A Little History

The Beginning of an Era

The 1830s were the beginning of the Victorian era.  Queen Victoria, began her reign in 1837 at the age of 18. She later died in January, 1901.  Her reign lasted for about 63.5 years.

Although this era was long, it was not entirely peaceful. The Victorian era would be characterized by increasing imperialism and struggles for power and territory. The power struggles and political maneuvering in Asia would come to be known as “The Great Game” and would continue into the 20th century.

On the plus side, Britain enacted educational reforms that raised literacy levels, leading to increased demand for reading materials! Increasing interest in education was partly a result of the Industrial Revolution, which brought new forms of technology.

There was also an increasing focus on the nuclear family of parents and children. Family life was idealized, and the ideal future for a woman was marriage and motherhood, although not everyone agreed with this ideal, and women would gradually begin asserting their desires for more opportunities in life.

Events in the United States

This was a period of westward expansion in the United States, which sometimes led to violent conflicts. Native Americans were being forcibly moved off of their land to make room for white settlers. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which authorized the removal of tribes to territory to the west of the Mississippi River. One of the results of the Indian Removal Act was the forced removals of Native Americans known as the Trail of Tears.

The territory of Texas was increasingly filled with pioneers from the United States, leading to conflicts with Mexico, which controlled the territory. In March 1836, Texas declared its independence from Mexico as part of the Texas Revolution. Part of this conflict included the famous Siege of the Alamo, where the US politician, soldier, and folk hero Davy Crockett was killed (“Remember the Alamo!”).

Racial Issues

I want to take this opportunity to talk about racial issues and racial language because I discuss this when reviewing books in later decades, and it’s worth clarifying a few things, particularly at a point in history that is the beginning of a new era. This is a critical point in history because this is the decade when Britain and the United States begin to have different stances on the issue of slavery. Britain actually outlawed slavery in 1833 with the Slavery Abolition Act.

In the United States, the Civil War had not yet happened, and slavery was still legal. This is part of the period in the South known as the Antebellum period (from the Latin meaning “Before the War”). However, not everyone in the United States was in favor of slavery. People were already concerned about slavery and advocating its abolition. This theme appeared in literature of the time, including children’s literature. There was even a children’s magazine on the subject during the 1830s: The Slave’s Friend (1836-1838) by the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). A notable feature of this magazine was its attempt to teach children to speak respectfully to and about black people. The following set of rules were from its seventh issue in 1836:

“RESOLUTIONS.
With God’s help I resolve,
1. Never to call a colored person A NEGRO. They do not like to be called so; and they think it is calling names.
2. Never to call a colored person, that BLACK FELLOW, or BLACKEY, or DARKEY. It is insulting to call them so.
3. Never to call a colored man a BOY. This is often done, and it is insulting and foolish.
4. To speak to colored people, and of them, just as I do to and of white people.
5. Always to have respectful and kind feelings toward colored people.”

One of the first things you might notice is that these rules don’t quite sound like the way we speak in the early 21st century. The term “colored” is considered antiquated now and wouldn’t be considered acceptable in casual speech today, and the word “black” has become the more common generic term instead, although it was considered less polite back then. “Colored” was still acceptable around the time of the formation of the NAACP, but “black” came to be the preferred term around the time of the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-20th century, when people were trying to distance themselves from old mindsets. (“Negro” has also been considered acceptable in certain times, even though the list above doesn’t consider it proper. It appears in the name of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), but, like with “colored”, it sounds outdated now.) Otherwise, the list above is pretty much in keeping with modern standards of speech. The last two rules are really the most important, and they guide all the previous rules on the principal that what you call people should take their feelings into account because the feelings of others do and should matter. Whatever else changes, being considerate never goes out of style. I did not add the italics to the explanations in the rules list for emphasis; those were already in place when I copied it.

Notice that the infamous “n-word” is not included on this list. It was in use by this time, with origins centuries earlier, but the reason it didn’t need to be included here was because it was a slang corruption of the word “Negro,” which came from the word for the color black in various Latin-based languages. Although it was something people said, it was not really correct speech. It didn’t even get a mention in a Merriam-Webster dictionary until 1864, and even then, the entry contained a note that the word was used specifically “in derision or depreciation.” It might not have been considered insulting in its first usage, centuries earlier, but by the mid-1800s, it was. It can be difficult to mark exact points in time when the shades of meaning to a word change, and it can vary by geographic location, but if people in the United States in the 1830s considered “Negro” questionable, its even less polite corruption would not even be worth considering.

