1837-1901Under the reign of Queen

Victoria

The Victorian era was a time of relative peace and economic growth. The British Empire grew steadily, the Industrial Revolution expanded, and political power was extended to the middle and working class.

Serious problems surfaced during the early years of Victoria’s reign: economic depression, widespread unemployment, famine in Ireland, and deplorable living and working conditions brought on by rapid urbanization and a lack of measures safeguarding young workers.

As the nineteenth century progressed, living conditions gradually improved. Food and other commodities became more readily available, most adult males won the right to vote, laws regulated the use of child labor, and compulsory education brought about widespread literacy.

Industrialism made England the workshop of the world, with a mechanized factory system and extensive railways.

Much of the British population moved from rural areas to rapidly growing cities.

Expanded educational opportunities increased literacy; flourishing lending libraries and cheap periodicals created a mass reading population.

Continued advances in science and technology gave Victorians hope that all social problems—disease, poverty, even immorality—could be resolved by the march of “progress.”

The human cost of industrialization was heavy: abuses of child labor, unsafe conditions in factories, and widespread disease from contaminated air and water.

By the end of the century, the disruption and materialism of the era made people question changes brought on by rapid industrialization and reevaluate their definition of progress.

The materialism, secularism, vulgarity, and sheer waste that accompanied the Victorian progress led some writers to wonder if their culture was really advancing by any measure.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Charles Dickens Matthew Arnold Robert Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning Thomas Hardy Charlotte and Emily Bronte Rudyard Kipling