Wednesday 4 June 2014

The Victorian Era - A Brief Description



Victorian Era

Brief Timeline

Significant Dates1837: Queen Victoria I begins reign in United Kingdom. 
1848: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. European and American immigrants populate the newly opened territories, spreading American architectural forms into Texas, California, and the Midwest. 
1865: Transcontinental Railroad finished, speeding America's industrialization and westward expansion. 
1867: Exhibition in Paris marks the spread of the 2nd Empire style into America. 
1868: Charles Eastlake publishes "Hints on House Hold Taste" the codex on Victorian Design. 
1869: Completion of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, 2nd Empire architecture. 
1869: M.C.C.C. (Metal Compression Casting Company) awarded its first patent for decorative hardware. 
1872: Beginning of Russell & Erwin hardware mfg., first casting of hardware on a large scale. 
1890: Louis Sullivan designs the Wainwright Bldg. — considered by some the first skyscraper. 
1893: Chicago's Columbian Exposition marks the launching pad of the Colonial Revival. 
1914—1918: World War I marks the decline of Victorian styles.





The Victorian Period - A Brief Description 



For much of this century the term Victorian, which literally describes things and events (roughly) in the reign of Queen Victoria, conveyed connotations of "prudish," "repressed," and "old fashioned." Although such associations have some basis in fact, they do not adequately indicate the nature of this complex, paradoxical age that saw great expansion of wealth, power, and culture.

In science and technology, the Victorians invented the modern idea of invention -- the notion that one can create solutions to problems, that man can create new means of bettering himself and his environment.
In religion, the Victorians experienced a great age of doubt, the first that called into question institutional Christianity on such a large scale. In literature and the other arts, the Victorians attempted to combine Romantic emphases upon self, emotion, and imagination with Neoclassical ones upon the public role of art and a corollary responsibility of the artist.

 In ideology, politics, and society, the Victorians created astonishing innovation and change: democracy, feminism, unionization of workers, socialism, Marxism, and other modern movements took form. In fact, this age of Darwin, Marx, and Freud appears to be not only the first that experienced modern problems but also the first that attempted modern solutions. Victorian, in other words, can be taken to mean parent of the modern -- and like most powerful parents, it provoked a powerful reaction against itself.

 The Victorian age was not one, not single, simple, or unified, only in part because Victoria's reign lasted so long that it comprised several periods. Above all, it was an age of paradox and power. The Catholicism of the Oxford Movement, the Evangelical movement, the spread of the Broad Church, and the rise of Utilitarianism, socialism, Darwinism, and scientific Agnosticism, were all in their own ways characteristically Victorian; as were the prophetic writings of Carlyle and Ruskin, the criticism of Arnold, and the empirical prose of Darwin and Huxley; as were the fantasy of George MacDonald and the realism of George Eliot and George Bernard Shaw.

 More than anything else what makes Victorians Victorian is their sense of social responsibility. The poet Matthew Arnold refused to reprint his poem "Empedocles on Etna," in which the Greek philosopher throws himself into the volcano, because it set a bad example; and he criticized an Anglican bishop who pointed out mathematical inconsistencies in the Bible not on the grounds that he was wrong, but that for a bishop to point these things out to the general public was irresponsible.
The Victorian Age was characterized by rapid change and developments in nearly every sphere - from advances in medical, scientific and technological knowledge to changes in population growth and location. Over time, this rapid transformation deeply affected the country's mood: an age that began with a confidence and optimism leading to economic boom and prosperity eventually gave way to uncertainty and doubt regarding Britain's place in the world.


QUEEN VICTORIA

Born on 24 May 1819.
On 10th June 1837, following the death of her uncle, William IV, she became queen at the age of eighteen.
She fell instantly in love with her German cousin, Prince Albert and they were married on 10 February 1840. Between 1841 and 1857 Queen Victoria had nine children - four sons, five daughters. Prince Albert was very interested in art, science and manufacturing and took a keen interest in the building of the Crystal Palace. He died suddenly of typhoid in 1861. His widow was overcome with grief and wrote in her diary, "My life as a happy person is ended!" She wore black for the rest of her life. For a long time she refused to appear in public, which made her very unpopular. 

Queen Victoria died aged 80 on 22 January 1901 and a new age - the Edwardian - began.






