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The Victorian Age 1837-1901 Queen Victoria's reign , - Coggle…
The Victorian Age
1837-1901
Queen Victoria's reign
POLITICAL TRENDS
New political parties
Liberal Party (1860s; included former Whigs and some Radicals)
Conservative Party (1830s; evolved from former Tories)
Expansion of the colonial empire
Belief it was a duty to export language and cultural supremacy
1877: Queen Victoria - Empress of India
CULTURAL TRENDS
Contrast between religious faith and triumph of science
Increased with publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species - 1859
Early Victorian Age
Optimism and faith in progress
Birth of Bentham's Utilitarianisim
Legislators had to maximize pleasure and minimize pain using a sort of "moral arithmetic" BUT this often led to the neglect of emotions and spiritual fulfilment
The main idea was that all action should be directed towards achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people BUT this often promoted a world of arid though "useful" facts
Victorian compromise - the coexistence of dark sides alongside an optimistic faith in progress
Great importance given to the idea of respectability
Late Victorian Age
Growing depression and lack of optimism
Anti-Victorian reaction
Literary production
Reflected the ambiguity of the age
Early production - identification between writers and their society
Late production: increasing criticism towards the Victorian compromise
Triumph of fiction
Novel became the leading genre
Increase in the output and above all in the consumption of books thanks to circulating libraries
URBANISATION
Opening of shops and department stores
Social injustice and inequality
The wealthy vs the poor
Labourers living in overcrowed slums, in unsanitary conditions
The rich enjoying large, elegant houses and new commodities
Labourers (including women and children) forced to work long hours for very low wages
Men vs women
Women dependent on men
No right to vote for women
Introduction of services
Running water
Gas lighting
Paved roads
Places of entertainment
Public houses
Music halls
Parks
Stadiums
Increasing number of "mushroom towns" in the industrial areas, often not far from coal mines (Midlands, and north fo England)
ADVANCEMENTS
Further improvements in
industrial technology
(Britain = workshop of the world)
Increase in the output of commodities
Great Exhibition of 1851
Use of
new materials
in architecture for the construction of new types of buildings such as railway stations
Glass
Cast iron
Steel
Improvements in
transportation
, making it easier for people to move and for goods to be transported
The London Underground (1860s)
Railways (1840s)
Steamboats (since the late 18th-century
Canals (since the mid-18th century
Medicine
Understanding of what caused cholera (John Snow, 1850s)
Antiseptic surgical procedures (Lister, 1870s)
Development of new instruments (e.g. stethoscope)
Building of new more modern hospitals
Biology, chemistry and geology
Darwin's "Origins of the Species" (1859)
Theory of evolution and natural selection
Lyell's "Principles of Geology" (1830s)
Demonstration of the power of known natural causes to explain Earth's history.
Humphry Davy's work (early 1800s)
Isolation of new chemical elements through electricity
REFORMS
Reform Bills
1832: right to vote to male middle class
1867: suffrage extended to workers in towns
1884: suffrage extended to workers in mines and agriculture
Education Act
1870: elementary education made compulsory
Poor law amendment act
1834: creation of workhouses
Factory Act
1833: children between 9 and 13 - no more than 48 hrs weekly; children between 13 and 18 - no more than 72 hrs weekly
Chartism
1838: (unsuccessful) People's Charter to make demands concerning electoral district, suffrage, the secret ballot, paid MPs
Led to Ballot Act (1872, secret ballot)
Abolition of corn laws
1846: abolition of the laws that kept the price of bread artificially high and that was partially responsible for the famine that had occurred in Ireland the year before