Chapter Seven

The Birth of Modern Industrial Society

 

The Industrial Revolution

  • Before “manufacture” – make by hand; became – make by machine
  • Revolution harnessed steam (pumps, engines),
  • Eco revolution - ↑ production, scope, wealth generated
  • Adam Smith – The Wealth of Nations: specialized production + efficiency
  • Changed form and supply of money, credit, investment
  • Social/Cultural revolution – changed way people made a living; new middle class and working class
  • “first” Industrial Revolution in 1750s in French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars
  • Great Brit became “workshop of the world”

The First Industrial Revolution: England 1750-1851

  • 1800-1850 national income rose by 125%; share of national income from industrial production rose 230%
  • pre-indus. economy addressed needs of community – “moral economy”; farmers expected to bring produce to village and sell for a fair price
  • 80% of land owned by English aristocracy; earned income from harvests, financed mining, built roads (charged tolls), canals
  • End of 18th cent. Brit was world’s leading maritime nation
  • Cotton and textile production became important new industries in England

Consumer Demand and the Multiplier Effect

  • “middle men” purchased raw materials (cotton/wool) and let craftworkers in their homes finish it into cloth or piecework payment and sold finished product
  • 2nd half of 18th cent. traders realized that if they produce more in greater quantity at a cheaper price they will attract more customers – industrial entrepreneurs
  • The multiplier effect took place

Technology and Science

  • Key industries transformed by revolution was textile industry (wool/cotton)
  • Spinning mills invented 1764 and further increased productivity with application of steam power
  • Samuel Compton’s power loom invented in 1779
  • Cotton industry was that with the greatest multiplier effect in revolution

Industrialization on the Continent

  • 2-3 decades after revolution in Brit it moved through Euro continent
  • Key to change was consumer demands for manufactured goods; population boom
  • War with French Republic was another reason for lag of Euro – disrupted trade and commerce, absorbed resources, political workers to military
  • By Napoleon’s defeat 1815 – coal/iron had begun in northern France
  • Brits wanted to protect industrial lead and banned workers from emigrating there – didn’t work
  • Friedrich Engels & Karl Marx
  • The real boom was in construction of railroads – acted as “multiplier” because it increased production of coal, iron, steam locomotives, railway carriages…

The Social Impact of the Industrial Revolution

  • Early years of revolution there was social unrest
  • More people employed in agriculture than in manufacturing
  • New demands stimulated new forms of employment/traditional handicraft
  • Bricks and iron nails hand-produced by women/children – most exploited

The Standard of Living

  • Greater material abundance for all social ranks in the long term
  • Debate over standard of living for the wage-dependent labouring population

The Urban Community: Conditions in City Life

·        Entire 19th century – huge increase in total Euro population and increase in urban population

·        With lack of urban planning, cities became overcrowded, poorly housed, scarce fresh water, poor sanitation – death rate exceeded the birth rate

·        1780-1850s most outstanding urban growth in area of British Isles; by 1891 more than 50% of population lived in towns of more than 20 000

The Growth of British Industrial Cities

  • Every Euro city in 19th century exclusive neighbourhoods built for the wealth and proletariat relegated to ghettos
  • Apartments of urban poor were barren; entire families lived in 1-2 rooms
  • Workers had to live close to where they work; working day 12-16 hours

Rural Homes

  • With revolution came rural myth – life in the country is more wholesome; fresh air abounds and children live happier and healthier

Conditions of Work

  • Pre-industrial handicraft – families worked as a unit and worked according to demand
  • In the factory the work was boring and repetitious – employer could dictate…
  • Many had trouble trying to be punctual – “Saint Monday”
  • Six days of working with Sunday for rest and Saturday night for dressing up
  • Work day lasted 14-16 hours a day; unsafe and not clean

 

Evolution of the Family

Work and the Private Life

  • One of most arguable issues of revolution was child labour
  • Richard Oastler lead effective campaign against “Yorkshire Slavery”; campaigned for a 10 hour work day
  • Industrial revolution did not create child labour because in the household children were expected to contribute
  • The first generation of factory workers tried to preserve the family unit working together by all being employed to work spinning machines
  • Machines grew larges and there was less need for adult males but more of a need for women and children who were paid less