IMPERIALISM

 In 1876 Victoria was declared Empress of India and the English Empire was constantly being expanded. The prevailing attitude in Britain was that expansion of British control around the globe was good for everyone.
One, England had an obligation to enlighten and civilize the 'less fortunate savages' of the world (often referred to as the "White Man's Burden").
Second, they (as a chosen people) had a destiny to fulfill -- they were 'destined' to rule the world.
Finally, they needed money, resources, labor, and new markets for expanding industry in England.
The British Empire (map) was the largest empire ever, consisting of over 25% of the world's population and area. It included India, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Rhodesia, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, several islands in the West Indies and various colonies on the African coast. In 1750 the population of Britain was 4 million. By 1851 it was 21 million. By 1900, Queen Victoria reigned over 410 million people. British Victorians were excited by geographical exploration, by the opening up of Africa and Asia to the West, yet were troubled by the intractable Irish situation and humiliated by the failures of the Boer War.

 IRISH QUESTION

 This was also the age of the 'Irish Question', the question being whether or not the Irish should be allowed to rule themselves. Gladstone was a constant activist for increased Irish autonomy, but his views were not widely supported, and Irish extremists began a campaign of terrorism, the fruits of which are still with us today.

 RELIGION

 Victorian England was a deeply religious country. A great number of people were habitual church-goers, at least once and probably twice, every Sunday. The Bible was frequently and widely read by people of every class; so too were religious stories and allegories. Yet towards the end of Queen Victoria's reign, the hold of organized religion upon the English people began to slacken for several reasons.

 EDUCATION

 Education in nineteenth-century England was not equal - not between the sexes, and not between the classes. Gentlemen would be educated at home by a governess or tutor until they were old enough to attend Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester, Westminster, Charter-house, or a small handful of lesser schools. The curriculum was heavily weighted towards the classics - the languages and literature of Ancient Greece and Rome. After that, they would attend Oxford or Cambridge. Here they might also study mathematics, law, philosophy, and modern history. Oxford tended to produce more Members of Parliament and government officials, while Cambridge leaned more towards the sciences and produced more acclaimed scholars. However, it was not compulsory, either legally or socially, for a gentleman to attend school at all. He could, just as easily, be taught entirely at home. However, public school and University were the great staging grounds for public life, where you made your friends and developed the connections that would aid you later in life. Beau Brummel met the Prince of Wales at Eton and that friendship helped him conquer all of London Society despite his lack of family background. 
A lady's education was taken, almost entirely, at home. There were boarding schools, but no University, and the studies were very different. She learned French, drawing, dancing, music, and the use of globes. If the school, or the governess, was interested in teaching any practical skills, she learned plain sewing as well as embroidery, and accounts.

 SCIENCE AND PROGRESS

 Industrial Revolution: the developments that transformed Great Britain, between 1750 and 1830, from a largely rural population making a living almost entirely from agriculture to a town-centered society engaged increasingly in factory manufacture.

 As many thousands of women throughout rural Britain saw their spinning wheels become redundant and their jobs disappear into the factories, they moved to the cities. The towns offered a better chance of work and higher wages than the countryside, where many families were trapped in dire poverty and seasonal employment. On the other hand, the countryside was healthier.

 The Industrial Revolution gathered steam, and accelerated the migration of the population from country to city. The result of this movement was the development of horrifying slums and cramped row housing in the overcrowded cities. 

 SOCIAL CLASS

 Working class - men and women who performed physical labor, paid daily or weekly wages
Middle class - men performed mental or "clean" work, paid monthly or annually
Upper class - did not work, income came from inherited land and investments

 MONEY

 Pounds (£)
Shillings (s.)
Pence (d.)

 Typical Incomes (annual)
Aristocrats £30,000
Merchants, bankers £10,000
Middle-class (doctors, lawyers, clerks) £300-800
Lower middle-class (head teachers, journalists, shopkeepers, etc.) £150-300
Skilled workers (carpenters, typesetters,etc.) £75-100
Sailors and domestic staff £40-75
Laborers, soldiers £25 

 DISEASES

 Cholera - caused by human waste in the drinking water.
Symptoms: nausea, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea, overwhelming thirst, cramps
Death often followed within 24 hours of the first symptom
Consumption - a tuberculosis of the lungs
Symptoms - weakness, fatigue, wasting away, blood in the lungs
(killed hundreds of thousands of English in the nineteenth century)
Typhus - spread by body lice and dirty conditions
Symptoms: delirium, headaches, rash, high fever

