Social trends and fashions: Victorian England (1840-1900)


Figure 1.--Victoria and Albert and their young family. The fashions selected by Victoria for their young brood had an enormous and enduring impact on children's fashions for generations.

The Victorian era resulted in a development of an entirely novel concept of childhood. The new emphasis on the protection of the child through the growth of welfare societies, governmental programs and compulsory education are key developments in the Victorian era. The changing nature of children's work and their increasing leisure time is also apparent. Thes developments affected fashion and clothes in a variety of ways. I am just beginning to sketch out these changes and have not yet begun to assess the impact on fashion, but hope to do so in the future. If you have any thoughts or insights, I'd be very interested in them.

English boys throughout the 19th Century wore dresses as little boys. Styles were quite similr to those worn by their sisters in the early part of the century, but became more plain by the end of the century. The dresses followed the styles of the day, very long at the beginning of the century and becoming shorter as the century progressed. Shorter dresses were worn discreetly with pantalettes. Dresses were often worn with pinafores by both boys and girls, but this became less common for boys by the end of the century. I am not sure how common smocks were in England, but hope to acquire some information on this topic.

Figure 2.--.

A wealth of literature has appeared in the late 1990s about the lives of children. Victorian childhood in Britain is one of the most popular topics. These works are adding to a growing literature that enriches our knowledge of the realities of life for the young in 19th-century Britain. These social histories, most notably Anna Davin's Growing Up Poor: Home, School and Street in London, 1870-1914 and Gretchen Galbraith's Reading Lives: Reconstructing Childhood, Books and Schools in Britain, 1870-1920, have focused on the late Victorian period and the role gender and class played in shaping children's experiences. Much of this literature has focused on poor urban children, but a growing understandinnis emerging on Victorian childhood in general.

Urban Children

Poor urban children have been a focus for many modern scholars. A variety of social and demographic changes were underway in Britain.. One good disussion of these trends is Pamela Horn's most recent project, The Victorian Town Child, approaches the topic from an interesting angle. Her work aims at a synthesis of secondary and primary sources that explore the transformative power of urban industrial change on the lives of children from the early Victorian period to the 1890s. In short, she gives voice the children of Britain's urban past.

A general overview of the transformation of urban life that accompanies 19th-Century industrialization in Britain had a profound impact on children and the childhood experience. One of the impacts of course were fashion and clothes. Some of the important chanhes that ocurred are: Town life: A rich town life that emerged between 1840 and 1900.
Compulsory mass education: Free state education developed more slowly in England than many Continental countries such as France, Germany, and the Netherlands. From the begining of compulsory education, however, there were boys prepared to "mooch off" and take an unauthorized holiday.
Home life:
Changing work and leisure patterns:
Expanding fashion industry: A variety of developments such as improving and cheaper mass media publication, new methods for publishing illustrations including publication of photographs for the first time, rising income, mass production of clothes, and other factors meant that an expanding portion of the publication had increasing details on fashion and more disposable income to buy clothes which were falling in real cost.
Youth groups: Organized boys youth groups first appeared in the late 19th Century, a consequence of the growing earmings of boys and the less constraing atmosphere of the city. The early organizers tnought uniforms were important and these uniforms were to have great influence on 20th Century boys' fashions.
Importance of class:
Appearances: Keeping up appearances was of cource important to the developing middle class. One way in which this was expressed was clothing. Middle class parents were especially concerned that their children dress well. There were, of course, cross-class complexities.
Growth of rescue and welfare agencies: The work house was the answer to poverty in the early Victorian era. Gradually more humane approaches emerged, but were still very limited in England by the end of decade. Even if inadequate, the treatment of children by the end of the century was a far cry from earlier treatment of children.


Rural Life


Sources

Some helpful sources are:

Davin, Anna. Growing Up Poor: Home, School and Street in London, 1870-1914, London: Rivers Oram, 1997.
Galbraith, Gretchen Reading Lives: Reconstructing Childhood, Books and Schools in Britain, 1870-1920, New York/London: St. Martin's Press, 1997.
Horne, Pamela. The Victorian Town Child, New York: New York University Press, 1997.
McLeod, Hugh. Class and Religion in the Late Victorian City, London: Croom Helm, 1974
Stedman Jones, Gareth. Languages of Class: Studies in Working-Class History, 1832-1982, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.




Personal Experiences

The 1850s: The Brownings
The 1860s: The Tennysons
The 1880s: The Stracheys
The 1890s: The Woods
The 1890s: The Sassoons
The 1890s: The Tolkiens
The 1900s: Stephen Tennant


Note: As you can see, I'm just getting started here. I'd be very interested in any input my British visitors might offer.


Christopher Wagner

histclo@lycosmail.com

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Created: January 8, 1999
Last updated: January 8, 1999