Victorian era; Victorian literature; Victorian society; Victorianism

1. 1837 - 1901

2. Romanticism
1770 - 1850

6. VICTORIAN ENGLAND
• the largest empire that had ever existed, ruling a
quarter of the world's population.
• population more than doubled, causing a huge
demand for food, clothes and housing.
• Steam engine, Industrial revolution &
Urbanization – Age of Transition.
• Victorians suffered from a sense of being displaced
in an age of technological advances.

7. SOCIAL CLASSES
• Upper Class: Wealth from inherited land and
investments.
• Middle Class: Men who performed white collar jobs.
• Working Class: Men & Women who performed physical
labour.

8. The Time of Troubles Mid-Victorian Period Late Victorian Period
1830s & 1840s 1850s to 1870s 1870s to 1901
• Unemployment
• Poverty
• Rioting
• Slums
• Working
conditions for
women and
children
• prosperity
• improvement
• Stability
• optimism
• Degradation of
Victorian values
• RISE of the USA
• Economic
depression
• mass Emigration
• Mood of
melancholy

15. Conditions of women in Victorian England
• Job opportunities for women through Industrial Revolution.
• The Factory Acts (1802-78): regulations of the conditions of labor in mines and factories.
• The Custody Act (1839): gave a mother the right to petition the court for access to her minor
children and custody of children under seven, and later sixteen.
• The Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act: established a civil divorce court.
• Married Women’s Property Acts.
• First women’s college established in 1848 in London.
• By the end of Victoria’s reign, women could take degrees at twelve university colleges.
• Underemployment drove thousands of women into prostitution.
• The only occupation at which an unmarried middle-class woman could earn a living and
maintain some claim to gentility was that of a governess (wet nurse).

16. Victorian cities
• By 1851, half of the British population lived in
towns; The Population of London grew from 2
million to 6 million.
• Cholera and typhoid epidemics due to polluted
water; Typhus due to lice; Summer diarrhoea due
to flies feeding on horse manure and human waste.
• Crime, street violence, robbery, prostitution &
Child labour.

17. Child Labour during Victorian Times
• Children were employed for 3 reasons :
- plenty of them in orphanages; could be easily replaced.
- Cheaper Labour than adults.
- Small enough to crawl into chimneys & under machinery to tie up
broken threads.
• Children as young as 5 years of age worked in mines,
factories, mills, or as chimney sweeps.
• Children forced to steal and beg.

20. Victorian novels seek to represent a
large and comprehensive social
world, with a variety of classes. They
are realistic and represent the place
of the individual in society, the
aspiration of the hero or heroine for
love or social position. The
protagonist’s search for fulfillment is
emblematic of the human condition.

21. Adam Smith
(1723 – 1790)
Charles Darwin
(1809 – 1882)
Karl Marx
(1818 – 1883)
&
Friedrich Engels
(1820 – 1895)