Lecture: 19th Century Society

Johann Strauss II, Voices of Spring Waltz (1883) 1. Influences on Scientific Thinking 2. Natural Selection 3. Medicine 4. Science Gone Mad: Frankenstein 5. Victorian Values 6. Women's Role 7. Sexuality 8. Fashion

"We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced (we believe for the first time) at the English court on Friday last ... it is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressure on the bodies in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society by the civil examples of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion."

--July 1816 editorial in The Times of London