My point is that there is no point in history when only one term was ever used. The list above mentions six of them used during the 1830s, even if most of them are ones that shouldn’t be used, and they didn’t even count the “n-word.” There was always a choice of words, and even back then, people would have known that. Even back then, certain words were considered more correct speech and other words less polite, and the “n-word” was not among the polite terms. The way people speak, the way they choose their words, says something about their levels of education, sophistication, and manners, and when you see certain words used in fiction writing, it can be an indication of the characters’ levels of education, sophistication, and manners. Modern people require more explanation than people back then would have because 19th century people would already know who spoke like that in their times and why.

So far, this isn’t something that I’ve encountered often in children’s literature, but I would suggest to readers interested in 19th century children’s literature that they also consider the racial language used by certain characters as clues to their identity and background because that’s largely what they are. The ways that people speak and behave tell you things about who they are and what their motivations are. It’s not going to make the n-word sound any better when you encounter it, but I’m saying that it’s perfectly fine to judge characters for their word choice because that’s part of the reason why authors choose certain words for their characters to say, to tell you things about them and the way their minds work. The characters, like living people, had options for what they could have said and reasons for saying what they did. You, as the reader, are meant to draw some conclusions about the characters from their behavior to get the full story.

For more information about mid-1800s racial views as written by someone who lived during those times, I also suggest reading the Stories of Rainbow and Lucky (1859-1860). They were written by Rev. Jacob Abbott, and you can read all five books in this series online at Nineteenth-Century American Children & What They Read. Abbott has a tendency to go into detail about life during the mid-1800s, and he often explains the motivations behind the things his characters say and do because he had an interest in studying human behavior. Specifically, in the third book of that series, The Three Pines, some of the characters discuss racial language, and the standards are in keeping with the list above from the 1830s, as explained by a grandfather to his grandson in the story:

“I don’t know who they are, grandfather,” said he, after gazing at Handie and Rainbow a moment intently. “One of them is a black fellow.”
“Call him a colored fellow, Jerry,” said the old man. “They all like to be called colored people, and not black people. Every man a right to be called by whatever name he likes best himself.”
“But this is a boy,” replied Jerry.
“The same rule holds good in respect to boys,” added the old man. “Never call a boy by any name you think he don’t like; it only makes ill blood.”

19th century children’s literature often makes a point of presenting teachable moments and emphasis on good morals and correct behavior.

Industrial, Scientific, and Technological Developments

Throughout the 19th century, society was becoming more industrialized and urban. Populations had already started shifting from the countryside to the big cities, and factories were increasing production of consumer goods. Because of the Industrial Revolution, new technological developments were changing people’s lives.

Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry‘s experiments with electromagnetic induction paved the way for the creation of electrical transformers and types of electrical motors and generators.

In 1833, Ada Lovelace met Charles Babbage, who later introduced her to his concept for an Analytical Engine, a conceptual prototype for modern computers. During the next decade, Ada Lovelace’s work on the concept of the Analytical Engine would produce an algorithm that would be regarded as the world’s first computer program, making Ada Lovelace the world’s first computer programmer.

Toward the end of the decade, Louis Daguerre invented the first publicly available photographic process, the Daguerreotype, which would be commonly used until around 1860, when it was replaced by newer photographic processes.

Childhood and Education

For many, being a child during these years was difficult.  Child labor, even for rather young children, was still legal in the United States and would remain legal, in some form, for many more years.  Children growing up on family farms would naturally engage in farm chores, supervised by parents and older siblings, but as the country became more industrialized, children were increasingly used in factories.  Concerns were raised about the hours that children worked and the dangers involved in operating certain types of machinery.  Children were also used in coal mining, which had its own dangers and health risks.  Poor families and immigrants often relied on money that their children earned to help make ends meet, and industries profited from their cheap labor, which made it difficult to keep rules and limits in place for the children’s welfare.

Children from more affluent families were more likely to focus on education rather than working, although many did not pursue higher education.  In those days, not many jobs required college degrees, and more people could get decent jobs with a high school education or less.  (Back when I was studying journalism, my teacher explained that newspaper articles are traditionally written at about an 8th grade reading level (roughly age 13 or 14 in the United States), partly to make them accessible for different age groups and reading abilities and partly because, for a long time, that was about the standard education level of adults who could read.)

