Definition
Industrialization refers to the period of social and economic change that took place in Great Britain primarily during the nineteenth century. Writing on the topic addressed technological advancements, political and social representation, and class and gender relations and was commonly referred to as “The Condition of England Question.” Women writers engaged with these issues in nonfiction, poetry, and novels.
Introduction
In May of 1851, Queen Victoria opened the Crystal Palace, which housed “The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations,” in Hyde Park, London (Jaffe 2012). Touring the Crystal Palace revealed Jacquard looms and handmade lace, self-supporting pulpits, railway carriages, household furniture, machine-made drainpipes, factory machines, and handblown glass among hundreds of other items (Freedgood 2003). Upon visiting it, the writer and translator Lady Charlotte Guest remarked “all this pomp and panoply were called together to do honor to the...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bell, F. 2003. The process of Iron making. In Factory production in nineteenth-century Britain, ed. Elaine Freedgood, 48–60. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Besant, A. 1888. The ‘white slavery’ of London match workers. In The Norton anthology of English literature, ed. Stephen Greenblatt, vol. 2, 1577–1579. New York: W. W. Norton.
Brontë, C. 2007. Shirley. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dalley, L.L. 2012. On Martineau’s illustrations of political economy, 1832–1834. http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=lana-l-dalley-on-martineaus-illustrations-of-political-economy-1832-34. Accessed 7 Dec 2018.
Dilke, E. 2003. The industrial position of women. In Factory production in nineteenth-century Britain, ed. Elaine Freedgood, 48–60. New York: Oxford University Press.
Diniejko, A. 2010. Condition-of-England novels. http://www.victorianweb.org/genre/diniejko.html. Accessed 7 Dec 2018.
Donovan, J. 2009. Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan and the politics of style. Washington, DC: Academica.
Freedgood, E. 2003. Factory production in nineteenth-century Britain. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gaskell, E. 1997. Elizabeth Gaskell to Edward chapman, 3 January 1849. In The letters of Mrs. Gaskell, ed. J.A.V. Chapple and Arthur Pollard. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Jaffe, A. 2012. On the great exhibition. http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=audrey-jaffe-on-the-great-exhibition. Accessed 7 Dec 2018.
Landon, L.E. 1835. The miscellaneous poetical works of L.E.L., author of “the improvisatrice,” “the Golden violet,” &c. London: Saunders and Otley. https://books.google.com/books?id=78tCg3OHAIgC&source=gbs_navlinks_s.
Martineau, H. 1877. Autobiography. Boston: James R. Osgood & Company.
———. 2003. What there is in a button. In Factory production in nineteenth-century Britain, ed. Elaine Freedgood, 48–60. New York: Oxford University Press.
Norgate, G. (1901). Cook, Eliza. Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of national biography (1st supplement), Sidney Lee, 53–54. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
PBS. n.d. The great exhibition. https://www.pbs.org/empires/victoria/empire/great.html. Accessed 17 Dec 2018.
Ross, E. 2007. Slum travelers: Ladies and London poverty, 1860–1970. Oakland: University of California Press.
Sanders, M. 2009. The poetry of chartism: Aesthetics, politics, history. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Schroeder, J. 2012. On the English Woman’s Journal, 1858–62. http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=janice-schroeder-on-the-english-womans-journal-1858-62. Accessed 7 Dec 2018.
Seward, A. 1999. Original sonnets on various subjects and odes paraphrased from Horace. London: G. Sael.
Surridge, L. 2000. Working-class masculinities in Mary Barton. Victorian Literature and Culture 28 (2): 331–343.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Mikolajcik, D. (2022). Industrialization. In: Scholl, L., Morris, E. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women’s Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78318-1_57
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78318-1_57
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-78317-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-78318-1
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities