17 Characteristics of Life in the 19th Century That Might Seem Quite Strange to Us

The Victorian Era, named after Queen Victoria, ruler of the British Empire from 1837 to 1901, stands out for its appreciation of moral values ​​and strict rules in the United Kingdom. Any violation of these customs was strictly condemnable before society. In general, historians consider that British society evolved over the course of the 19th century, having started, for example, to treat animals better and adopt a more humane point of view in relation to mental illness, considered a taboo until then.

However, it was a period of true sanctimony. It is perhaps difficult to imagine a more controversial historical period. That’s why we, from awesome.club, we decided to find out how people lived at that time. Check out!

The most common item in a man’s wardrobe was a pair of pants called the “inexpressible”. And all because she marked the parts of the body that were considered vulgar. The fact is that everything related to the legs, as well as the arms, was considered indecent.

Children rarely saw their parents. Most of the time they stayed with nannies in day care centers. In addition, they had to get up early, because sleeping late was considered a sign of laziness and was a sin. Many saw their parents only once a day, but in some families the parents also participated in the children’s education: the mother taught them to read and write, and the father taught them Latin. Intelligence was not considered a female virtue. Some even believed that the study of science was harmful to a girl’s “fragile” body, especially her reproductive system. Just remember that Lady Caroline Lamb did not learn to read and write until she was 10 years old, as they were afraid it would affect her nervous system.

The girls did not know about the origin of the babies and what awaited them after the wedding. The writer Marie Stopes was born in 1880. Her mother was a suffragist, with a higher education, she fought for women’s rights, but she never told her daughter anything about the marriage. Marie got married at 31 and only 2 years later, thanks to books, she realized that she and her husband had never gone beyond a platonic relationship, which should not have happened.

Entertainment in Victorian England was pretty bizarre by modern standards. One example is mock courtroom hearings. In those days, divorce hearings were public and anyone could hear the sordid details of others’ private lives. Often the information obtained was used in parody pieces about these situations. In the 19th century, Great Britain experienced a true “Egyptomania”. Wealthy English tourists went to Egypt and tried to bring real mummies from there as a souvenir. And when they returned from vacation, they organized grandiose parties to unwrap their trophy. We even managed to get a photo of an invitation to such an event, where the opening of the mummy was scheduled for 2:30 in the morning.

It was in Victorian England that Valentine’s Day as we know it today emerged, thanks to a reform made to the correspondence system that introduced Valentine’s cards costing just 1 cent. A year after the measure, 400,000 cards with declarations of love and affection were sent across Great Britain. At the same time, a kind of insult card appeared. They were sent to enemies and unwanted people. The content ranged from humorous slurs to outright insults. They were sent to all sorts of people—from grumpy salespeople to overbearing bosses. Cards could make fun of the profession, as well as the appearance of the recipient.

In general, postcards were very popular, especially Christmas ones. But the drawings depicted on them were quite strange and even frightening: frogs sliding on ice, people with bird heads, or even a giant beet with a human head.

In the middle of the 19th century, the Gothic style became quite popular, and, of course, this could not but have an impact on fashion. To make the face pale, women painted their faces with zinc oxide, drank vinegar and dyed their veins.

One of the symbols of the Victorian era is the crinoline, which was introduced into fashion by the Englishman Charles Worth, considered the first professional fashion designer. An inventor showed the prototype to Charles, who liked the idea, and soon his customers did too. The crinoline had a significant advantage: it saved women from having to wear many skirts. The more voluminous the crinoline, the more elegant it was considered. The diameter could reach 180 cm. However, there were cases when women died because of the play. In 1863 The Times newspaper reported an accident with a girl whose dress caught fire when standing near a fireplace due to the size of the crinoline. But there were also beneficial situations. For example, in 1885, Sarah Ann Henley survived a fall from a height of 75 meters. It is believed that the crinoline worked as a kind of parachute that saved her.

This is what the crinoline looked like under the skirt.

In the 70s of the 19th century, the crinoline was replaced by a bustle — a device that was located just below the waist in the upper back part of the skirt, forming a more slender silhouette. Thanks to the bustle, the waist looked narrower, but to sit down, the ladies had to do a lot of tricks.

The narrow waist was at the height of fashion at that time, and to create such a silhouette, women resorted to the use of corsets. However, this garment squeezed the internal organs so much that it interfered with blood flow, and many ladies fainted. You can check out an illustrative image of how a woman’s body looks when she wears a corset all the time. There is a legend that Victorian women managed, at the time, to reduce their waists to an incredible 45 cm, but according to the researcher and collector of Doris Langley Moore corsets, this piece almost never shortened the waist below 61cm.

One of the most recognizable pieces of men’s wardrobe in Victorian England was the top hat. Dickens called this item a “closed black helmet”. That hat was too hot, too uncomfortable, and impractical. It also required special care: it had to be ironed in the right direction and gently wiped with a silk cloth if someone got caught in the rain. But the top hat was the true symbol of respectability/status of a gentleman. A woman’s complete outfit in Victorian times in England, along with her hat, crinoline, cape, jacket and other garments weighed about 17 kg. In comparison, the weight of armor for a medieval warrior wearing chain mail was about 13.5 kg.

A case that caused perplexity at the time was the “fasting girls”. They were teenagers who suddenly stopped eating and believed they could live without food. They also claimed to have magical powers. Doctors at the time attributed such strange behavior to lying or hysteria. Modern historians believe that the maidens were seriously ill and could be a case of anorexia nervosa.

Would you like to visit Victorian England? If not, what other season would you like to visit? Tell us in the comments section.