It was common for babies to be delivered at home rather than in a hospital, and in the case of families who lived in rural areas, it was more likely that the birth would be attended by family members or women from neighboring farms than by a physician.  Infant mortality rates were higher during this period than in modern times because the level medical care available wasn’t as good, antibiotics like penicillin had not yet been developed so infectious diseases were more likely to turn deadly, and there were less vaccines for preventing diseases in the first place.  It was fairly common for families to lose at least one child in infancy.  This is also part of the reason why the overall life expectancy was lower.  It wasn’t that adults would always die at a much younger age (although that did happen sometimes because of diseases or accidents); it was also that quite a lot of people didn’t make it to adulthood, or even out of early childhood, in the first place.  Remember that an “average lifespan” for a decade is an “average” number (the “mean” in math), not the most common number by itself (the “mode” in math).  The difference is important because, to find out what age an adult would likely live to once they reached adulthood, you would have to focus on the average age at death only for those who reached adulthood, not including infants and children.  Adding in the infant mortalities brings down the average overall and can give you a false picture that no one ever lived to see their grandchildren, which was not the case.  So, if a person managed to survive some of the riskier points of life, such as early childhood or the child-bearing years for women, their odds of living to what we might consider a more normal lifespan might be better than you think.  Of course, that’s “if.”  People who lived at this time period would have been aware of the dangers of diseases and other risks for themselves and their children, and they would have known that even if they survived to adulthood, they might well lose a child someday.

Developments in Literature

Some of the most famous works of classic literature were written and published during this decade:

  • Paul Clifford (1830) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton – This novel about a man who lives a secret life as a highwayman during the time of the French Revolution made the opening line “It was a dark and stormy night …” famous. It has been parodied many times since, and it eventually led to the creation of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (established in 1982), where people attempt to write the worst possible opening lines to a book.
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) by Victor Hugo
  • Faust (1832) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • The Lady of Shalott (1833) by Alfred Tennyson – Arthurian-themed romantic poetry
  • The Last Days of Pompeii (1834) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
  • Oliver Twist (1838) by Charles Dickens
  • The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) by Edgar Allan Poe

You’ll notice that some of the books I’ve mentioned above are read by children, particularly teenagers, in schools today. Sometimes, with older literature, the lines between children’s literature and adult literature are blurred, partly because some books that were originally intended for adults eventually became considered children’s literature through their use in schools, the appearance of child characters in the stories, their popularity with children, and the fact that the concept of teen and young adult literature did not really exist prior to the 20th century, evolving more in the mid to late-20th century. Just as 19th century children were expected to work and behave like small adults when not playing or in school, older children and teens who had finished their education and learned to read would simply have moved on straight to adult literature when they were done with children’s books and school readers (you can actually read some of the school readers here). This is something to remember with children’s literature throughout the 19th century.

Many of the books for children during this period, and even many through the rest of the 19th century and into the 20th century, were intended more for improving their minds and behavior than for providing entertainment. Even adventure and fantasy stories had morals to teach children. Some books were also written to draw attention to social issues, both for children and adults.

During the 1830s, William Holmes McGuffey began writing a series of school readers that would remain popular in American schools throughout the rest of the 19th century and through much of the 20th century. He was a friend of Harriet Beecher Stowe, and she personally recommended him for the job of creating the readers for the Truman and Smith publishing company. McGuffey began working as a teacher at the young age of 14 (remember, people did not often go on to higher education at this period of history), during the 1810s, and he knew that there were not many textbooks available for schools at the time. McGuffey’s students often brought books of their own, frequently the Bible, to study. The McGuffey Readers focused on phonics and word repetition, with the difficulty of the books increasing with each volume. The first readers printed had religious and moral themes, but the series was gradually secularized over the years. They were later largely replaced by the Elson-Gray Readers and the Dick and Jane readers during the mid-20th century, but they never went away completely and are still sometimes used in private schools and home schools during the 21st century.

Fiction Books

General Fiction

The English Boy at the Cape (1835)

Full title: The English Boy at the Cape: An Anglo-African Story. This book was based on a scandal at the time: England was sending unwanted children to its colonies in South Africa as child labor, some under very bad conditions. The author wanted to draw attention to the problem. In the story, an English boy named Charles is living on the streets of Cape Town when he is taken in by a Muslim family. The Muslims take care of Charles and give him an education. Charles also receives good treatment from indigenous people and a Jewish man named Benjamin. The only people who don’t seem to care about him are English people, and at one point, Charles is injured when some drunken British sailors attack a Muslim festival. After the attack, various people help each other in spite of their different races and backgrounds, but not the English or Dutch. By Edward Augustus Kendall.

