Interview

A: Hello Mr. Greenwich, I’m Amanda Thompson from the Wall Street Journal and I need some information about the Victorian time, because I’m going to write an informatial article about it. Would you, as an expert in this topic, be as kind as to tell me something about it and answer a few questions about the Victorian time?

B: Oh yes of course. What do you want to know about it?

A: First tell me the most fundamental aspects of the Victorian time.

B: Okay, let me think… The phrase “Victorian” describes things and what all happened between the years 1837 and 1901. This was the time of queen Victoria’s reign. The economic system boomed, mainly because of the ascent of the industrial revolution. There are some innovations, which the Victorian time created, for example democracy, feminism, Marxism and socialism. In this time also appeared first doubts in religion.

A: Could you tell me about the child labour in the Victorian time? I want to set the main focus of my article on this aspect.

B: The dispersal of child labour was very wide. Most of the kids had to work very hard and they had to work under extremely iniquitous terms. Many of them got ill or had bad accidents, but for the people in this time, it was ordinary to let the children work so hard, and to let them do the nasty jobs and to exploit them. Some Christian people thought it was wrong to treat children so badly, and they wanted new laws, which would ban the exploitation of children. Queen Victoria legislated, that it was illegal to employ children, but when she died in 1901, there were still a lot of children over the age of nine, which had to work. That’s indeed unhappy, but first appendages of the human rights were set and that’s of course a good thing.

A: Yes, I think so too. Thanks a lot Mr. Greenwich! You helped me a lot!

B: You’re welcome. I’m glad that I could help you. Goodbye!

A: Bye!

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