The poverty of people in rural areas might be more picturesque, but I think it's even more hopeless and grinding.
In any case, I did pick 1870, which later in the Victorian era. That was the year Standard Oil was formed, there were steamships plying the Atlantic, and Britain had thousands of miles of railroads. Synthetic dyes (the beginnings of modern chemistry) and steel was being produced, and there was a transatlantic telegraph. I am not saying the world was the same, of course, but the difference between a basically agrarian society and an industrial one is enormous - for instance by this time in England it was possible to form corporations without an act of Parliament, and tourism was no longer the sole province of the upper middle class and the wealthy. And there were by then more than two universities in Britain.
I agree that it's a matter of what you choose to emphasize, but when I was first writing stories and trying to add 'color', I was struck by how often something I wanted to mention had been invented in 1835, or wasn't established until 1850, or had the same name but an entirely different function until the 1860's.
In any case, I did pick 1870, which later in the Victorian era. That was the year Standard Oil was formed, there were steamships plying the Atlantic, and Britain had thousands of miles of railroads. Synthetic dyes (the beginnings of modern chemistry) and steel was being produced, and there was a transatlantic telegraph. I am not saying the world was the same, of course, but the difference between a basically agrarian society and an industrial one is enormous - for instance by this time in England it was possible to form corporations without an act of Parliament, and tourism was no longer the sole province of the upper middle class and the wealthy. And there were by then more than two universities in Britain.
I agree that it's a matter of what you choose to emphasize, but when I was first writing stories and trying to add 'color', I was struck by how often something I wanted to mention had been invented in 1835, or wasn't established until 1850, or had the same name but an entirely different function until the 1860's.