Victorian Age
by Ruben Longo
1. Great Exhibition of 1851
1.1. Housed in the Crystal Palace
1.2. Goods coming from all over the Empire were exhibited
1.3. Invention of the railway, electricity, photograph and the Penny Post
2. Poor people lived in the slums
2.1. They were characterized by squalor, illnesses and crimes
2.2. atmosphere was polluted
2.3. the Government promoted a campaign against national ill health
3. abolition of the slave trade and of slavery from the British Empire.
3.1. change of the coloniser's mission who has to educate the native population
3.1.1. 'white man's burden'
4. family
4.1. hypocrisy
4.2. patriarchal unit
4.3. men represented the authority
4.4. importance of the bible
4.5. Greed for material success
4.6. Moral teaching in art
5. crime and violence
5.1. prison act from 1865 to 1877
5.1.1. prisons under Government control
5.1.2. new police forces
5.2. the most common crime was garrotting
5.3. domestic violence tended to be committed in the private sphere of the home
5.4. criminals were considered
5.4.1. from the lowest class
5.4.2. at the end of this period they were considered people who suffered from behavioural abnormality
6. Factory act of 1847
6.1. It restricted the working hours to 10 hours per day.
7. Darwin
7.1. "On the origin of species" published in 1859
7.1.1. he talks about natural selection
7.1.1.1. H. Spencer applied this theory to social life.
7.1.2. first detachment from the bible
8. universal suffrage for men.
9. New aesthetic theories
9.1. it began in France with T.Gautier in the last decades of the 19th century
9.1.1. "Art for Art's sake"
9.2. birth of the bohemien
9.2.1. sloppy artist
10. Queen Victoria
10.1. Victoria became queen at the age of 18
10.2. Her reign was the second longest in British history
10.3. in 1840 she married a German prince, Albert of Saxe-Coburg
11. Marx published the communist manifesto (1849)
12. Stamp Newspaper Public electric lighting Invention of the telephone Invention of cinema (France, Lumiere brothers)
13. increasing turn towards romanticism and mysticism.
14. The main political parties were the Whigs, the Conservatives and the Labour Party.
15. Novels became the most popular form of literature.
15.1. Main source of entertainment for the middle-classes
15.2. They published their works in installments in literary periodicals
15.2.1. It created expectation in readers
15.3. They denounced the injustices and unfairness of society
15.4. The authors analyzed the psychology of the characters
15.5. Many novels were written by women
15.5.1. They used a pseudonym in order to see their works in print