Which era was more transformative?

[Del Tachi]

Victorian Era (1837 - 1901):  Industrialization, Nationalism, and Reform  Railroads, the HMS Beagle, Manifest Destiny, abolitionism, the telegraph, Transcendentalism, the Third Great Awakening, European immigration to the Americas, 1848 Revolutions, Marxism, photography, Nietzsche, Crimean War, public schooling, American Civil War, the Meiji Restoration, Otto Von Bismarck, psychology, mass media, the Suez Canal, the Berlin Conference, consumerism, Franco-Prussian War, Impressionism, Haymarket Square, popular sport, Thomas Edison, the Spanish-American War, and the Boer Wars

Second Elizabethan Era (1952 - present): Globalization, Decolonization, and Democratization.  The Cold War, television, NATO, Baby Boomers, the space race, Civil Rights, Mao, counterculture and the Consciousness Revolution, Vietnam, women's liberation, Nixon opens China, the "Me" Generation, environmentalism, energy crises, HIV/AIDS, German reunification, Nelson Mandela, collapse of the USSR, the World Wide Web, genomics, retrocession of Hong Kong, the EU, 9/11 and the Global War on Terror, social media, climate change, Brexit, the rise of neo-nationalism and COVID-19.

My initial reaction is to go with the Victorian Era, but I can see a reasoned argument for the Second Elizabethan Age as well.  I guess it boilers down to whether or not you believe industrialization/nationalism or globalization/digitization will be the more pronounced story in human history.

This question is in honor of Queen Elizabeth's 94th birthday today!

[RINO Tom]

This might be a copout, but I have to go with the former because of how much it influenced what took place in the latter.

[HillGoose]

Second Elizabethan.

The way I look at it, by the end of the 20th century, life had changed more for the average person on this planet since 1900 than it had in the entire thousand years that preceded that year, with most of these changes occurring in the latter half of the century, particularly regarding mass media, consumerism, and the general living standards of most of the people on this planet.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Second Elizabeth era due the ending of Jim Crow and Blacks and Females gain the right to vote

[Wikipedia delenda est]

You may not have included it in the poll because it would otherwise be the obvious answer, but I'd argue that the period between the two eras you proposed is far more transformative than either. And I'm not even talking about the World Wars or the rise of ideological extremism. Even if we ignore all that and focus just on technological advancements and changes in living standards, this period is still so much more transformative than either of what came before or after.

In 1952 (in the United States) we had antibiotics, air conditioning, washing machines, near-universal plumbing and heating, cars, airplanes, and television. In 1901, none of that exists yet. If someone from the present day was dropped into 1952, they'd basically be able to function and live normally, even if they'd have to adjust to different cultural norms and living without digital items. In 1901, however, most people from the present wouldn't know how to survive. 1952 is truly modern (or contemporary) in a way that 1901 just isn't.

In the grand scheme of things, very little has changed in the Western world since the end of World War II. Since 1945, humanity has enjoyed a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity, and for the first time most Westerners have been able to live lives not based solely around subsistence and survival. Sure, computers and the Internet have changed a lot over the past 75 years, but those changes pale in comparison to the progress made during the first half of the 20th century.

[blueandred]

Have to agree with the post directly above. Between the two in OP though, I’d have to go with the Victorian age... the West in the 1830s was predominantly agrarian, even in Britain (although obviously somewhat less so there). By 1900 cities had roughly half of the population in some countries. 1952 to now was more of a sea change for developing nations. Assuming we are looking at this through more of a Western, Eurocentric lens, I’d have to say the former.