Religion, class, gender– post by Kaitlin
Ganges outlines three explanations for the religious transformations of the Victorian Era. There first are “supply side accounts” from the Church, attempting to explain whether or not they were able to keep up with the changes that were happening in society. The second explanation concerns “social histories” in terms of how urbanization was changing the ways that people interacted with one another. The third is the most interesting though- “changes in the intellectual environment” (127). The Bible was no longer the only source of information concerning how the world worked. Darwinism was well known. Discoveries were being made in the fields of geology and biology.
The increasing specialization of scientific fields is also important: “The idea that theology and natural sciences were separate was new and significant. It did not change the fact that most scientific thinkers were deeply religious individuals, but it did make it easier for most ‘scientists’ to think and act outside the frameworks established by the Church” (129). This may account for the larger concerns for the souls of scientists in our early novels for the course. Religion was certainly a large part of a person’s identity and understanding of his or her place in the larger world. I wonder then if when religious and scientific understanding of the world were intertwined, scientific experiments and scientific inquiry didn’t say something larger about the character of the scientist. I’m thinking particularly of Dr. Frankenstein in the novel but also Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The role that scientific experimentation plays in their lives is not one of distanced intellectual curiosity but rather something closer to the idea of an immortal soul. The indistinct boundary between life and death also relates to the occultists and spiritualists of this time.
Ganges writes about how over time there was a “gradual acceptance of religious freedoms” (120). In a way I think this relates to the Utopian novels’ concern with improvement of the basic human condition. In Looking Backward, there is a greater concern with working rights although our narrator takes some convincing. The Victorian Era was also characterized by several divisions in religious organizations. This relates to the increasing specialization of scientific fields. The philosophical divisions among religious groups show how religion was more open to debate and interpretation. The scientific world no longer only belonged to theologians like it did when the field of natural history seemed a logical extension of religious study. There is a small degree of this in Frankenstein as the fields are starting to break into smaller areas of expertise. The early alchemists Dr. Frankenstein studies have a wide area of expertise, but by the time he is at university his professors have specialties. This is minor compared to the divisions that could be seen later.
The Victorian class system is very interesting in terms of how it relates the science and technology of the day. It’s most apparent in Karl Marx’s concern that humans were becoming the machinery and losing their humanity in the factory system. We talked about this during lecture but just to recap—with the increase in technology in many industries, the working system changed. Machines required unskilled laborers and could produce materials cheaply which ultimately removed the need for skilled workers in several fields. These new unskilled laborers were easy to replace and had no rights. They were largely just pieces of the equipment. Working conditions were horrendous. Workers were frequently injured and then replaced. They could barely survive on their wages. Child workers had the worst the working conditions of all. They were regularly beaten and mistreated. Some children died from manufacturing equipment injuries. As Ganges points, even the workhouse structure was meant to create misery: “The workhouse structure was calculated to be stern and forbidding. The architecture of its buildings was often calculated to tower over poor areas as a threat. The system separated families, including mothers and young children. It enforced rigid discipline and crippling levels of toil” (147). The difference between humanity and technology was starting to blur. This also raises the question of whether the cost of technological improvements to some people is worth the ease offered to others. It took decades for social reforms to take effect.
Men and women lived in very different social spheres during the Victorian Era. Women lived largely domestic lives, and those that didn’t operated as social outcasts. Prostitution is a good example of this. Ganges suggests that prostitution itself was acceptable because it was an extension of natural male sexual activity and desire, but the prostitute herself was unacceptable because she defied traditional ideas of acceptable female behavior and sexuality. This is most obvious in the different ways that men who used the services of prostitutes were treated from the prostitutes themselves. Disease inspections were considered too degrading for the soldiers who were likely to see prostitutes while away from home, but women were subjected to them. One of my favorite books on medical anthropology is called How to Have Theory in an Epidemic. The book outlines how no illness or disease is without political meaning. Reading about Victorian venereal diseases reminded me of this. Looking at who Victorians “blamed” gives us great insight into the social hierarchy of the time. If illness is a crime, who is the criminal? Although not a prostitute, to me this relates back to Elizabeth’s trial and execution in Frankenstein. Are we meant to read her as more tragic because she is female? Is she inherently more innocent? Victor seems to think so. I’m not suggested that Shelley herself did.
It’s interesting too to think of how the factory system of the day challenged traditional ideas of gender but also reinforced them. Factory work split up families because women and children had to work. Working outside of the home in this way was relatively new for women. Women were also away from their family units. They may have left the countryside to come to the city to work. This meant that women could be with men without the supervision of their families. There was also a rise in illegitimate births. Men were no longer being forced by the woman’s family to marry women that they had impregnated. I think that is the larger complication of technology; it makes people’s lives both better and worse simultaneously.
You wrote, “I wonder then if when religious and scientific understanding of the world were intertwined, scientific experiments and scientific inquiry didn’t say something larger about the character of the scientist” and noted connections to Mr Hyde. It makes me think of Paracelsus and alchemy. We tend to think that science is demystifying, but it also contains seeds of mystery in that it is difficult for non-scientists to comprehend. That does help explain the way in which both science and spiritualism were popular simultaneously.
Since you’re in the History of Technology, your question “whether the cost of technological improvements to some people is worth the ease offered to others” is fascinating. I wonder whether those who were paying the costs were also benefiting, or saw themselves as benefiting? I’m thinking of how the poor could afford mass-produced underwear and other goods, and wonder whether they realized the connection between such things and their labor (and whether blue-collar workers do now). That also feeds your idea of people’s lives getting both better and worse at the same time.