Emotional Reactions to the Great Exhibition of 1851

Abstract

Drawing on a range of contemporary sources, including journals, letters, and articles in newspapers and periodicals, this article focuses on the experiences of visitors to the Great Exhibition of 1851. Although visitors often wrote descriptions of Paxton's Crystal Palace and of many of the exhibits they encountered, these sources indicate that a visit to the Exhibition was also for many a highly emotional experience. While emotional reactions varied considerably, the most prominent and often repeated reaction was a deep sense of wonder. This response appears to have arisen principally from the novelty of the experience and its dissimilarity from previous experiences. However, ‘wonder’ was a contested term and a number of contemporaries considered that it was a superficial and/or inappropriate reaction to the Exhibition. The article ends with an analysis of the hiatus between emotional experience and the language in which that experience was framed; a complex relationship which is complicated by the Victorian periodical press which played a significant role in creating visitors' expectations about the Exhibition.