Chapter Text
- When trains were first invented, they were regarded with a lot of scepticism in how they would affect human health. There were beliefs that the high speeds would knock the air out of people’s lungs thus causing them to suffocate, that women’s uteruses would fly out of their bodies and also that due to the speed, that the human body would simply melt.
- The Victorian era was marked not only by technological innovation but also social changes that shook the bedrock of society. One strived to achieve perfection through identifying one’s character flaws through introspection and eliminate them through iron discipline. That meant a huge change in the national character of the English people, as before that, they were infamous for their brutishness.
Furthermore, the ideals of being a gentleman as well as being a lady were put on a pedestal.
Being a gentleman meant being stoic (Stiff Upper Lip), strong mentally as well as physically, being competitive and being able to provide for a wife and children. Not being married was seen as being a failure.
I’ll get to what it meant to be a lady later.
On top of that if you were worth mentioning you had to have impeccable manners and authentic grace and well-versed in etiquette. People really loved fitting each other in rigid moral and social frames back then.
- British Imperialism was morally justified as the great western nations bringing the fire of civilization to the backward people. The Spanish & Portuguese spread their religion, the French their culture and the British their tax and finance system (mind you, these are just a few key aspects).
However, the subjects of the Crown were never seen as Englishmen/women and therefor didn’t have all the rights and privileges such a position granted regardless of skin-colour, religion and even if one was full anglicized.
- Now to what it meant to be a lady.
Women were expected to be morally strong and thus act as a moral compass for the men in the family and in general for everybody they knew. They were excepted have full devotion and piety towards their husband as well as their father. Yet they were also expected to be full of agency since they organised balls and other social gatherings and ran household which could also mean estates.
On that note Queen Victoria was seen as being the kind but stern mother of the nation. While being a figurehead, the monarch is always intimate with the workings of the parliament and under extreme circumstances block a law from being passed, she did hold a lot of power. On mainland Europe it was a bit laughable that a woman was Queen while her husband had to settle with being Prince Consort.
- In the 1850s Napoleon III, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor of the Second French Empire. It is also notable that the measurements taken to prevent the common folk from overthrowing their rulers along with famine was what led to the September Revolutions.
Prussia was known to be very strict with censure in Germany and it is from Austria that the caricature “Wie lange mochte uns noch das Denken erlaubt sein?” (How long will them still allow us to think?) is from.
- “The Great Game” was what one called the stalemate between Britain and Russia that lasted from 1813 to well into the 20th Quiet like the Cold War in that the objective was to get the upper hand against the enemy through intelligence and technological superiority. Of course, there was also the Crimea War.
The miasma theory was regarded as the correct theory. So, John Snow’s thesis that cholera was a waterborne infection wasn’t received well. It took a lot of time and a lot of people suffer ridicule for their “outlandish ideas” until the germ theory was excepted.