US History

Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)

The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900)

World History

Arts

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Victorian era, which lasted from 1837 to 1901 during the reign of Queen Victoria of England.

A photograph of a Victorian home interior in Kenosha, Wisconsin, ca. 1890.

This late nineteenth-century photograph, taken by Louis Milton Thiers, displays a midwestern American home furnished in elegant Victorian style. It shows a large wallpapered sitting room with an arched doorway leading to another sitting area and a porch beyond. The floor is covered with a floral carpet. A gilt and glass chandelier hangs from the ceiling. The rooms contain drapery, heavily upholstered furniture with carved wood accents, a profusion of pillows, an elaborate lamp with fringed shade, and potted palms, in addition to numerous framed photographs or paintings, statues, and small decorative items on display, known as “bric-a-brac.”

A tortoiseshell calling card case from the mid-nineteenth century.

This small hard case with silver hinges was fashioned from the shell of a sea tortoise, a material popular in the Victorian era for its decorative coloring and durable qualities. The case is adorned with a silver monogram of entwined letters M and B. It was likely used by a woman to hold or display calling cards exchanged by friends and acquaintances when they visited one another’s homes. The case contains an ivory insert for penciled notes and elastic straps to secure loose cards. 

A chromolithograph print called “Making the Scrap Book,” 1868.

This vividly colored print of an 1865 Juliana Oakley painting, displayed in a fancy silver frame, shows a young girl absorbed in the task of cutting a paper image to paste into a nearby scrapbook. The girl wears a white dress with a blue sash and matching hair ribbon, white stockings, and black leather shoes with ankle straps. She sits alone in a room on a high-backed upholstered chair, her feet resting on a tufted footstool, surrounded by objects, furniture, and pictures that symbolize art and learning. Making a scrapbook was likely seen as an ideal task for a girl’s cultural education. Her task also suggests the importance of memory and sentimentality in the Victorian era. The print could serve as an affordable art object in itself for middle-class homes. 

An African American family record chart, 1880.

Designed for post-Civil War African American families who sought to reunite and connect their relatives, this blank chart was printed to help families record their genealogy. The lower images contrast black family and work life before and after emancipation. The central image shows a well-dressed African American family of a mother, father, and two small children in a Victorian-style interior with wallpaper, carpet, fine furniture, decorative objects, toys, and a framed print of George Washington on the wall. The image underscores the broad appeal for marketing Victorian middle-class values and idealized domestic life in the late nineteenth century. 

An excerpt from *The Lady’s Guide to Perfect Gentility*, 1859.

This etiquette manual instructed unmarried women on being polite when conversing with men, writing a variety of letters (an important skill in middle and upper-class Victorian society), and dressing attractively for social occasions. It also included embroidery, crochet, and needlework patterns. Etiquette guides like this appealed to an aspiring young women’s desire to attain “gentility and refinement of manners in all the relations of home and society” and showcased the code of conduct and skills considered appropriate for a proper young woman in the Victorian era. This excerpt contains instructions on how a woman should, and should not, converse with men, and provides two sample “break-up letters” for use if the occasion arose. 

A print depicting a Victorian couple in love, 1850s.

This print illustrates a courting couple standing or walking arm-in-arm in a garden. The woman wears a long pink dress with lace collar and cuffs and holds a lace handkerchief. She has one of the garden’s roses tucked in her fashionably arranged hair. The bearded man wears a formal, fitted double-breasted coat with a velvet collar, a vest, bow tie and striped trousers, and carries a small book. The print is typical of sentimental “genre prints” showing idealized Victorians performing their proper roles in society, serving both as moral instruction and as uplifting decoration for a home or business. The picture’s title, “Don’t Say Nay,” suggests that the man hopes his companion will accept him as a suitor or potential husband; their peaceful expressions (and the church in the background) hint that the courtship may be successful.

A photographic portrait of Queen Victoria.

This commercial photographic card of Queen Victoria displays the portrait artist’s many awards and commendations on the reverse side. Although undated, this photograph shows the queen wearing a black lace-trimmed dress in mourning for her husband, Prince Albert, who died in 1861. Queen Victoria had set the fashion in England and America for white wedding dresses when she and Albert married in 1840, and she also set the standard as a widow by remaining in mourning for the rest of her life. Especially during and after the Civil War, many Americans looked to Victoria as an example for proper mourning practices, and an entire industry grew to accommodate the rituals and special clothing associated with mourning the loss of a loved one. 

A commemorative hair and yarn wreath from Wisconsin, ca. 1879.

