The Age of Reform

Brandon Pask
1.     The title of the “Age of Reform”, not only targets the literary aspect of the Victorian era, but the time of reform socially, economically, and labor wise. The fight of the people is basically what it boiled down to. The high tariffs of the Corn Laws were repealed in 1846 and that helped the people gain access to cheaper imported grain, this was not looked highly upon by aristocratic farm owners who enjoyed the high, stable price for their grain and the power they held. The thriving businessmen class fought those high tariffs and selected free trade as a better mode to supply more and cheaper food to the working class, making a healthier worker. Labor and public health acts went in to effect limiting work weeks for children and women. It was the people finally having a voice. Not everyone was excited about the lower class having more resources and rights in the beginning, but eventually the changes made it somewhat better for everyone, a kind of merging in the middle and lower class structure of the Victorian era.
    The reform in the literary sense came from advancements in the printing press and the fact that people were taking up printing as a hobby, the more books on the street means there is more information out there. Women were allowed into big universities such as Cambridge and Oxford; women took up reading and writing as they became more affluent in their studies. Styles in literature were becoming a bit less formal and more real. Having opinions and stating them, in regards to love, life, and marriage, scary thought, back then it was. In Reality more and more people were reading, knowledge grew at a fast rate. People had the ability to learn about what was going on in other parts of the country and the world. The better informed someone is, the better decision a person has the ability to make.
3.     The attitudes toward children varied from the beginning of the Victorian age towards the end of it. In the beginning around the... [continues]

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