Victorianism

Victorianism is the name given to the attitudes, art, and culture of the latter two-thirds of the 19th century, especially with reference to English-speaking peoples and the British Empire. "Victorianists" are people who study Victorianism or the Victorian era.

The word is often specifically directed [ [http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/victorian?view=uk Compact Oxford English Dictionary] ] [ [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Victorianism Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, 10th Edition: Victorianism] ] [ [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/victorian Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, 10th Edition: Victorian] ] [ [http://www.odd-sex.com/info/gloss820.htm Glossary of Unusual Sexual Practices] ] at Victorian morality, puritanism, and the "Victorian Social Order" with respect to the contradiction between the widespread cultivation of an outward appearance of dignity and restraint and the simultaneous, prevalence of hedonistic social phenomena.

Brief history

Queen Victoria succeeded to the throne in 1837 and died in 1901, so the period 1840–1900 is often regarded as the Victorian era.
Eric Hobsbawm refers to 1789–1914 as the 'long' nineteenth century.

Victorianism covers the rise of an industrialized society with a newly urbanized middle class, the interconnection of the globe with telegraph and railway, the expansion of trade, the establishment of the gold standard and other programs meant to make orderly and regular the path of commerce, manufacturing and economic growth. As a movement, the term is often synonymous with changes made to society directed at dealing with the effects of trade, industrialism, and urbanization, while maintaining a strongly stratified social and political order, containing reactionary hedonistic elements [Refs. cited.] .

ee also

For philosophical explanations of this last social phenomenon see Dichotomy, Dualism, Yin/Yang, and Philosophy of mind. For similar phenomena the US, see Bootleggers and Baptists.