A Christmas Carol Background
Kyah Colbert
Charles Dickens
In 1833 Dickens began writing stories and essays for a magazine and newspapers. Later that month he also began with comics. Mr. Pickwick one of Charles humorous characters from Pickwick Papers made him the famous writer he is today.
Industrial Revolution
Around the time of the American Revolution, the people of England started to use machines to make cloth and steam engines to run the machines. Not much later locomotives were invented. Productivity began to climb rapidly. By 1850, most Englishman were working and in industrial towns. At this time Great Britain became the workshop of the world.
The changes that the Industrial Revolution brought were (1) the inventions of machines and the work of hand tools; (2) the use of steam, and further on other kinds of power, which took place of the muscles in human beings and of the animals; and (3) the adoption of the factory system. Try thinking of what the world was like with out the Industrial Revolution. No electric lights, automobiles, airplanes, telephones, radios, and television would be gone. The stocks you see on the shelves at Walmart? All gone. Schooling would barely happen. Before we got machines, work from children was just as needed as work from adults.
Victorian Age
When King William IV died in 1837, his 18-year-old niece, Victoria, became queen of the UK of Britain and Ireland. Victoria was the last monarch of the royal house of Hanover; the period of her reign, from 1837 to 1901, became known as the Victorian Age.
During Victoria's long reign, Britain grew into a worldwide empire. At one point in time, the British Empire covered about one-fifth of the Earth's land mass. Victoria ruled a quarter of the world's population, as well. Throughout all of Britain many great changes and developments occurred. Science grew and Britain turned into a land of mechanical and industrial activity.