 WOMEN AND MEN





In the late industrial era in Britain the ideology of separate spheres which assigned the private sphere to the woman and the public sphere of business, commerce and politics to the man had been widely dispersed. The home was regarded as a haven from the busy and chaotic public world of politics and business, and from the grubby world of the factory. Those who could afford to, created cosy domestic interiors with plush fabrics, heavy curtains and fussy furnishings which effectively cocooned the inhabitants from the world outside. The middle-class household contained concrete expressions of domesticity in the form of servants, décor, furnishings, entertainment and clothing. The female body was dressed to emphasize a woman's separation from the world of work.

"The majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled with sexual feelings of any kind" - Dr. William Acton

 Dr. Acton's books were very popular, and they suggest how much truth there was in our stereotypes of the constrained character of nineteenth-century English sexual behavior. In proper middle-class and upper-class circles, women were supposed to have no sexual conduct before marriage - a hand around the waist, a small kiss, and a fervent pressing of the hand was probably the accepted limit in most cases.

 Also, when a woman married, she had no independent legal status. She had no right to any money (earned, inherited, etc.), she could not make a will or buy property, she had no claim to her children, she had to move with him wherever he went. If the husband died, he could name the mother as the guardian, but he did not have to do so.

 Among the working classes in London, many costermongers (street vendors) lived with their girlfriends starting in their early teens. Elsewhere in the working class, premarital sex was generally winked at, as long as the couple got married.In 1800, about a third of working-class brides were pregnant on their wedding day.
For middle- and upper-class men, premarital sex would have been with servants and prostitutes, since "nice girls" didn't go beyond the small kiss or squeeze of the hand.
There were about 80,000 "gay" women (prostitutes) and "fancy men" (pimps) in London in the mid-nineteenth century. They congregated around Covent Garden and in the theater district. They tucked part of their skirts up to indicate their business. They were especially alluring to soldiers, most of whom were forbidden to marry.


For most of the nineteenth century, homosexuality was punishable by death. However, the last execution on the grounds of "homosexuality" took place in 1830.

 Links -





The Victorian Literature


The Victorian period formally begins in 1837 (the year Victoria became Queen) and ends in 1901 (the year of her death).  As a matter of expediency, these dates are sometimes modified slightly.  1830 is usually considered the end of the Romantic period in Britain, and thus makes a convenient starting date for Victorianism.  Similarly, since Queen Victoria’s death occurred so soon in the beginning of a new century, the end of the previous century provides a useful closing date for the period.

 The common perception of the period is the Victorians are “prudish, hypocritical, stuffy, [and] narrow-minded” (Murfin 496).  This perception is (as most periodic generalizations are) not universally accurate, and it is thus a grievous error to jump to the conclusion that a writer or artist fits that description merely because he or she wrote during the mid to late 19th century.  However, it is also true that this description applies to some large segments of Victorian English society, particularly amongst the middle-class, which at the time was increasing both in number and power. 

  Many members of this middle-class aspired to join the ranks of the nobles, and felt that acting “properly,” according to the conventions and values of the time, was an important step in that direction.
Another important aspect of this period is the large-scale expansion of British imperial power.  By 1830, the British empire had, of course, existed for centuries, and had already experienced many boons and setbacks.  Perhaps the most significant blow to its power occurred in the late 18th century with the successful revolt of its 13 American colonies, an event which would eventually result in the formation of the United States as we now know it. 

  During the 19th century, the British empire extensively expanded its colonial presence in many parts of Africa, in India, in the middle-east and in other parts of Asia.  This process has had many long-term effects, including the increased use of the English language outside of Europe and increased trade between Europe and distant regions.  It also, of course, produced some long-standing animosity in colonized regions.

