began to take shape. It was dominated by two forces. The first was the East Coast, with the
academic influence of the universities of Harvard and Yale, and the business and cultural centre of
New York, with its values of wealth and respectability. The second force came from the idea of the
as-yet undeveloped West, characterised by the pioneer spirit, the myth of the frontier and the
country's endless possibilities. Truly American characteristics began to emerge in the 19th century,
especially in prose. The short story became a distinctive form, mastered by Edgar Allan Poe, while
James Fenimore Cooper created the 'epic' of the frontier in his novels.

THE AGE OF FICTION [THE VICTORIAN NOVEL]

During the Victorian Age, for the first time there was a communion of interests and opinions
between writers and their readers. One reason for this was the enormous growth of the middle
classes, who borrowed books from circulating libraries and read various periodicals. A great deal of
Victorian literature was first published in instalments in the pages of periodicals. The novel became
the most popular form of literature and the main source of entertainment. The novelists aimed at
reflecting the social changes, such as the Industrial Revolution, the struggle for democracy and
the growth of towns. They described society as they saw it. However, their criticism was not radical
but was just aimed at making readers aware of social injustices. The voice of the omniscient
narrator provided a comment on the plot and erected a rigid barrier between 'right' and 'wrong’.
Retribution and punishment were to be found in the final chapter, where the whole network of events,
had to be explained and justified. The plot was long and often complicated by subplots. The setting
usually chosen was the city, the main symbol of industrial civilisation as well as the expression of
anonymous lives and lost identities. Victorian writers concentrated on the creation of realistic
characters the public could easily identify with. The first part of the Victorian Age was linked to social
and humanitarian novels, whose main representative was Charles Dickens, and to the works of
Emily and Charlotte Bronte, which can be associated with the persistence of the Romantic and
Gothic traditions and focus on intense subjective experiences. A great number of novels published
during the middle Victorian period were written by women. It is not surprising if one remembers that
the majority of novel-buyers and readers were women, since they spent more time than men at
home. However, it was not easy for women to publish because creative writing was considered
'masculine’. Therefore, some women used a male pseudonym.

THE LATER YEARS OF QUEEN VICTORIA’S REIGN

POLITICS AND REFORM IN LATE VICTORIAN BRITAIN: After Prince Albert's death in 1861,
Queen Victoria withdrew from society and spent the next ten years in mourning. Two parties and two
leaders dominated the political scene. The Liberal Party was led by William Gladstone while the
Conservative Party united under the leadership of Benjamin Disraeli. These two political leaders
alternated as Prime Minister until almost the end of the century. There was still widespread
acceptance of a certain middle-class morality, but the self-confidence of early Victorian decades was
being replaced by a growing sense of uncertainty. For the first time in British history there were
more people living in towns than in the country and the middle classes had risen to become 25% of
a fast-growing population. Important reforms were brought in to improve living conditions in the
expanding towns. Disraeli's government passed an Artisans and Labourers' Dwellings Act (1875),
which allowed local authorities to clear the slums and provide housing for the poor; a Public Health
Act (1875), which provided sanitation and running water; and a Factory Act (1878), which limited
factory working hours. Gladstone's government passed the 1870 Education Act, which established
a national system of primary education. Parliamentary reform continued with the legalisation of
unions of workers under the Trade Union Act in 1871, the introduction of a secret ballot in 1872
and the Third Reform Act in 1884, which extended the vote to all male householders. Britain's
foreign policy was based on free trade and liberalism, and it was during this time that the British
Empire achieved its greatest expansion.
THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND THE END OF THE VICTORIAN AGE: Britain governed Canada,
considerable areas of India, Australia and New Zealand, and small portions of South America and
South Africa. In the first part of Victoria's reign, the expansion of trade and instinct for colonialism
had involved Britain in two wars with China, a rebellion in India and a war in support of the Ottoman
Empire against Russia. From the 1870s, in the search for new markets to trade with, Britain set out
to gain control of and influence new overseas territories. Trade with India became increasingly
important and led Disraeli to purchase more shares in the Suez Canal Company in 1875 to protect
Britain's route to the East. India was considered the jewel in the crown of the empire and in 1877
Queen Victoria was given a new title, Empress of India. In South Africa, by the 1870s, the British
controlled two colonies, Cape Colony, and Natal, while the Dutch settlers, the Boers, had the two
republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. When Britain took over Transvaal in 1877, the
Boers rebelled, and war broke out. The Boer Wars ended in 1902 with a British victory. In the
last decades of the 19th century, the British Empire occupied an area of four million square miles
and more than 400 million people were ruled over by the British. The empire, however, was
becoming more difficult to control. There was a growing sense of 'the white man's burden, a difficult
combination of the duty to spread Christian civilisation, encouraging toleration and open
communication while also promoting commercial interests. The Victorian Age came to an end with
the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. For almost a century, she had embodied decorum, stability,
and continuity. She was buried beside her beloved husband in the Frogmore mausoleum at
Windsor Castle.

