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VICTORIAN PERIOD - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Economic expansion, technological innovation and territorial enlargement transformed the country into a major world power, eventually surpassing Britain by the end of the century.
        
        TERRITORIAL EXPANSION
        
        The United States expanded from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean by 1853.
        
        New states were gradually added to the Union.
        
        Mexican–American War (1846–1848)→ Texas, New Mexico and California were annexed.
        
        Gold Rush (1848)→ discovery of gold in California→ massive migration towards the West.
        
        Myth of the Frontier
        
        the West seen as a land of opportunity
        
        freedom, adventure and new beginnings for immigrants.
        
        MMIGRATION AND POPULATION GROWTH
        
        Millions of immigrants arrived from Europe (especially from Ireland and Eastern Europe).
        
        Immigration provided:
        
        labour force for factories and farms
        
        population for new cities.
        
        Immigrants arrived by ship and passed through Liberty Island.
        
        The Statue of Liberty (1886) became a symbol of freedom and hope.
        
        ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
        
        The economy grew thanks to:
        
        rich natural resources (coal, oil, timber, fertile land)
        
        technological innovation (telegraph, railways)
        
        Railway network
        
        connected East and West
        
        boosted trade and industrial growth.
        
        Industrial North
        
        factories, manufacturing, textile industries.
        
        Agricultural South
        
        cotton, tobacco, sugar and rice
        
        strong reliance on slavery.
        
        Introduction of assembly-line production (e.g. Ford).
        
        Birth of the American Dream:
        
        right to pursue happiness
        
        social mobility and success through work.
        
        LANGUAGE AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
        
        American leaders understood the importance of language in shaping identity.
        
        Noah Webster (1828) published An American Dictionary of the English Language.
        
        American English:
        
        developed differences from British English
        
        reflected political and cultural independence.
        
        AMERICAN LITERATURE
        
        A new literature developed to describe American landscapes and values.
        
        Main themes:
        
        Myth of the Frontier
        
        sense of evil, guilt and sin (Puritan heritage).
        
        Major authors:
        
        Herman Melville – Moby Dick (1851)
        
        Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter
        
        Poetry:
        
        Walt Whitman: celebrates America, democracy and nature
        
        Emily Dickinson: introspective poetry about love, death, life and nature
  - - - Main causes:
        
        economic differences between North and South
        
        slavery.
      - North
        
        industrial economy
        
        little dependence on slavery.
      - South
        
        agricultural economy
        
        heavy reliance on slave labour.
      - The war broke out after the election of Abraham Lincoln (1860), an abolitionist.
      - Outcome:
        
        victory of the North
        
        abolition of slavery in 1865 (13th Amendment).
  - - - Suez Canal (1859–1869)→ faster route to India
    - - Boer War (1899–1902)→ control of South Africa
    - - Canada, Australia, New Zealand
        and South Africa become dominions (1840–1872)
      - Internal self-government
  - - - 1832 → middle class gains vote
      - 1867 → industrial workers vote (Chartist pressure)
      - 1884 → all male workers vote
      - New political parties
        
        Conservatives ← Tories
        
        Liberals ← Whigs
        
        1900: Labour Party founded
        
        workers in Parliament
    - - Poor Law (1834)→ workhouses (harsh conditions)
      - Mines Act (1862)→ women cannot work in mines
      - Trade Union Act (1875)→ trade unions legalized
  - - - material progress + moral façade
    - - Socialist thought (Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto, 1848)
      - Religious movements (Evangelicalism)
    - - Charles Darwin
      - natural selection
      - opposed by the Church
- - - - rich background in stroy telling, became writers themself.
      - impuls over reason
  - - - GIRL: promoted the role of women, wives and mother. focus on family life
      - BOYS: adventure, encouraging recruits for the navy and army
  - - - Industrial revolution lead to high level of poverty and urban population
        
        Poor law 1814
      - Charls Dickens
        
        "David Copperfield" themes of childhood and growing
        
        "Oliver Twist" orphan escaping from a workhouse
        
        "Dombey and Son" issues of love or lack; how the delays and complications in justice can ruin people's life in Black House