The Victorian Legacy

In 1878 Annie Besant,a British feminist,was convicted of obscenity for publishing a birth control manual.The jury agreed that the manuel was calculated to deprave,but exonerated the defendant from any corrupt motives in publishing it.Annie Besant was singled out for punishment because she was considered to be a threat of political and social institutions as well as to standards of sexual propriety.

The dawning of the twentieth century marked the end of the Victorian era.However,the prudery and censorhip associated with the late nineteenth century persisted even after the death of Queen Victoria,Great Britain’s longest reigning monarch,in 1901.At that time the world was dominated by a handful of European powers.Great Britain,France,Spain,Portugal,the Netherlands,Italy,and Germany governed colonies that made up most of Africa and a large part of Asia.The influence of these colonial powers was considerable.

During the nineteenth century many members of the middle classhad concentrated on moral compaigns against vice.Groups like the National Vigilance Association in Great Britain were well established the end of the 1880s.They  mounted prosecution s against people who”conspired” to “corrupt”.Although the government distanced itself from these groups,they were sucessful in influencing public opinion and setting standards.

THE SPREAD OF LITERACY:-Until 1850,newspapers were heavily taxed in Great Britain.This prevented poorer people from reading them and deterred improverished radicals from starting up their own publications.The government announced that “persons exercising the power of the press should be men of some respectability and property.” But the education of the working class was also a feature of nineteenth-century life.In Great Britain,school attendance became compulsory in 1800.Books and newspapers were published to appeal to a popular mass market.For the first time,working people could read what they chose.This  enlightenment of “the dark masses” alarmed many members of the ruling class(the upper and middle classes), who feared that the influence of radical writers would cauce the people to revolt o riot.

In 1880,the European press was mostly made up of papers dealing in serious news,aimed at the upper and middle classes.At this time in Europe,the vote was being extended from men who owned property to all men.(Women were not allowed to vote until much later.) The invention of the modern rotary press,first used in London by The Times in 1886,dramatically increased the speed with which news was disseminated.And the widespread use of the wireless telegraph and the newly invented telephone made it possible to transmit information across the world in an instant.The twentieth century was destined to be a century of mass communication.

As the circulation figures of many newspapers topped a million or more,the European and North American governments became increasingly worried about people they suspected of attempting to undermine their authority.

In Germany,during the first six mounths of 1913,over ane hundred socialist journalists were convited of breaking censorship laws and many of them were jailed.In the United States,thirty states introduced statutes prohibiting the dissemination of obscene materials.Meanwhile Great Britain was regarded as a beacon of political freedom- a land that set a democratic example for virtually all other countries,especially example for virtually all other countries,especially with regard to censorship and civil liberties.

In Europe and North America,the Establishment (those people who controllled the gouvernment,civil service,armed forces,and the Church) was worried about the growth of a subversion culture.By blending political,social.and sexual deviances,this culture was thought to threaten the very fabric of society.

Certainly a glance at what was happening in India confirmed the Establishment’s worst fears.During the nineteenth century,the “vernacular press,” or Indian languages press,hed been severly censored by the British authorities because of violent attacks made on the government and british rule.After censorship was lifted toward the end of the century,the Indian nationalist movement used the free press to advance its cause,eventually winning independence for Indian in 1947.