Race and Class Overview: Parallels in Racism and Class Prejudice

Anthony S. Wohl, Professor of History, Vassar College

Both Victorian science (pseudosciences such as phrenology), and popular literature assigned similar characteristics to the Irish, Blacks and members of the lower classes. Both were seen as:

Unreasonable, irrational, and easily excited
Childlike
Having no religion but only superstition.
Criminal: no respect for private property, no notions of property
Excessively sexual
Filthy
Sharing physical qualities
Inhabitants of unknown dark lands or territories ( Mayhew).

What functions in Victorian thought did such forms of prejudice have? Were these attitudes and prejudices a response to particular identifiable changes in British society?

How do these ideas contrast with those of the Victorian Gentleman?

Created 1987; links last added 14 January 2001