History

=__﻿ ﻿ ﻿ ﻿ History of Victorian Christmas __=

//Our wiki talks about beliefs, traditions, places, health, human rights, what happened on Christmas and other information including Victorian Christmas History. //



__Customs and Traditions __
 * **Gave thanks for joyful festivals and customs. **
 * **Old traditions were caroling and new ones were sending Christmas cards. **
 * **They went to church and gave gifts. **
 * **Celebrated with the family. **
 * **A German custom they had was putting up Christmas trees. **

__Christmas Cards __
 * **The card were made to offer seasonal greetings. **
 * **To make them they had to spend all afternoon cutting lace frocks. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Some deigns an cards were season greetings, religious sayings, and jokes not related to the season. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Some cards had pop-ups, frinde, lace, satin, sachets, tinsel, and pull-tabs for animation. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Novelty cards were popular.[[image:http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/upload/2009/12/the_physics_of_santa_claus/16%20Santa%20sleigh%20blog.jpg width="297" height="241" align="right" caption="Santa Claus"]] **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Flowers and flying butterflies were popular pictures on Christmas cards **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">.

__**<span style="color: #f20707; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">Santa Claus **__
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Santa Claus is also known as Father Christmas ****<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">he and known to bring gifts to the children. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Both names have completely different stories. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Father Christmas wore green, part of an old midwinter festival. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Santa Claus came from the Dutch word, Sinter Klass which turned into Santa Claus by false saying of Sinter Klass. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">He has a sleigh with reindeer and has toys. **

__**<span style="color: #f10404; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">Christmas Dinner **__
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">In northern England, roast beef was the traditional dinner. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">In London and the south, goose was their favorite[[image:http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTf4_H8PaeGxAmmn_7ERYgnw3p8mv_DfSnNiRKdjVWREH4nXutdDA width="224" height="225" align="right" caption="Wreath"]]. Sometimes ****<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">People ate rabbit. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Queen Victorian had beef and a royal swan or two. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">By the end of the century most people ate turkey for their Christmas dinner. **

__<span style="color: #f00000; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">Decorations __
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">﻿Decorated with wallpaper,"ornate furnishings", lace, and richly colored draperies. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Some people couldn't afford decorations, so they turned to nature to find things like flowers, pine cones, etc. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Mistletoe were hung from the front door, also frames and mirrors were wrapped with evergreen rope. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Wreaths were hung on the front door or behind. **

__**<span style="color: #f40606; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">Christmas Carols **__
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">﻿The people of Victorian Britain loved music so, they made Christmas carols and sang old ones. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Many people had an organ or piano in their home that they gathered around on Christmas Day so sing carols **
 * <span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Their favorite songs were <span style="color: #f91515; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">"I Heard the Bells" and** **<span style="color: #fb2323; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">"O Christmas Tree". **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Caroling door to door became very popular and soon arrived in the Americas in the late 1800s and early 1900s. **

__**<span style="color: #f01919; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">Social Conditions in Victorian Britain **__
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Jobs people had in Victorian Britain included working in factories, in mines, or the railroad. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">In the middle of the 18th century coal mining was very important as it fueled many of things they had like the trains on the railroad. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Most of the coal used was from the surface area and workers didn't have to dig to deep to find some of it, but in the middle of the 18th century surface coal began to run out. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">This meant that now they would have to dig deeper and the coal was harder to find because workers didn't use anything for light. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">This was very dangerous to the workers as they dug deeper they had a chance of pockets of gas igniting without them knowing. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">The 18th century had over an estimated 1,000 coal miners dead and over 250 were injured at work. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">In 1850 King's Cross train station opened this meant that the railroads lead to more and more people going on the train to travel for the holidays and special occasions, including Christmas. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">With the cheap cost of the train passes traveling by train was a staple or way in Victorian Britain. **

__**<span style="color: #f01919; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">Human Rights **__
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">﻿They have prided themselves on their struggle﻿ for social, economical, and political rights. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Human rights were unknown in the early medieval period. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Then they began with a few positive rights, like the right for education, joining a trade union, and voting. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">It was possible to learn about historical matters where rights were put in certain areas. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">"We could do worse than characterize this history as the struggle for human rights." ([]) **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Documents from The National Archives gives a background to the rights today that are taken for granted. **

__**<span style="color: #f01919; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">Citizenship (1066-1625) **__
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Life for the majority of the population in Victorian Britain was determined by how their connection to the land and to the church was. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">In much of the medieval period, problems to the church's authority in England rarely occurred. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">People had very few rights towards their land most of the time people weren't permitted or allowed to beyond the rights granted by the landlord or owner of the land. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">The people of Victorian Britain also, had to worry about plague, as in the Black Death plague of 1348 and 1350 destroyed a third of Victorian Britain's population.[[image:http://www.uh.edu/engines/greatex.gif width="275" height="224" align="right" caption="Crystal Palace"]] **

__**<span style="color: #f01919; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">Crystal Palace **__
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Has over 13,000 exhibits viewed by over 6,200,000 visitors. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Was built in 10 days. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Crystal Palace was opened by Queen Victoria. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">After the Great Exhibition closed, the Crystal Palace was moved to south London. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">In the Years that followed, Crystal Palace became associated with the development of television. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">The Crystal Palace was destroyed by a fire on November 30th, 1936. **

__**<span style="color: #f01919; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">Health and Diseases **__
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Typhoid is a disease that Prince Albert caught from drinking dirty water or milk, and eating dirty food. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">They believed that diseases came through polluted air. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Most diseases came in the hot summers when there was trash on the streets. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">As this trash rotted it gave off smells that doctors thought gave diseases. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Cholera is known as the most dangerous disease in new industrial cities or big cities like London. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">From crowded houses, tap water, which sometimes was pumped from a nearby river. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">In the industrial towns it was more dangerous from the houses being built quickly without plans. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Most of the time they had no sanitation and no fresh water. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">They had trenches as toilets.[[image:http://www.stga.co.uk/MediaLibrary/general/general05-01-10-01-46-25.jpg width="285" height="228" align="right" caption="Victorian Prision"]] **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">The actual cause of death was dehydration. **

__**<span style="color: #f01919; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">Victorian Prisons **__
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">﻿Prisons were small, old, and were badly run. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Transportation or execution were some punishments. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">When people started having doubts about these punishments they started making prisons. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">They added on to the old prisons and made new ones. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">The people wanted them (the prisons) to be a bad place that people would not want to be. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">To make up for what they did the criminals would have to keep silent and do hard, boring work. **
 * **<span style="color: #0ac715; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">"Walking a tread wheel or picking oakum (separating strands of rope) were the most common forms of hard labour." ([]) **

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 * <span style="color: #6e3030; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 1.4em; margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px 0px;">Sources **

<span style="color: #f71818; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">[] <span style="color: #f71818; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">[] <span style="color: #f71818; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">[] <span style="color: #f71818; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">[|http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens/christmas.html] <span style="color: #f71818; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">[] <span style="color: #f71818; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%;">[]