Marriage and Divorce

  • More earlier marriages with an increase in the birth rate
  • By the end of the 19th century infant mortality declined and women started to have fewer children in Western Euro countries
  • Increase in sexual activity between unmarried; about 50% of population of Paris was born out of wedlock
  • People began to live together out of wedlock; elopement common
  • Until Marriage Act revised in England 1857 only wealth/influential could divorce
  • Informal divorce still occurred between lower class people

Family Violence

  • Family violence varied by class
  • Working-class – wife beating was a male prerogative
  • Family violence was a favourite theme for crime stories and newspapers

Changing Roles of Men and Women

  • Code Napoleon – laid foundation of laws in continental Euro; granted husband absolute superiority in the family
  • Married women had no legal rights; adulterous women faced no risks but women could face death; men had control of all family property including wages
  • Husband control of wages remained in France until 1907 when laws changed
  • Father also had authority over children; children under 26 could not marry without parental consent
  • If child disobedient the father could have them arrested and held in state prison

John Stuart Mill and Women’s Role

  • Mill began campaign against wife-beating and the failure of courts to take action in 1820s; book The Subjection of Women
  • William Thomson wrote that home was not the abode of calm bliss but the eternal prison-house of the wife

 

The Role of Government in Society

  • Revolution in the beginning was subject to serious of booms and slumps
  • Booms – fuller employment, better living conditions
  • Slumps – widespread unemployment in urban populations
  • Thomas Carlyle – employer’s interest was solely in profit and workers were no longer human beings but simply a cost factor in production – “cash nexus”
  • Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli defended social hierarchy

Laissez Faire: No Government Intervention

  • Laissez Faire refers to political economy free from government or other restrictions which optimized economic growth (free market)
  • Thomas Malthus – population grows more quickly than food supply
  • David Ricardo – population growth and diminishing levels of profit created an ironclad law limiting the level of wages – little can be done to ↑ living standards
  • Liberal theory and social reality were in conflict

Utilitarianism: Government Intervention and Regulation

  • Jeremy Bentham – pointed a way out of the social impasse of the early 19th cent.
  • Adam Smith  argued that in the competition b/w individuals, conflicts reconciled by an “unseen hand” which would automatically restore balance in marketplace

 

 

 

Social Legislation

  • Addressed issues like provision of relief for the poor, conditions in factories and mines, regulation of public health
  • Royal Commission drafted New Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834

 

Maintaining Political Order

  • Landed nobility and dependent peasantry dominated the social landscape Euro
  • Reform was to have the purpose of weakening the authority and privileges of kings and nobles
  • In restored Euro no one power would be allowed to dominate the Continent

Metternich and the Congress of Vienna

  • Real work of the Congress of Vienna was accomplished by private meetings of representatives of: Austria, Russia, Prussia, Great Britain, France
  • Napoleons return and defeat at Waterloo weakened negotiating position of Prince Talleyrand – didn’t alter the goals of the Congress too much
  • Prince Klemens con Metternich – leading figure at Congress; sought to preserve and protect the position of Austria in redrafted Euro order

The Concert of Europe: Maintaining Political Stability

  • Congress initiated practice of leading statesmen consulting with one another in order to resolve potential disputes – “concert”
  • “Concert” of Euro worked best with respect to France
  • Four victorious powers: Russia, Prussia, Austria and Great Britain – formed Quadruple Alliance and agreed to act in concert if France showed signs of expansionist revival

Reaction and Reform: 1815-1830

  • Absolutism remained secure in Russia, Prussia, and Austrian Empire
  • Two great powers, Brit and France, co-operated in the restoration of legitimate rule and paved the way for future conflicts

Liberalism, Democracy, and Nationalism

  • Liberalism – attuned to interests of middle class – stressed liberty of individual in relation to the state and in pursuit of eco self-interest
  • Liberals feared that in democracy will of majority would overcome interests of individual; they tied full rights of citizenship to possession of property
  • Until 1848 liberals challenged authority of absolute monarchy and rejected claims of popular democracy

The Defence of Absolutism

  • 1819 Metternich persuaded German states to censor press and universities and limit powers of legislative assemblies – setback for liberalism in German states
  • 1820 faction of middle class overthrew monarchy and restored constitution of 1812
  • 1823 France with its allies intervened to restore the monarchy and absolutism

