Games In The Victorian Era
PHOTO:It was considered improper for a woman to enjoy sex, and so both genders were pretty sexually frustrated. Homosexuality among men was a quietly accepted practice, but nobody thought homosexuality among women even existed. Most believed women to be asexual, so lesbian couples often lived together without anyone thinking twice.
However sexually repressed they were in public, Victorians were really raunchy in private. They had whole magazines devoted to erotica and pornography that would rival today’s Fifty Shades of Grey.There’s also hysteria. If anything was wrong with a woman, it was all put down to hysteria. Doctors commonly cured hysteria by giving a woman an orgasm.
In fact, the first vibrators were invented for this specific purpose (but remember, women were still, supposedly, asexual). Girls Made Fasting an Olympic Sport. PHOTO:“Fasting girls” were a fad for a while. They were the talk of every newspaper – the stories of girls who, supposedly, could survive without food or water. For some reason, it was very fashionable to survive on nothing but air.
These girls would pretend to eat nothing, widely publicize it for attention, and then stuff their faces in secret. Probably just because people are weird. One popular case of this was the case of Mollie Fancher. According to the papers, she survived fourteen years without eating a thing.
Swooning Really Did Happen a Lot. While, by this point, many doctors advised bathing often for one’s health, many people still believed in the old wives’ tale that bathing was bad for you. The upper class, who had access to their own bathtub and somebody to go through the trouble of heating up gallons of water for them, bathed a few times a month, usually in tepid water with bran added. The lower class bathed maybe once a year. Once source even states that girls often washed their hair with a single egg cracked on their head!
Makeup Was Considered Tacky.
By Nathan and ColbyDuring 1837-1901 was the Victorian Era was the years of Queen Victoria’s reign. From June 20, 1837, to her death on January 22, 1901. During this era, Children usually helped their parents in factories and sweatshops. As Time went on, the Factory Acts were passed.
Games In The Victorian Era Clothing
The acts limited the amount of time the children could work. Then, this led to a growing demand of toys, which led to a mass production for toys to occupy the children. There was an abundance of toys for kids to play with. Just to name some, there was the leather football, toy soldiers, the diabolo, marbles, and the jumping rope. Leather footballDifferent kinds of the modern football and soccer ball have been around since between 2500-5000 B.C, and leather or animal skins have been used to make them just about as long. Football was played on the lawns or in the streets by all classes of people.
Victorian Parlor Games
The rich children could own a fancy professionally made ball but the poor children could easily make their own. Most kids would struggle to get enough money for a football they could buy at the store but most of the lower class kids wouldn’t be able to ever afford one. Toy SoldiersMany of today’s war video games have taken the place of toy soldiers. Kids would use their imagination to fight wars and battles with their toy soldiers. They would collect there soldiers then muster up as a group and fight with everybody’s soldiers.
This was a very fun way to imagine fights and wars as a kid but in a clean and nonviolent way. The DiaboloThere is a string with two sticks attached at each end. It also comes with a plastic or maybe metal spool. The toy came from China and became very popular in the UK. You are supposed to throw the spool up in the air then catch it on the string. Many kids after a while learned how to do many cool and different tricks. MarblesMarbles are still used today, but aren’t as popular as they were in the Victorian era.
Many games were played with marbles. To name some, Bouncers, Shooting, and Hundreds were all played with marbles. Poor children usually had clay marbles, while the rich had real marbles made from real marble. Skipping RopeThe jumping rope is a toy and an exercise still popular today. We know it as the Jump Rope, but in the Victorian era, it was the Skipping Rope. It was more popular with girls than boys.
The rich had skipping ropes with fancy carved handles, but the poor could easily make their own.Works Cited“Victorian Toys and Victorian Games.” Victorian Children,“The Victorian Era Play (1837-1901) Collections.” Boston Children’s Museum,.“Victorian Parlour Games.” The Victorian School,.“Primary History – Victorian Britain – Toys and games.” BBC, BBC,.Chayer, Alex. “Toys and games children played in the Victorian era.” Prezi.com, 22 Jan. 2016,HYPERLINK WITH: Bill, Matt, and Lenahjaa –.