… as we discussed in detail earlier this summer. There were those of rich and noble blood, and then there were poor. BUT, as was happening in America, there was a rising middle class made of merchants, industrialists, and financiers.
They walked among the previously “taboo” royal or noble elite – men we are talking about of course in 1837. The women associated with this middle class were mostly the social advocates for their men.
Fashion for a middle class Victorian woman was a status symbol, and much discussion in all worlds was about “pecuniary emulation” (translated – “showing off your stuff”).
(Photo: Afternoon Tea in New South Wales 1890. Settlers moved to towns created by industrialists and developed a whole new middle class structure while hob nobbing alongside blue-blooded nobility)