This decorative object framed on white silk combines two popular handcrafts of the Victorian era. It was made in the 1870s by Margreta Severin Tiedjens in New Holstein, Wisconsin. The outer wreath showcases “yarnwork”—wrapping colored yarn and beads around a wire frame to form leaves and flowers. The inner cluster, tied with a blue ribbon, was made out of blonde and pale brown human hair. Victorians often memorialized the death or absence of a loved one by saving locks of hair, crafting them into jewelry, or incorporating them into a piece of wall art. 

A post-mortem photograph of Samuel Charles Stowe, son of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1849.

Little “Charley,” the young son of American abolitionist and writer Harriet Beecher Stowe and her husband Calvin, died in 1849 during a cholera epidemic in Cincinnati, Ohio. Following the custom of many Victorian families, the Stowes had a daguerreotype portrait taken of their deceased son before his burial. The small framed portrait would have been an important part of the family’s mourning, and it fits with the Victorian conception of childhood as a period of both innocence and vulnerability. 

A photograph of Victoria Terminus Railway Station in Mumbai (Bombay), India.

Built over ten years from 1878 to 1888 by architect Frederick William Stevens for the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, the Victoria Terminus is the finest example of Victorian Gothic architecture in India. At the time, Bombay (present-day Mumbai) was transitioning from a British colonial military post to India’s main international mercantile port. The building was named for Queen Victoria to commemorate her golden (fifty-year) jubilee and originally contained a statue of her beneath the main central dome. Victoria Terminus blended British high-Victorian style with ornate Indian palace architecture. It was Mumbai’s first truly public building, admitting all castes, religions, and classes. The entrance gate’s columns are crowned by figures of a lion (representing Great Britain) and a tiger (representing India). Other exterior statues represent Commerce, Agriculture, Engineering, Science, and Progress. The building embodies the progressive hopes of the British Empire and the expansion of Victorian values and style around the globe. It is now known as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. 

An excerpt from the London Exhibition’s “New Crystal Palace Polka,” 1851.

This piece of dance music was written in honor of the 1851 London Exhibition. The sheet music has a color lithograph featuring the Exhibition’s crowning architectural wonder, the massive glass-and-cast-iron Crystal Palace showing its facade with flags flying and landscaped Hyde Park grounds crowded with visitors. In 1851, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert opened the “Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations,” an international fair attended by six million visitors showcasing engineering, technology, agriculture, and the arts. The innovative, greenhouse-like building was over 1,800 feet long and was capable of holding over 100,000 objects from hairpins to steam hammers, representing 14,000 exhibitors, half from the British Empire, half from other nations. 

A dedication and poem from *Victoria Regia: a Volume of Original Contributions in Poetry and Prose*, 1861. 

This literary anthology, edited by Adelaide Anne Proctor, was published in 1861 by the “Victoria Press (for the Employment of Women),” a London company that provided women’s vocational training in the printing trade. The title refers to the scientific classification of a giant Amazonian water lily, named in 1837 for newly-coronated Queen Victoria by a British explorer in the Empire’s first South American colony, present-day Guyana. This excerpt contains the book’s dedication along with a poem that likens Victoria’s namesake lily to the queen herself and, by extension, the entire British empire. The Latin inscription in the poem’s opening “P” translates as “patience and strength.” The volume ends with the Latin phrase “dux femina facti,” from Virgil’s *Aeneid*, meaning “a woman was the leader of the exploit.” 

A photograph of the University of Pennsylvania cricket team, 1887.

This group photograph shows thirteen members of a University of Pennsylvania college sports team in 1887, posing with balls and bats. They wear cricket uniforms, some with caps, except for one man who wears a buttoned suit with a tall bowler hat. Cricket is England’s national summer sport, a bat and ball game played between two teams in innings on an oval field. It is widely played around the world, especially in the British Isles and former British colonies like Australia, India, Pakistan, and the West Indies. Although there were intercollegiate American baseball teams by the 1880s, cricket was actually Penn’s first organized college sport and had been played there since 1842. British team sports—even in America—helped sustain Victorian masculine ideals of muscularity, camaraderie, sportsmanship, and discipline. 

An advertisement for Dr. Scott’s Electric Corset, 1883.

This is an advertisement for a women’s undergarment that not only provided fashionable support for the heavy, highly tailored women’s clothing of the era but also promised numerous health benefits as well. An “Electric Corset” probably meant a magnet sewn into the lining of sufficient strength to move a compass needle, rather than the use of actual electricity. The advertisement illustrates Victorian-era fascinations with science and [electromagnetism](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sets/electrifying-america), health fads that made confident but dubious medical claims, and the form and function of an idealized female body. 

