Victorian Woman Reveals In An Interview What It Was Like To Be A Teen In The 1800s

If you think about the Victorian Era, what comes to your mind first? Of course, we know that this is a time of extravagance and aristocratic beauty. Can you imagine what it would have been like to be a teenager during this time?

Movies and television shows like Bridgerton, Sherlock Holmes, and Jane Eyre, showed us a glimpse of what the people were like back in the day. Still, it’s hard to figure out what it really felt to live and be a teen in the 1800s.

Thankfully, an old interview by the BBC is currently circulating on the internet. This is a sit-down interview of two women as they shared how they lived their teenage years during Queen Victoria’s reign.

It was back in the 1970s when the BBC interviewed two seniors. At that point in time, they were one of the last people who experienced teenage life during the Victorian Era. And as they share their experiences, we are able to experience it too through them.

Frances ‘Effy’ Jones experienced firsthand the grand evolution that the world has been through. Jones was a typical Victorian teenager. She spent her time lounging around and practically doing nothing. Then one day, her brother told her to go out and “get something to do.”

This meant that she needed to find a job. However, she didn’t know where to start. Then her brother told her that he’d been to one of the shops along Victoria Street. He said that he saw women working on this “new machine”.

So Jones went and got work from the shop. She was one of the first people who used this new machine – a typewriter!

Berta Ruck on the other hand shared with BBC about how mischievous she was as a teenager. She went to boarding school where teachers described her as ‘indolent’ and ‘lazy.’ She would not do her school work, but instead, her workbook would be adorned with sketches and drawings.

And after leaving her boarding school, she attended an art school in London. No paved roads back then. She said it was so muddy that to get off the road, she would often ride a bus. These buses are double-decker horse-drawn carriages. This served as the first innovations in public transportation during this era.

Ruck shared that even back then, poverty was so widespread. She has seen how workers in the city were being underpaid despite the dangers of the nature of their work. Also, women were allowed certain privileges, like riding a bike.

You see, the teenage life of these women from the Victorian era compared to how it is for the younger generation of today is so different. Their teenage years might not be filled with pop stars, modern technology, and social media, but it was as colorful and vibrant as what can be offered back then. They were happy and lived fulfilling lives.

These days, teens have equal rights, both girls and boys. Most of them don’t experience the hardships in life where they have to work at such an early age. Teenagers these days have a somewhat easier life, especially those who are lucky to have loving and caring families who provide for their needs.