Victorian America - Events and Politics

Events and Politics

The Victorian era began in 1837, with the accession of Britain's Queen Victoria, and endured throughout upheavals such as the American Civil War, until Queen Victoria's death in 1901. Slavery was a major political issue in the early Victorian era in the United States, and a regional one at that, with the American South generally favoring it and the Northeast and Midwest opposing it. The Civil War broke out, at least partially due to this issue, in 1860, and it was a time of awareness and change in American culture. 750,000 Americans died during the war out of a population of 31 million. Among men aged 18–35, about 20% had died by the end of the war. The industrial Northern states defeated the rebellious Southern states, leading to the period called Reconstruction.

Immigration picked up during the Victorian era in America, as dissatisfied Europeans fled the poverty and politics of their homelands for the New World. This led, in turn, to a surge in ethnocentrism and racism, and the forming of ethnic neighborhoods in major cities. The American West, an enormous land sometimes known as the "frontier", attracted settlers. Laws, such as the Homestead Acts, helped Europeans and their descendants take lands used by Native Americans.