LATE VICTORIAN IDEAS

In the second half of the 19t century, Britain reached the peak of its power abroad, but ideological
conflicts were beginning to undermine the positive attitude that had characterised the first part of
Victoria's reign. These changes regarded several fields, especially scientific achievements,
industrialisation, sexuality, and religion. There was a growing pessimism influencing
intellectuals and artists, who expressed their doubts about the stability of Victorian society, like those
who protested against the harm caused by industrialism in everyday life and in the environment.
Karl Marx based the theories he expressed in his treatise in three volumes Das Kapital upon
research done in England, which was regarded as the most advanced European industrial nation of
the time. His works influenced some English writers, as well as the art critic John Ruskin and the
Pre-Raphaelite artist William Morris. In 1884 a middle-class socialist organisation was formed, the
Fabian Society. It was inspired by Marx's ideas, but it aimed at transforming Britain into a socialist
state not through revolution, as Marx advised, but through gradual reforms. A non-Marxist socialist
party, the Independent Labour Party, was set up in 1893 attracting both male and female
intellectuals. The pessimism regarding human existence was reinforced by Social Darwinism. The
philosopher Herbert Spencer applied Darwin's theory of natural selection to human society. He
argued that races, nations, and social classes, like biological species, were subject to the principle
of the survival of the fittest and that the poor and oppressed did not deserve compassion.

AMERICA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR: Political tension in America grew from the economic differences
between the northern and southern states. While the North was industrialised, the economy of the
South was still based on the plantations of tobacco and cotton dependent on slavery. There was
also a huge difference in the population between the North and the South. The white population in
the North increased rapidly due to the immigrants from Europe, whereas in the South there were
fewer cities and about four million black slaves. While the North was becoming urbanised and open
to new commercial opportunities, the South was based on a rigidly divided class system. Slavery
was an important issue. After the 1830s several northern states had adopted emancipation, while
the international demand for cotton meant the economy of the South continued to rely on slave
labour. Northern abolitionists, who included writers, intellectuals, and religious associations, began
to organise themselves into a political movement. The Republican Party demanded that slavery be
excluded from all territories of the Union. When their candidate Abraham Lincoln won the
presidential election in 1860, eleven southern states seceded from the Union and formed the
Confederate States of America, under the presidency of Jefferson Davis. The right to secede was
denied by Lincoln, supported by a majority of northerners, and the Civil War broke out in 1861. It
ended in 1865 with a northern victory. Five days after its end, President Lincoln was
assassinated by a southern fanatic. The northern victory in the Civil War meant the USA would
remain indivisible with a sovereign national government. It also formally ended the institution of
slavery in the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1865. The slaves officially gained their freedom
but had no economic security, and equality was to prove a long and difficult battle.
AMERICA AFTER THE CIVIL WAR: After the end of the Civil War, the differences between the North
and South continued to be very marked. The war had devastated the South, which also faced the
bitterness of defeat and the collapse of its economy. On the other hand, during the war the northern
factories had increased their output to supply military needs. The country's natural resources were
fully exploited. Big fortunes were made, and financial empires were created by men who rose from
nothing, like Cornelius Vanderbilt and John Rockefeller. However, the majority of workers were
exploited and did not have a share in the wealth and leisure. They began organising themselves
and, in 1866, founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The abolition of slavery meant the
ex-slaves were free but without money or a home. Some migrated to the industrial cities in the North,
others remained with their old masters in the South. They were treated as second-class citizens
under a system of deeply pervasive segregation that would stand for the next 80-90 years.
Emancipation was not accepted by many in the South and Jim Crow laws were enacted between
1877 and 1954. They segregated the blacks in schools, hospitals and means of transport. Moreover,
a wave of resentment and violence, embodied by the racist Ku Klux Klan movement, terrorised the
blacks and their families.

THE LATE VICTORIAN NOVEL

During the late Victorian era, people became less hopeful and more realistic, rejecting the
optimism of earlier times. Social Darwinism, which linked society to a moral and religious crisis,
influenced this shift. Children's literature flourished in the 1860s, featuring classics like Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland, which challenged Victorian norms and beliefs with its nonsensical
world. Detective fiction gained popularity as society became more concerned about crime,
portraying detectives as heroes of order. Stories like The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by
Robert Louis Stevenson explored the duality of individuals and society, revealing hidden
contradictions beneath surface appearances. Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle,
used his deductive methods to restore order to society. Thomas Hardy was a prominent writer of
this period, known for his pessimistic views and depiction of characters at odds with society's values.
British imperialism was at its peak, influencing literature with authors like Rudyard Kipling, whose
works reflected the realities of colonialism in distant lands.