Greek Independence: 1821-1830

  • Greek struggle to be freed from Ottoman Empire
  • Greek struggle aroused political passions/imaginative fancy of leading poets and writers of Western Romantic movement
  • Lord Byron – poet…
  • Great powers had conflicting interests in decline of Empire
  • Austria feared Russian appeal to the Greeks on basis of common religion; Orthodox Christianity
  • Brit had interest in the route from eastern Mediterranean to Persian Gulf
  • Conflicting interests from decline of Empire lead to diplomatic struggle called “Eastern question” – lasted until 1914
  • Euro powers joined and defeated Turks at Greek port Navarino 1827

Restoration and Reformation: France and England, 1815-1848

  • Tensions in France (growing pop, memories of Revolution, beginning of industrial change) lead to revolutionary crises in 1830 and 1848
  • Bourborn monarchy restored after defeat of Napoleon, Louis 18th took power as constitutional monarch
  • King claimed rule under Constitutional Charter until 1848 – equality before the law, careers for those who are talented, freedom from conscience/religion/expression guaranteed – place of Roman C Church unsure
  • Opportunity for Ultras came with death of Louis in 1824 – Charles 10th came to throne
  • Charles refused to convene legislature and imposed more controls on the press
  • He called for new election with revised/limited electorate to exclude opposition
  • 1830 there was call for popular uprising – Charles fled the country
  • Louis Philippe assumed the throne – reign referred to as “July Monarchy”

The July Monarchy: 1830-1848

  • Louis Philippe proclaimed “King of the French People” – colours red, white, blue; liberty, equality, fraternity
  • Reforms on age and property qualifications to vote - ↑ electorate population
  • Church and state declared separate, laws censoring press discarded
  • July Monarch was a liberal oligarchy of property owners
  • 1830 republican students/workers took to streets and reconstructed revolutionary barricades – rebellion crushed with much bloodshed
  • July Monarchy grew more repressive – 1835 failed attempt to assassinate Louis
  • Fear of conspiracy – September Laws: censored press, restricted radical organizations
  • 2 more failed revolution attempts by Louis Napoleon 1835-1844; depression 1845-1847

England: Protest and Reaction, 1815-1821

  • After war with France in 1815 – England depression until 1821
  • 1811-1812 extensive campaign of machine wrecking
  • Luddites (those who resisted technological innovations) tried to stop wages being undercut by the new machinery
  • After suppression of Luddities disruptions during depression of  1815-1818
  • August 16th, 1819 – 60 000 gathered at St. Peter’s Field – radicals named episode the Peterloo Massacre – symbol of governments tyranny over popular rights

The Reform of British Parliament: 1830-1832

  • 1830 with new king William 4th necessitated an election
  • middle/working-class revived campaign for parliamentary reform
  • The reform bill introduced by Lord John Russell passed in 1832 after 2 years

 

 

 

Developments in Political Thought

The Origins of Socialism

  • Liberalism, democracy, socialism part of French Revolution and cry for liberty, equality, fraternity
  • Growth in pop, impact of industrial change, evidence of ↑ disparity b/w classes

Role of Key Individuals: Three Utopian Socialists

Count Henri de Saint-Simon

  • Doubted that changes in constitution would make much difference in wellbeing
  • Thought that technological failures would bring greater material abundance
  • “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work”

Robert Owen

  • Thought efforts to max profit by demanding optimum productivity for lowest wage was bad for individual and destructive to society
  • Believed in gradual reform, education, union and model communities

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  • Addressed question of the source of violence and repression in society – responsibility lay with governments
  • In his pamphlet of 1840 What is Property? He answered “All property is theft”
  • Deeply distrusted the state and his view of the government as repressive made him one of the founders of anarchism

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

  • Feb 1848 Marx and Engels produced The Communist Manifesto
  • Communism advocated common ownership of means of production; embraced power of new working class

Lessons of History

  • The Communist Manifesto begins: “The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles”
  • Claimed each stage of history gave rise to aggressive forces that were the source of its destruction
  • Called revolutions the “locomotives of history”
  • Claimed his theory called dialectic materialism was not utopian or idealistic it was scientific because it rested on the laws of historical change

 

1848: The Year of Revolutions in Europe

  • Second part of manifesto outlined program of German communists; unification of Germany, universal suffrage, progressive tax against wealthy – “Workers of the world, unite”
  • Revolution brought down July Monarchy in Paris in Feb 1848 – short revolutions spread through Euro capitals
  • In following years monarchs and generals restored authority and order in Euro

