My name is Heather Ryan and I am a senior history major with minors in English and French. Over the years I have studied many different time periods and topics and Victorian London is one of my favorite. It is a very vibrant and diverse history encompassing dozens of different demographics. And the energy of the time period is hard to ignore. Right now I’m taking my senior seminar on the years from 1889-1929 of US history so it’s nice that I get to study the other side of the Atlantic for my English requirements.

I already had the advantage of being familiar with Victorian London but I had never thought that much about the impact of railroads on England. But reading Bruce Robinsons’ “London: A Modern Babylon” I realized the similar purpose that inexpensive public transportation served to Victorian London as cheap cars did to American cities in the 1950s. Both allowed for the working lower-middle class to move to the suburbs and commute to work. Not only did this allow workers to trade city congestion for a little more space and freedom, it kept them isolated from the truly impoverished, creating even more physical barriers between the classes. Cities like London and New York became places for the really, really rich and the really, really poor, leaving little room for anyone in between.

Robinson, Bruce. “London: ‘A Modern Babylon’” BBC News. BBC, 11 Feb. 2011. Web. 25 Aug. 2015.