The Victorian age

What does it come immediately to our minds when we listen to the word “revolution”? Is it something good or bad?

“Revolución significa cambios rápidos y profundos. Antes de la Revolución Industrial, por ejemplo, la economía era de tipo familiar y la producción, artesanal; el prestigio social provenía del linaje, es decir, de haber nacido en cuna aristocrática; los artículos de uso diario como el calzado, el vestuario o los muebles los hacía un artesano en su taller”. (Ortega, par 1). In other words, before the revolution era, people didn’t have the opportunity to have more money, so either you were rich or aristocrat or you were poor and had to work harder than the rest in order to succeed. Therefore, the people who didn’t belong to the rich society had to create their own goods and, if they could, they sold them in order to get a bit of money.

The Victorian age, also known as The Industrial revolution was a period in which “fundamental changes occurred in agriculture, textile and metal manufacture, transportation, economic policies and the social structure” (Montagna, par 1)

If we compare a machine and a person, it is clear that a person does not get sick; therefore neither medical licences, remedies nor a nursery is required to get your workers in a good environment. Now, comparing a woman with a machine, a machine doesn’t have babies, so they won’t have any problems when going to work or while they are doing so.

On the other hand, in the fields, now there’s no need to have a person to plough with a wooden tool. Instead, they had machines that could plough and harvest at the same time!

In that moment, when people realized that they were no longer needed, they started to move to industrial towns, where cheap hand labour was needed. In these industries, they tried to hire women and children, because their wages were lower than men’s. They both had to work almost 15 hours a day. “If the conditions in which people lived in these factory towns were considered bad, then the conditions in which they worked can be appropriately characterized as being horrendous. Inside these factories one would find poorly ventilated, noisy, dirty, damp and poorly lighted working areas” (Montagna, par 46)

The consequence of this era was that another social class was being created by the "new citizens", which was called the "ploretarian class". As people wanted to work, they overpoblated big cities, but the only thing that occurred was that people lost their dignity only for a badly-paid job

Bibliography.

Ortega, Rene. "La revolución Industrial", Yahoo Geocites, 23th Sept. 2008. 10th Nov, 2008.

<http://www.geocities.com/profereneortega/REVOLINDUSTRIAL.htm>

Montagna, Joseph. "The Industrial Revolution", Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, 2008. 10th Nov, 2008.

<http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1981/2/81.02.06.x.html>

Putting in Elizabeth's shoes...

Is it easy to be a Queen?

I don't think so. At least it wasn't easy for Elizabeth, who had to fight against all the people who disagreed with her and her reign.

There were two important battles for her:

The first one is against Mary Stuart, a cousin of her, who wanted to be the Queen on England. Mary Stuart worked really hard to be the Queen. She even sent someone to assasinate Elizabeth, but it wasn't worth it; she paid her disloyalty and envy with her head.

The other "battle" is against Spain. America was just discovered and either Spain and England wanted to have control over that continent. Therefore, Phillip II sent some ships from the Spanish and the war started. The main issue of this war was a religious "disagreement". Spain was a catholic reign and England was a "protestant". However, the main difference is that while Spain wanted their people to be catholic, Elizabeth let her people believe in whatever they wanted to believe.

On the other hand, there's something beyond those important and historical facts; in the movie, Elizabeth was shown as a strong-willing and an independent woman. She didn't have any men to tell her what to do or not to do. Instead, she managed with England by herself. The only person that was stood by her was the counselor. So, she was not married and didn't have any children. Therefore, she was believed that was unfertil and for that reason Elizabeth was called "the virgin queen".

I really like this film, because it made me understand and know a little bit more of the story of England. However, this is only an introduction to all the main events in England and the world.

What do experts believe Stonehenge was?
It was believed that Stonehenge was a temple in which people healed themselves

What evidence makes them believe so?

skulls were founf under Stonehenge, who, after some investigations, shown that they cold-blooded were operated there

What did people believe Stonehenge was according to the artible by C. Hibbert? What do you think?

Imagine we are at a museum and we see "La Gioconda" by Leonardo Da Vinci. Does everyone think the same when seeing it? what do the people think about that master piece? does everyone think the same?

According to John Berger, "we see different things based on our own experience". If we continue looking at it, there might be someone that thinks that Mona Lisa, for instance, looks like his/her grand-mother, or the field behind that woman looks like an old house he/she used to live in. Nevertheless, this different points of view depend only on the perspective of a person, in other words, how the person wants to look at it. The same happens with cameras. Whenever we take a picture, we decide how we want to take it, what things we want the picture to have, etc. Language is our way of communitation and this is another important fact. When we see something, for instace, a painting, we let the rest to know what I'm saying by speaking.

This essay by Berger made me think in blind people. How do they express what they believe things are if they don't know how they are? do we perceive things blinds do not? do blinds perceive things we don't?

This blog was created to let the readers know and learn more about different cultures. This was also created in order to check my progress in the class of Culture and civilization.