Literature of the Victorian Period:

It is important to realize from the outset that the Victorian period is quite long.  Victoria’s reign lasted over 63 years, longer than any other British monarch.  The Victorian era lasted roughly twice as long as the Romantic period. Keeping in mind that even the relatively short Romantic period saw a wide variety of distinguishing characteristics, it is logical that much longer Victorian period includes even more variety.  Below are a few of the noteworthy characteristics which appear often enough to be worth mentioning, but certainly do not encompass the entirety of the period.
  • The drive for social advancement frequently appears in literature.  This drive may take many forms.  It may be primarily financial, as in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations.  It may involve marrying above one’s station, as in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.  It may also be intellectual or education-based.  Typically, any such attempt to improve one’s social standing must be accompanied by “proper” behavior (thus helping to provide the period with its stereotype).
  • The period saw the rise of a highly idealized notion of what is “English” or what constitutes an “Englishman.”  This notion is obviously tied very closely to the period’s models for proper behavior, and is also tied very closely to England’s imperial enterprises.  Many colonists and politicians saw it as their political (and sometimes religious) duty to “help” or “civilize” native populations in colonized regions.  It was thus important to have a model which provides a set of standards and codes of conduct, and the idealized notion of what is “English” often provided this model. 
  • Later Victorian writing saw the seeds of rebellion against such idealized notions and stereotypical codes of conduct.  These “proper” behaviors often served as subjects of satire; Oscar Wilde’s plays are an excellent example.  The later years of the Victorian period also saw the rise of aestheticism, the “art for art’s sake” movement, which directly contradicted the social and political goals of much earlier Victorian literature.  One of the fascinating ways of approaching the Victorian period is to examine the influence of these later developments on the Modernist period which follows.
Links - https://faculty.unlv.edu/kirschen/handouts/victorian.html

The Victorian Period - A Time of Change



"All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their own peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their own peril."--by Oscar Wilde, Preface, "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

The Victorian Period revolves around the political career of Queen Victoria. She was crowned in 1837 and died in 1901 (which put a definite end to her political career). A great deal of change took place during this period--brought about because of the Industrial Revolution; so it's not surprising that the literature of the period is often concerned with social reform. As Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) wrote, "The time for levity, insincerity, and idle babble and play-acting, in all kinds, is gone by; it is a serious, grave time."

Of course, in the literature from this period, we see a duality, or double standard, between the concerns for the individual (the exploitation and corruption both at home and abroad) and national success--in what is often referred to as the Victorian Compromise. In reference to Tennyson, Browning and Arnold, E. D. H. Johnson argues: "Their writings... locate the centers of authority not in the existing social order but within the resources of individual being."

Against the backdrop of technological, political, and socioeconomic change, the Victorian Period was bound to be a volatile time, even without the added complications of the religious and institutional challenges brought by Charles Darwin and other thinkers, writers, and doers.

Victorian Period: Early & Late

The Period is often divided into two parts: the early Victorian Period (ending around 1870) and the late Victorian Period. Writers associated with the early period are: Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), Robert Browning (1812-1889), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), Emily Bronte (1818-1848), Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), George Eliot (1819-1880), Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) andCharles Dickens (1812-1870).

Writers associated with the late Victorian Period include: George Meredith (1828-1909), Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), Oscar Wilde (1856-1900), Thomas Hardy (1840-1928),Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), A.E. Housman (1859-1936), and Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894).

While Tennyson and Browning represented pillars in Victorian poetry, Dickens and Eliot contributed to the development of the English novel. Perhaps the most quintessentially Victorian poetic works of the period is: Tennyson's "In Memorium" (1850), which mourns the loss of his friend. Henry James describes Eliot's "Middlemarch" (1872) as "organized, moulded, balanced composition, gratifying the reader with the sense of design and construction."

It was a time of change, a time of great upheaval, but also a time of GREAT literature!



The Victorian Fashion


Women and Fashions of the Victorian Era: From Hoop Skirts to Bustles - 1837 - 1900

Victorian Style - 1880's

Victorian Clothing - Prim and Proper Yet Outrageous Styles

Despite the prim and proper feminine ideal of the day, fashions of the Victorian period created an often exaggerated, ostentatious look. Tight corsets, gigantic hoop-skirts, and outrageous bustles make today's fashion trends look sedate by comparison.
Clothing styles were dictated by propriety, and stylish garments were a sign of respectability. The copious amounts of fabric used in the creation of Victorian skirts usually meant that most women owned few outfits. Detachable collars and cuffs enabled a woman to change the look of a garment for a bit of variety. Of course, wealthier women owned more garments made of finer fabrics using more material and embellishments.

