Victorian+Era+Historical+Context

Historical Context - Children's Literature in the Victorian Era in America



//The Children’s Album// was written at a time where the treatment towards children experienced a major transformation. In the first half of the nineteenth century in England as well as in the United States (a time period referred to as the Victorian Era), the most important education changes concerned teaching children under the age of eleven or twelve, in particularly poorer children who wouldn’t normally have access to an education. Both English and American children of the early 19th century in were regarded as a young, growing and influential population who had the ability to bring about the change that the older generations wanted to see, and so it became important to give all children the tools to better bring about this change. The rise of the Sunday School Movement in both England and America was the first big step towards furthering the education of young children, both wealthy and poor. Originally, Sunday was the chosen day because children worked, and often this work was necessary for their families’ income, so Sunday was their only free time. Protestantism thrived in both countries during the early 19th century, and therefore this early desire to teach children was religious in nature. The first objective of Protestantism is reading, and so became the main objective of Sunday schools: teaching children to read the Bible. The Sunday School movement started in England, but America was still very linked with its once mother country in the late 18th century and into the early 19th century, and the two countries’ often followed a parallel path. Concerning the role of children in families, children were no longer regarded as individuals to be seen and not heard, and parents were no longer encouraged to use negligence and harsh treatment as a means of parenting. Instead, parents started acknowledging children for who they were and not as small adults who should be reprimanded until they grew up and learned better. Generally the 1800s “brought substantial changes for the better in the American child’s life. Play, for example, which had been frowned upon and scorned as idleness in colonial times, was by the 1830s looked upon as a necessary part of invigorating the child’s mind and body". Play was no longer considered a frivolous or fruitless past time, and a part of playtime included the reading aloud of children’s stories and fairly tales. The middle class was growing quickly, which translated into a large increase in the literate population. This increase was largely associated with the rise in Protestantism in both England and America, which emphasized that all believers should learn to read the Bible in order to closely follow its teachings. Children were regarded as vessels that could be imbued early on with the Lord’s teaching, and so children’s books were filled with religious and moral messages and illustrations that encouraged Christian behavior and belief for both children and their parents.

Further Reading: [|Victorian Children's Literature]  [|Further Reading on Children's Literature]

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