UVU Victorian Literature (Fall 2019) Dashboard

Description

This group is a collaborative effort of the members of Utah Valley University's, Fall 2019 "Victorian Literature" class. As a class, we will be exploring the material culture of the Victorian Era. Each class member will be responsible for identifying an object of interest in one of our course texts. After identifying their chosen object, they will research its history, pursuing how this object was produced, advertised, traded, used, and discarded during the nineteenth century. Following their research, each member will contribute posts to the class gallery, timeline, and map (as appropriate per object). Once they've contributed to the class's digital archive, members will present their findings to the class and write a short reflection on how their findings enrich their reading of the text in which they discovered their object. By tracing the material history of an individual object, each member will gain a deeper appreciation for nineteenth-century material culture and its relationship to the Victorian literary imagination. 

Galleries, Timelines, and Maps

Blog entry
Posted by Chancellor Carter on Sunday, December 1, 2019 - 20:50

Tess of the D’urbervilles

Chapter 47

“a timber-framed construction, with straps and wheels appertaining—the threshing-machine which, whilst it was going, kept up a despotic demand upon the endurance of their muscles and nerves. 

A little way off there was another indistinct figure; this one black, with a sustained hiss that spoke of strength very much in reserve. The long chimney running up beside an ash-tree, and the warmth which radiated from the spot, explained without the necessity of much daylight that here was the engine which was to act as the primum mobile of this little world. By the engine stood a dark, motionless being, a sooty and grimy embodiment of tallness, in a sort of trance, with a heap of coals by his side: it was the engine-man.”

Blog entry
Posted by Chauncey Singleton on Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - 12:22

"The Criminal Law Consolidation Act of 1861 reduced the number of capital crimes to four, murder, high treason, piracy and arson in a Royal Dockyard, (this was a separate offence, not high treason).  In reality, except for four executions for attempted murder, this act was more of a tidying up exercise as nobody else had been hanged for a crime other than for murder since 1837.

The 1864 Royal Commission on Capital Punishment sat for two years and concluded that there was no case for abolition of the death penalty but did recommend ending public executions. (Franz Muller, above, was hanged whilst the committee was sitting).

In the Spring of 1868, England and Scotland carried out their last public executions.  In Wales, the last one had been two years earlier when 18 year old Robert Coe was executed outside Cardiff prison on the 12th of April 1866 for the murder of John Davies.  Joseph Bell became the last person to die in full public in...

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Blog entry
Posted by Chauncey Singleton on Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - 12:19

There were a series of laws in the Victorian English legal system known as the "Bloody Code". This name was derived from the fact that there were a huge number of crimes for which the death penalty could be imposed. 

In 1815 the number of crimes that carried the death penatly was 215! Some of the most interesting of those were: 

  • murder
  • arson
  • forgery
  • cutting down trees
  • stealing horses or sheep
  • destroying turnpike roads
  • stealing from a rabbit warren
  • pickpocketing goods worth a shilling (roughly $39 today)
  • being out at night with a blackened face
  • being an unmarried mother concealing a stillborn child
  • stealing from a shipwreck
  • wrecking a fishpond

The lawmakers of the time though that these laws would act as a deterrent. It was thought that people might not commit crimes if they knew that they could be sentenced to death. This was also the reason why...

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Gallery Exhibit
Posted by Chauncey Singleton on Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - 11:33

This gallery has a collection of images related to the gibbet, gibbet-cages, and hangings in general. 

Gallery Exhibit
Posted by Katrina DeKarver on Monday, November 4, 2019 - 13:37

Possible contents in a medicine chest or on Lady Audley's boudoir.

Here is a medical journal with medical chest suggestions: https://archive.org/details/b28098109/page/328

Chronology
Posted by Paige Melton on Saturday, November 2, 2019 - 13:31

Cigars began being manufacted in Britian in 1820

Gallery Exhibit
Posted by Paige Melton on Saturday, November 2, 2019 - 13:26

Various Cigar Ad's from the Victorian Era

Blog entry
Posted by Katrina DeKarver on Wednesday, October 30, 2019 - 17:38

204medicine chest van Leest Antiques 330220 (3)

"A tiny medicine-chest was open upon the dressing-table, and little stoppered bottles of red lavender, sal-volatile, chloroform, chlorodyne, and ether were scattered about. Once my lady paused before this medicine-chest, and took out the remaining bottles, half-absently, perhaps, until she came to one which was filled with a thick, dark liquid, and labeled "opium—poison." pg 345

Medicine chest, c 1850an english medicine chest c 1850 was one of the most popular types that opens whit a lid. In the lid is a label with the text: thomas ruster, chemist, high st & john st, maryport. There is a recipe is provided written out in1873. The bottles...

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Chronology
Posted by Natalie Evjen on Monday, October 28, 2019 - 23:55

Date when telegraph cables were connected from North America to England 

Chronology
Posted by Natalie Evjen on Friday, October 25, 2019 - 00:12

The first commercial telegraph system in the U.K. was pioneered by William Fothergill Cooke, a British inventor, and Charles Wheatstone, a British scientist. Euston and Camden Town were the original towns connected, and the first message was sent July 25, 1837. 

Pages

Individual Entries

Chronology Entry
Posted by Chancellor Carter on Sunday, December 1, 2019 - 21:04
Blog entry
Posted by Chancellor Carter on Sunday, December 1, 2019 - 20:50

Tess of the D’urbervilles

Chapter 47

“a timber-framed construction, with straps and wheels appertaining—the threshing-machine which, whilst it was going, kept up a despotic demand upon the endurance of their muscles and nerves. 

A little way off there was another indistinct figure; this one black, with a sustained hiss that spoke of strength very much in reserve. The long chimney running up beside an ash-tree, and the warmth which radiated from the spot, explained without the necessity of much daylight that here was the engine which was to act as the primum mobile of this little world. By the engine stood a dark, motionless being, a sooty and grimy embodiment of tallness, in a sort of trance, with a heap of coals by his side: it was the engine-man.”

Chronology Entry
Posted by Chancellor Carter on Sunday, December 1, 2019 - 20:48
Posted by Chancellor Carter on Sunday, December 1, 2019 - 20:32
Posted by Chancellor Carter on Sunday, December 1, 2019 - 20:29
Posted by Chancellor Carter on Sunday, December 1, 2019 - 20:24
Posted by Chancellor Carter on Sunday, December 1, 2019 - 20:24
Posted by Chauncey Singleton on Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - 16:41
Posted by Chauncey Singleton on Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - 16:41
Blog entry
Posted by Chauncey Singleton on Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - 12:22

"The Criminal Law Consolidation Act of 1861 reduced the number of capital crimes to four, murder, high treason, piracy and arson in a Royal Dockyard, (this was a separate offence, not high treason).  In reality, except for four executions for attempted murder, this act was more of a tidying up exercise as nobody else had been hanged for a crime other than for murder since 1837.

The 1864 Royal Commission on Capital Punishment sat for two years and concluded that there was no case for abolition of the death penalty but did recommend ending public executions. (Franz Muller, above, was hanged whilst the committee was sitting).

In the Spring of 1868, England and Scotland carried out their last public executions.  In Wales, the last one had been two years earlier when 18 year old Robert Coe was executed outside Cardiff prison on the 12th of April 1866 for the murder of John Davies.  Joseph Bell became the last person to die in full public in...

more

Pages