Series

Rollo Series

A series of moralistic stories about a boy named Rollo. Rollo also explains practical skills for children, such as teaching them how to read. Rollo grew up during the course of the series and later took a trip through Europe. By Rev. Jacob Abbott. 1835-1842.

Scary

The Phantom Ship (1839)

A gothic novel based on the legend of the Flying Dutchman. By Frederick Marryat.

Note: Wikipedia places this in the category of children’s literature, but I’m not completely sure that was the author’s intention. Some of the aspects of the story remind me of parts of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise.

Adventure

The Lost Child (1830)

A kidnapping story based on a real incident. Details of the original incident were changed for the story, and it was given specifically Christian themes. The book is available online. By Timothy Flint.

Historical Fiction

Mr. Midshipman Easy (1836)

A spoiled teenage boy joins the navy and has adventures during the Napoleonic Wars. In spite of the fact that he doesn’t believe in private property as a young man, he later becomes very wealthy and even turns privateer. This book was made into a couple of movies later, a silent one in 1915 and a sound one in 1935. By Frederick Marryat.

Peter Simple (1834)

A young man who is in line for a title joins the navy, serves during the Napoleonic Wars, and develops relationships with his fellow sailors that help him grow and become a man. By Frederick Marryat.

Fantasy

Series

Fairy Tales Told for Children

Collections of fairy-tale style stories written by Hans Christian Andersen. Some were based on older folktales and others were completely made up by Andersen. The first three collections were later grouped into one collection, with the fourth collection following. Many of these stories have sad endings, partly because the author based them on problems in his own life. Hans Christian Andersen never had a happy romantic life.

First Collection (1835):

Second Collection (1835):

Third Collection (1837):

Fourth Collection (1838):

Picture Books

Children’s Non-Fiction

The Girl’s Own Book (1834)

A guide with instructions for games, activities, and handicrafts for girls. By Lydia Maria Child.

The Peep of Day (1833)

Full title: The peep of day, or, A series of the earliest religious instruction the infant mind is capable of receiving. This was one of the earliest books of religious instruction written specifically for young children. The author was Evangelical Protestant, and the book is written from that perspective. By Favell Lee Mortimer.

Note: I’m probably not going to be covering this book in detail, but it is public domain and available online through Project Gutenberg. Because it was intended for young children, it is not a long or difficult read, but I would not recommend it for modern children. It’s interesting to note how some things which are commonly discussed in children’s literature were once taboo, but at the same time, things that were allowed in children’s literature in the past can be absolutely horrifying in modern times. This book is still in print and available through Amazon, and the reviews there are both pretty accurate and a hoot to read. Many of the people who seek out this book in modern times do so because of Anne of Green Gables and/or to laugh because of the book’s reputation for passages that are so fiendishly sadistic that modern adults find them funny.

The Peep of Day has a connection to later children’s literature because this is the book that Marilla gave to Anne in Anne of Green Gables when she realized that Anne had not received previous religious instruction. It was extremely popular as a children’s educational book during the 19th century. However, many people have noted that the author’s style (seen in her other books as well), has a distinctly sadistic turn. Favell Lee Mortimer has a tendency to dwell on disaster and the darker side of humanity, both in her religious books and in the later series that she wrote about countries of the world, and she uses graphic depictions of terrible things to try to influence children toward good behavior and full acceptance and adherence to Christianity (very specifically Protestant Christianity, another constant theme throughout her books). One of the popular passages that reviewers quote from The Peep of Day to demonstrate its sadistic side is from the first chapter of the book, where Mrs. Mortimer describes how God makes human bodies and protects them from harm:

God has covered your bones with flesh. Your flesh is soft and warm. In your flesh there is blood. God has put skin outside, and it covers your flesh and blood like a coat. Now all these things, the bones, and flesh, and blood, and skin, are called your body. How kind of God it was to give you a body. I hope that your body will not get hurt.

Will your bones break?—Yes, they would, if you were to fall down from a high place, or if a cart were to go over them.

If you were to be very sick, your flesh would waste away, and you would have scarcely anything left but skin and bones.