Questions

1. Study the [portrait of Queen Victoria](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1851) and the [dedication and poem from *Victoria Regia*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1856). What did Victoria look like? How did her subjects and admirers describe her? What characteristics or traits were associated with Victoria, her reign, and the Empire she commanded? 
2. Compare the images of Victorian buildings or interiors found in this source set: the [photograph of Wisconsin home interior](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1845), the “[Making a Scrap Book](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1847)” print, the [African American family record chart](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1848), the [photograph of Victoria Terminus](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1854), and the excerpt from “[New Crystal Palace Polka](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1858).” Which distinguishing characteristics of Victorian design or ornamentation can you identify from them? How might “Victorian” style differ from architecture and design in other eras? (Compare, for example, with Georgian or Classical Revival architecture, or the Arts and Crafts, Art Deco, or Modernist movements.)
3. Observe the [advertisement for Dr. Scott’s Electric Corset](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1858). What attractions and benefits does “Dr. Scott” claim for his product? To whom might this advertisement appeal? What could you conclude from this ad about Victorian clothing, marketing techniques, medical advances, or manufacturing? 
4. Drawing upon the [excerpt from *The Lady’s Guide to Gentility*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1849), the [African American family record chart](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1848), the “[Don’t Say Nay](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1850)” print, and the [photo of the cricket team](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1857), explain what defined the appearance of a proper Victorian man or woman, and list some of the etiquette rules that guided their social behavior. 
5. Victorian social codes governed not only romantic relationships but also friendships. What can the [calling card case](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1846) and the [excerpt from *The Lady’s Guide to Gentility*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1849) reveal about how people developed and maintained friendships in Victorian times? 
6. How did Victorians express grief and respond to the death of a loved one? Describe the mourning rituals that are evident in the [portrait of Queen Victoria](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1851), the [crafted wreath](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1852), and the [photograph of Samuel Charles Stowe](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1853). In what ways are these rituals similar to and different from ones we see today? 

Activity

1. Have students read aloud and discuss the “break-up letters” included in the [excerpt from *The Lady’s Guide to Perfect Gentility*](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/victorian-era/sources/1849). To what contemporary situations might the letters be compared? Have small groups of students write a letter to address a hypothetical present-day relationship issue using Victorian-style manners and language. Make up a few current examples and have students pick at random. For example: "You just found out that your boyfriend has been liking the Instagram photos of his ex. Write a break-up letter in the Victorian style."
2. “Victorian” values, morals, and aesthetics had a long reach—extending throughout the global British Empire with structures of colonial power, cultural texts, and material objects. Invite students to generate a researched list or concept map of Victorian values, cultural assumptions, beliefs, or social/political movements. Align items from this source set with the list or place them onto the concept map to show connections between objects/texts and the cultural values they represent. 

Teaching Guide: Exploring the Victorian Era

Resources

1. [Victorian Britain](https://www.bl.uk/victorian-britain), British Library. 
2. [British Empire](http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/empire/), UK National Archives. 
3. [The Victorian Period](https://faculty.unlv.edu/kirschen/handouts/victorian.html), University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 

Overview

Queen Victoria of England reigned over a vast British empire from 1837 until her death in 1901. During her rule, England rapidly transformed into a modern, technologically-based economy exercising global military and cultural power, roiling with class and racial conflict. Victorianism extended far beyond the boundaries of Britain and informed international movements of the same period, including in the United States. 

Queen Victoria’s name signifies not only her era as a distinct time period in world history, but also a particular aesthetic sensibility in design, literature, manners, and morals. Victorian-era objects and buildings were often highly decorated and ornate. Victorian writers and intellectuals celebrated “sentiment”—feeling, emotion, affection, and passion—that found diverse expression in abolitionism, paternalistic colonialism, social reform, and celebrations of romantic love or mourning. Values defined as “Victorian” included moral responsibility and restraint as well as domestic propriety and gentility. At the same time, the Victorian era was marked by rigid gender and class hierarchies seen in elaborate codes of conduct, etiquette, and social rituals. Anxieties about science, religion, and race undermined many Victorians’ prosperity and moral certainty. 

The material objects, buildings, and texts arranged in this primary source set illustrate the variety of Victorian design while revealing some of the unique cultural characteristics of the period. 

English

Victorian Era

victorian-era_02_93460d2e2531158f9a9cdea6d69a1994.jpg

Courtesy of National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center via Smithsonian Institution.

“Tortoiseshell Card Case,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/93460d2e2531158f9a9cdea6d69a1994.

A tortoiseshell calling card case from the mid-nineteenth century.

Cite this item

Tips for Students

Item 2 of 14 in the Primary Source Set Victorian Era