What was it like to live in the Victorian Era mid late 1800s

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What was it like to live in the Victorian
Era? (mid late 1800s)
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Victorias Reign

• During her reign, she kept a sense of dignity and
  decorum that restored the average persons high
  opinion of the monarchy after a host of
  ineffectual leaders.
• In 1840, the Queen married Prince Albert from
  Germany
• During this period, England was ruled by prime
  ministers and those elected by Parliament. Even
  though they were not the rulers, Victoria and
  Albert set a standard of national pride and
  optimism that influenced their subjects to bring
  about enormous changes in the world.

• Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 1901
• She was the longest reigning monarch in British
  history

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England Made Great Strides

• The development of tools and techniques of mass
  production included
• Hydraulic presses
• Locomotives
• Machine tools
• Power looms
• Reapers
• Steamboats

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These strides Industrial Revolution

• Industrial revolution began in the late 1700s
  with the invention of machines for weaving
• Gradually, a factory system emerged that supplied
  much of the world with finished goods
• Factories caused a dramatic shift in economy -
  away from agriculture toward production of
  manufactured goods
• Millions of people crowded into factory and mill
  towns
• Political power shifted to factory
  owners/merchants

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Negative effects of Industrial Revolution

• Breakdown in the infrastructure
• No place to educate children
• No sewers!!!
• Too few roads, houses, hospitals, police, jobs
• Poverty, alcoholism, prostitution, abuse

• Cities grew beyond their means
• Sprawling, rat-infested slums appeared
• Clean drinking water was scarce
• Cholera epidemics killed thousands of people

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Schools

• Ragged schools were established for orphans/the
  very poor
• Older boys were sent to a day school taught by a
  local tradesman (apprenticeship)
• The Bible was the main textbook
• Victorian schools never took both boys and girls

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Abuse

• Children were grossly underpaid
• They had no one to protect their rights
• They worked from dawn to dark (16 hours per day)
  with NO breaks
• They worked in cramped factories, which were
  barn-like structures that had only a few tiny
  windows up near the roof (no sunlight)
• Thus, children got rickets (short, crooked bones)

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Abuse

• Children often worked in mines
• Resulted in black lung disease
• Many died by the age of twelve
• Children were often harnessed to carts and forced
  to crawl on their knees for miles
• As a result, many suffered from serious spine
  deformities

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Charles Dickens(1812-1870)

• Born in England lived in the country and the
  city London
• Son of John Dickens, a clerk in the Navy Pay
  Office, who worked hard but was foolish with
  money
• The second of 8 children, sent to work in a
  factory when father was sent to debtors prison
• Eventually became a law clerk, then a court
  reporter, and finally a novelist.

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Literary Career

• Oliver Twist (1839) A Christmas Carol (1843)
• David Copperfield (1850) A Tale of Two Cites
  (1859)
• Great Expectations (1862)
• Charles Dickens dedicated his career to evoking
  social reform by shocking a complacent middle
  class into acknowledging the plight of the lower
  class
• Dickens used his characters to expose social
  injustices of the time
• Poverty and Wealth, Social Class, Maturation, and
  Self Discovery are some of the primary themes in
  Dickens works.

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Poverty Poor Decision Making Prison

• In some parts of England, trials were only held
  once a year when a visiting judge arrived
• There were no system of appeal. The only way for
  sentence to be overturned was a royal pardon.
• Because of overcrowding, many prisoners were
  shipped overseas to British colonies.
• Crimes ranging from shoplifting to murder were
  all punishable by death.
• The condemned were publicly hanged as a warning
  to abide by the law.

• Prisons were overcrowded, dirty, void of sanitary
  conditions, poorly maintained, breeding grounds
  for illness and lacked ventilation
• Presumed all people were guilty unless proven
  innocent

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Changing Classes

• Moving up in class is very difficult!
• In Great Expectations Pips understanding of
  expectations allow him to become a gentleman.
• One of the few ways a person could advance class
  was through inheritance of valuables

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• The End
• (at least in this class. Theres SO much more
  that we havent time for)