Economic Crisis

  • Revolutionary outbreaks in response to economic crisis – pressures from ↑ population
  • 1846 great famine in Ireland that killed thousands – widespread financial crisis
  • France over a million unemployed – people joined in protests

 

 

Revolutionary Spring: February 1848

  • Lib/nationalist demands for new constitutional order + discontent in countryside/cities created revolutionary crisis of 1848
  • Unable to re-impose order Louis Philippe resigned Feb 24

 

Counteroffensive: June 1848

France

  • After Feb Revolution of 1848, second republic proclaimed in France
  • By June 120 000 workers enrolled in national workshops and when the government decided to dissolve them the working class took to the barricades –June 22-26 class war

The Austrian Empire

  • Gain from reforms in March: peasantry freed of serfdom with forced labour and feudal dues
  • June 17 Austrian commanders used cannon to bombard Prague and crush revolt
  • October with cost of 4000 lives – reclaimed Vienna from control of radicals
  • 130 000 Russian troops to bring end to Hungarian independence in summer of 1849
  • No real impressions from revolutions of 1849 BUT serfdom abolished in Austrian Empire
  • France home to first modern politician – Louis Naponeon Bonaparte – became president

 

Nineteenth-Century Western Art

  • Romanticism, realism, naturalism, expressionism result of Euro intellectual climate
  • 18th cent sometimes called Age of Reason – artists freed themselves from restrictions
  • Famous artists from this time: Ingres, Gericault, Delacroix, Goya

Jean-Auguste Ingres

  • Important because of his portraits of influential people of the time – Napoleon
  • Paintings of nudes reflect exotic/erotic elements of romantic thought

Francisco de Goya

  • Truly romantic hero; defiance of strong authoritarian regime that ruled Spain
  • The Disasters of War; The Third of May – reduced space b/w firing squad and victims

Theodore Gericault

  • Deliberately distorted human forms and painted them in classical style
  • Celebrated war as glorious experience; paintings escape from reality but real events
  • The Raft of the Medusa

Eugene Delacroix

  • Depicted scenes of human suffering – believed that savage, instinctive, primitive aspects of humanity ally us to nature
  • Liberty Leading the People; TheDeath of Sardanapalus

English Romantic Painting

  • English portrayed feelings through natural landscapes
  • French depicted emotion and action through narrative paintings

John Constable

  • Deep love of nature; search for truth of nature by recording every detail – not 100% realistic
  • The Hay-Wain

Joseph Turner

  • Vision of nature with seas and skies; destructive forces of nature
  • Used colour to convey emotion – The Fighting Temeraire

Music in the Nineteenth Century

  • New technology produced better and cheaper instruments – Orchestras new art form
  • More education, better performers, more women, more variety/contrast, varied ethnicity

 

Literature of the Nineteenth Century

The Romantic Age

  • Romantic literature movement began in 18th cent France and Germany
  • Wanted to convey intense emotional experiences in work – connection with nature
  • Brit romantics had greatest impact on 19th cent literature – nature was an inspiration
  • Historical impetus for romantic revolution was French revolution – glorified poor/working

William Blake

  • Expressed vision in obscure lyrics
  • Transition-maker from Age of Reason to age of romanticism

William Wordsworth

  • Lyrical Ballads – definitive collection of romantic poetry
  • Had connection with nature and saw it as a moral guide (religious)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  • Saw nature as inspiration to look deeper into one’s self (psychological)
  • The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – Why are we here? What is our function?...

Lord Byron

  • Known for romantic lifestyle and adventures – affairs/scandals
  • Don Juan – satire on his modern world

Percy Bysshe Shelley

  • Dedicated life to correcting evils of social injustice and tyranny everywhere
  • The Cloud; Prometheus Unbound – explores nature of evil in mankind

John Keats

  • Gave up career in medicine to become a poet
  • The Eve of St. Agnes; La Belle Dame Sans Merci – romantic interest in medieval legend
  • To Autumn; To a Nightingale – explore nature and our existence within it
  • Poetry often explored simple beautiful objects – both love and death offered an escape

 The Bronte Sisters

  • Wuthering Heights – depicts passions out of control; Jane Eyre – depicts controlled passion