Victorian Riding Habit Circa 1847

The Victorian Period in Fashion - Historical Background

The Victorian period, generally the time between 1837 and the 1890's, is named after Britain's Queen Victoria, a long lived and highly influential monarch in an era when women had little power or opportunity.
In those days, women lived at the largess of men - first their fathers or guardians, then their husbands. A young lady was expected to be meek and mild, to acquiesce to her father's or husband's wishes. A woman's intelligence and wit were restricted to social events and amusing conversation.
Employment opportunities were limited to teaching young girls, being a governess, domestic servitude, and later to factory or mill work. Of course, rural women had plenty of work if they lived on a farm. Some women earned money from cottage industries but the the Industrial Revolution put an end to enterprises such as weaving cloth at home.
The Industrial Revolution created new wealth for investors, industrialists, and merchants and introduced a new middle class who, proud of their status, displayed their wealth with great ostentation. Women wore their status in fabric and lots of it from the mid century hoop skirts to the later bustle in the beautiful dresses and styles of the Victorian period.
The Industrial Revolution created a new urbanization as towns and cities filled with workers for the new mills and factories where women worked long hours in grim, dirty, and often dangerous conditions.

Queen Victoria 1845

Source: wikimedia commons

Early Victorian Fashion

1836 ushered in a new change from the Romantic style of dress. Large Gignot sleeves suddenly slimmed and a seam line dropped the shoulder of dresses. A tight fitting bodice was boned and slanted to emphasize the waist. Cartridge pleats at the waist created volume in the skirt without adding bulk to the waist.
Women of a higher social class were expected to be demure and indolent as reflected by the restrictive dropped shoulder lines and corsets.
Dresses in soft colors could be refreshed with detachable white collars and cuffs.
In the 1840's, extra flounces were added to skirts and women wore a short over-skirt in day dressing. Skirts widened as the hour glass silhouette became the popular look, and women took to wearing layers of petticoats. Bodices took on a V shape and the shoulder dropped more.
Evening wear exposed the shoulders and neckline and corsets lost their shoulder straps. Sleeves of ball gowns were usually short.
Although women wore what we call dresses, many of these costumes were actually a separate bodice and skirt.
Three quarter length sleeves lasted through most of the Victorian period and some sleeves began to sprout bell shaped ruffles.
For most of the 19th century, bonnets were the headgear of choice, in styles that varied from plain to heavily ornamented.

Victorian Hair and Make Up

Women's hair was generally worn long, caught up in a chignon or bun. In the 1840's, ringlets of curls hung on either side of the head. In the 1870's, women drew up the side hair but let it hang in long, loose curls in back.
Crimping became popular in the early 1870's.
Throughout the Victorian period, women wore false hair pieces and extensions as well as artificial flowers such as velvet pansies and roses, false leaves, and beaded butterflies often combined into intricate and beautiful headpieces.
Make up was mostly worn by theater people. The look for women in Victorian days was very pale skin occasionally highlighted with a smidge of rouge on the cheeks. 

Late Victorian Corset

The Victorian Corset

A corset is an undergarment set with strips of whale bone (actually whale baleen), later replaced by steel.
Though criticized as unhealthy, and certainly uncomfortable, corsets were a fashion staple throughout the 19th century granting women social status, respectability, and the idealized figure of youth.
Often called 'stays,' from the French 'estayer,' meaning support, corsets were thought to provide support to women, the weaker sex.
Critics, including some health professionals, believed that corsets caused cancer, anemia, birth defects, miscarriages, and damage to internal organs. The tight restriction of the body did deplete lung capacity and caused fainting.
The popular concept of an obsession with a tiny waist is probably exaggerated. The competition of cinching in to improbable dimensions was more of a fetish or a fad and not the norm as depicted in the 1939 film, Gone With the Wind, when Scarlett O'Hara cinches her corset to a 17" waist.

Victorian Ruffled Skirts Circa1853

Victorian Crinoline Skirts

Victorian Style Crinoline Cage

Source: wikimedia commons

Mid-Victorian Crinolines and Hoop Skirts

In the 1850's, the dome shaped skirt switched to tapered skirts that flared at the waist. The new hour glass figure grew to exaggerated proportions.
Layers of petticoats were suddenly not enough and the crinoline was introduced to add volume to skirts. Crinoline was a heavy, stiff fabric made of woven horse hair that was expensive, and impossible to clean.
In the 1850's, a cage like affair replaced the multi-layered petticoats. Called hoop-skirts, cage crinolines, or cages, they were light weight, economical and more comfortable than the heavy crinolines.
Cage crinolines which produced the huge, volumnous skirts so often associated with mid-century Victorian fashion, were made of flexible sprung steel rings suspended from fabric tape.
The look was so popular and economical that lower middle class women, maids, and factory girls sported the style. Cheaper hoop skirts included a dozen hoops while the high priced variety featured 20 - 40 hoops for a smoother line.
The hoop industry grew large and two New York factories produced 3,000 to 4,000 hoop cages a day, employiing thousands of workers.
Early versions of hoop skirts reached the floor, but hemlines rose in the 1860's.
Sleeves were often tight at the top, opening at the bottom in a bell-like shape.