Did you ever see a child who had been sick a very long while? I have seen a sick baby. It had not round cheeks like yours, and a fat arm like this. The baby’s flesh was almost gone, and its little bones were only covered with skin. God has kept you strong and well.

How easy it would be to hurt your poor little body!

If it were to fall into the fire, it would be burned up. If hot water were thrown upon it, it would be scalded. If it were to fall into deep water, and not be taken out very soon, it would be drowned. If a great knife were run through your body, the blood would come out. If a great box were to fall on your head, your head would be crushed. If you were to fall out of the window, your neck would be broken. If you were not to eat some food for a few days, your little body would be very sick, your breath would stop, and you would grow cold, and you would soon be dead.

You see that you have a very weak little body.

Can you keep your own body from being sick, and from getting hurt?

You should try not to hurt yourself, but God only can keep your body from all harm, from fire and water, from wounds and bruises, and all kinds of sickness. Kneel down and say to God, “Pray keep my poor little body from getting hurt.” God will hear you, and go on taking care of you.

The Peep of Day, Lesson 1: Of The Body

The Young Christian (1832)

An early guide to Christianity for children. By Rev. Jacob Abbott.

Children of the Decade

Children born in this decade in the United States:

They would have been in their 20s or 30s during the American Civil War (1861-1865). All of them would remember life before the war began. By then, they may have been married and had children of their own. Some of them were soldiers during the Civil War. Slavery would have been legal in the United States during their earliest years and into their adulthood.

They would have been in their 60s or 70s around the time the Wright brothers built and flew their first airplanes during the early 1900s.  Most of their lives would be spent in a time before aviation existed.

They would have been in their 70s through their 80s during World War I (1914-1918).  Some of their grandchildren may have take part in the war.  All of them would have called the war “The Great War” before World War II, and it’s unlikely that any of them would have lived to see the Great Depression or World War II. They would have been about 100 years old during the Great Depression, and they would have been over 100 years old by World War II.

They were born before women in the United States could vote.  None of their mothers had the right to vote at the time of their births or for their entire childhoods.  Those who lived long enough would be in their 80s and 90s when women’s suffrage was granted after the ratification of the 19th Amendment (although some western states did have women voting even before that).

They lived during a time when people not only did not have television but also did not have home radios (which were invented and popularized in the 1920s).  If you wanted music at home, you had to either learn to sing or play an instrument yourself, listen to a family member who could, or use a phonograph (early record player) to play a record.  Phonographs, developed in 1877 by Thomas Edison, commonly were of the wind-up variety, so no electricity was needed.  They were elderly adults by the time home radios were invented, and many probably did not live long enough to see it.

Children born in this decade would also have read books from the following decade, the 1840s, in their youth. However, children who were old enough to read some of the books published in the early part of this decade when they were first sold would have been born in the preceding decade, the 1820s.

Children’s Authors Were Children, Too!

Everyone was young once, and I’d just like to take this opportunity to remind readers that authors born around this time would have grown up like other children of their time, witnessing the same events and reading the same books as they grew up.

Children’s authors born in this decade:

Mary Mapes Dodge – January 26, 1831 – Author of Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates (1865)

Lewis Carroll – January 27, 1832 – Author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Louisa May Alcott – November 29, 1832 – Author of the Little Women series (1868-1886)

Mark Twain – November 30, 1835 – Author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

Other Resources

Documentary Films

CrashCourse

CrashCourse is a YouTube channel with fun educational videos on a variety of topics and different periods of history. The videos are fairly short for educational lectures. Most are less than 15 minutes long. These videos are intended for teenagers and older, so be aware that there may be topics and language inappropriate for younger children.

THE ULTIMATE FASHION HISTORY The 1830s & 1840s

An educational lecture about fashion in the 1830s and 1840s and how it relates to culture and events of the time. It explains about the life of Queen Victoria and covers topics like child labor.

Getting Dressed in the 1830s

Shows a woman getting dressed in an early 1830s dress, a few years before the beginning of the Victorian era. By CrowsEyeProductions.

For more about 1830s culture:

The People History: 1830 to 1839 Important News, Key Events, Significant Technology

Wikipedia: 1830s

Lists of 1830s children’s books:

Nineteenth-Century American Children & What They Read

Explains about the lives of children in the 19th century and books and magazines that they read. The focus seems to be on the 1870s and earlier.

Wikipedia: 1830’s Children’s Books

A list of children’s books published in the 1830s.

Books By Decade

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