Victorian Costume - 1860's Hoop Skirts

Empress Elizabeth of Austria in 1865

Victorian Fashion - the Aesthetic Movement in Dress 1862

The Sewing Machine and Victorian Technology

The mass production of sewing machines in the 1850's as well as the advent of synthetic dyes introduced major changes in fashion. Previously, clothing was hand sewn using natural dyes.
Other new development included the introduction of the sized paper pattern as well as machines that could slice several pattern pieces at once. Clothing could now be produced quickly and cheaply.
In 1860, Charles Worth, a clothing designer in Paris, France, created costumes worm by the French Empress Eugenie, Empress Elizabeth of Austria, and Queen Victoria. Worth became so influential tha the is known as the Father of Haute Couture (high fashion), a trend steer who introduced new fashion ideals.
In 1864, Worth introduced an over-skirt that was lifted and held back by buttons and tabs. By 1868, the over-skirt was drawn back and looped, creating fullness and drapery at the rear.
Meanwhile, certain fashion mavens felt that the over ornamentation had gone too far. The New Princess Line was a simple form of dress, cut in one piece of joined panels, fitted from shoulder to hem. The Gabriel Princess dress produced a slim silhouette in plain or muted colors with a small white collar and a full, though greatly diminished skirt.
The Bloomer Costume, named after feminist Amelia Bloomer, featured a full, short skirt worn over wide trousers for ease of movement. The style did not go over and was often ridiculed in the press.
Followers of the Aesthetic movement despised the Industrial Revolution, exaggerated fashions, and the use of the new synthetic dyes that produced sometimes lurid colors, and color combinations. These intellectuals, artists, and literary folk longed for a simpler life and the costumes that reflected the life-style.
Garments were loose and unstructured, used soft colors created with natural dyes, embellished by hand embroidery featuring motifs drawn from nature.

Victorian - Brady Photograph of Women and Child circa 1862

Victorian 1888 Dress With Bustle

Victorian Fashion Circa 1874 - Rear Fullness Due to Bustle

Late Victorian - The Bustle

A bustle is a pad that emphasises the posterior. Used in the late 1700's when swagged up skirts made a large rear end fashionable, they eventually became the prime focus of fashion. By the later 1800's, rear pads were called bustles.
1868 saw a fullness appear at the back of the skirt. The ideal female form featured narrow, slope shoulders, wide hips, and a tiny waist.
Held on with a buckled waistband, the bustle was a rectangular or crescent shaped pad made of horse hair or down filled woven wire mesh.
By 1867, Worth's over-skirt caught on and combined with a bustle created an entirely new look.
In 1870, ball gowns featured trains and by 1873, trains showed up in day dresses. Trains were a short lived style, however, as they quickly became soiled dragging along city streets.
1875 saw skirts slimmed down with the skirt low and close to the body, often, but not always, with a bustle.
The bustle came back in a big way in the 1880's creating a huge, shelf like protrusion at the rear. But the ludicrous style fell out of favor and by 1887, was greatly reduced in size. The 1890's saw some fullness at the rear, but the bustle was on its way out.
Women's fashions took on a more tailored look with the introduction of the cuirasse bodice in 1878. The stiff, corset like garment dipped down in front and back and eventually reached the upper thighs.

The Edwardian Era

Age Queen Victoria aged, fashionable heads turned toward her son Edward, the Prince of Wales. The combination of his lust for a hedonistic life-style and the women's emancipation movement changed the look of fashion for women.
Queen Victoria died in 1901, but changes come gradually and the eras over-laped.
The major change in the new Edwardian style was the end of the corset and the introduction of the new 'health corset' with an S bend look.
For information on Edwardian fashion,check out the link below:





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