19th Century Society

19th Century Society
I. 2nd Industrial Revolution (British won the 1st Industrial Revolution)
a. Bessemer Steal Process 
i. Stronger steal, no longer iron
ii. Change in energy – from coal wood/steam  oil kerosene, eventually electricity (first electrical generating stations in 1881 in England 
iii. Germany becomes a chemical leader (dyes, soaps, explosives, drugs)
iv. Skilled workers with expertise are in demand (engineering, architecture, accountants, chemists) – science and industry become linked 
v. Urbanization – now more people live in the cities than in the country side – management is needed – people who can manage other people
vi. Germany over takes England in the 1890’s 
vii. 1890’s – over half the people work for a company with more than 20 employees 
II. Urbanization - 1891 – over half of the British live in urban areas 
a. Over 9 cities will have a population of over 1 million 
b. Better nutrition and medical knowledge – increase birth rates and life expectancy – also changed housing and living conditions within the housing 
c. Open sewers, no public transportation in earlier times, so sanitary conditions improved
i. Public health movement (Edwin Chadwick [Benthomite]) – it would be cheaper to have close drains compared to all the costs that would come from all the dead heads of families
ii. 1848 – First public law – sewer etc.  
d. George von Haussmann - commissioned by Napoleon III to design the sewer system in Paris and the rest of it too – knocks down inner city slums and builds new inner city middle class housing - over 400 miles of underground sewer systems 
e. Electric street cars in the bid cities by the 1890’s (only 9% of Britain will be over crowed by 1900
f. Migration– from the countryside to the cities, within a country 
g. Emigration – moving countries, especially southern and eastern Europeans 
i. They went from empire states to freer countries 
ii. Pogroms – Jews fled Russia due to anti-Semitism
III. Social restructuring – in the history of the world there wasn’t a greater time of social restructuring than this time
a. Major changes – increased standard of living. There is still a huge gap between the wealthy and the working class, but there is the development of a solid middle class, and even the working class got a bump in terms of their standard of living – mass production allows goods to be cheaper so they can be afforded by even the poor and the lower middle class 
i. For example, wages and consumption increase between 1820 -1850 by about 50% HUGE. It tapers off in Britain as it increases in other countries  
ii. Need for experts – managers (more people), engineers (need extreme technical knowhow), chemists (produce and create new chemicals), architects (more people living in one area), accountants (a whole new profession just to keep track of the finances of these new, big businesses), surveyors (how to a lot, measure and manage property) – more people, a meter here or there will make a huge difference, unlike in fields.
1. Now there is a market for renters
2. White color professions come in existence 
iii. The will be a breakdown of the class system because there is a greater middle class and if everyone is either upper/low/middle class, then there is no reason to struggle. Marx’s theory of Communism depended on there only being two class
iv. Across Europe, the middle class at this time was around average 20%, upper class 5%, and working class 75%. The middle class has three level – upper[bankers, industrialist, top government officials]/middle [small business men, merchants, doctors, lawyer, civil servants, pharmacists](imitated the upper class, they had servants (a household), middle had far fewer servants, maybe one, a cook, a maid etc.). Lower middle class “petite bourgeoisie” [clerks, teachers, craftsmen (goldsmith)], it goes from 7% 1850 – 20% 1900
b. Middle class was the smallest % of the population in Russia (only 2%) – Communist Revolution, even though Marx said it had to be an industrialist country
c. Characteristics of the middle class
i. Wanted protection of private property – with constitutionalism, they put their faith in representative democracy 
ii. Tried to increase their political participation through land ownership and voting
iii. Saw the family as the foundation of the social order
iv. Believed in frugality, even though they often spent money on servants 
v. Believed in education and religion
vi. Often were strong nationalists 
d. Characteristics of the Working
i. Even less unified than the middle class
ii. At the top of the working class about 15% were the labour aristocracy (the working class also had divisions like the middle class) – this included foremen, bosses, skilled workers (top 15%), they also got paid more 
1. Next – semi-skilled workers (huge chunk in the middle) – brick layers, carpenters, successful factory workers 
2. Bottom – unskilled workers – work in factories, carrying stuff, loading stuff, domestic servants (cooks, maids, etc), domestic service was a woman’s profession (in 1900 over half the working women in England were domestic [cooking/cleaning]),
3. They still had child labour, even still in factories (1873 – 14% of English textile workers were children)
e. Changing family – the new main reason for marriage in the middle class became Romantic love
i. Rising living standards allowed them to marry younger
ii. Economic status still factored in, but less
iii. Before children…sex…foreplay! 
iv. Chastity - became very important, they made sure the foreplay and all that DIDN’T happen until they were married
v. Before there was a relatively high illegitimacy rate, after 1850 it goes down drastically (more pressure for the guy to marry her)
vi. There is a market for prostitution because the women from their own class weren’t available 
vii. Men will marry later – “settle down” adultery is frowned upon, men are punished more lightly than women 
viii. After 1850 women (middle class) are not supposed to work, they should manage the household, men are the primary bread winners 
ix. Women demanded better education 
x. Childrearing becomes more important because kids now have a better chance of surviving, so you become more attached it. Few wet nurses, special immunizations from breastfeeding yourself 
xi. Child raising books 
xii. Children from the working class go to work sooner (when they reach adolescence)
IV. Fin du Siècle/ Belle Époque (1895-1914)
a. Better living, especially in nothern Europe (Germany, Britain, France) – wages are increasing while the price of food in decreasing. In UK, wages will almost double again 
i. Sports kicked off – bicycling 
ii. This will have an effect of fashion – women especially, looser clothing, got rid of the whale bone corsets
b. Pubs kicked off / taverns
c. Increased consumption, all this money spent on sports/ cafes and taverns  department stores
d. Dance halls and music halls 
e. Telephones, light bulbs, radio, automobiles, gramophone (record player), motion pictures
f. Government spending on education for children (1900- all children from 5-12 years were required to attend school in England) in France, 3-13
i. Huge increase in literacy – but men still had a higher literacy rate than women, people in the cities still had a higher literacy rates, people and western Europe still had higher literacy rates 
ii. By 1900, the literacy rate in Germany was 99%, in Russia it was 25%
iii. At the end of primary school, girls were discriminated against, families could afford to send all their children to secondary education, so they sent the men (working class)
iv. Middle class – invested more in the women so they had better marriage prospects 
V. Scientific Advances (science almost becomes a religion for some people)
a. Bacteria revolution - 
i. Louis Pasteur (fermentation was caused by the growth of living organisms, which can be killed by heating it, reduction of food poisoning)
ii. Joseph Lister – antiseptic principal, Listerine, applied un surgery, they sterilized instrument, people were dying of infections 
iii. Edward Jenner – pioneered vaccination (typhoid, cholera, small pox)
iv. Mendeleev – periodic table (1869)
v. Faraday – analyzes the principles of electro magnetism, develops the first dynamo (electrical generator)
vi. Comte – developed Sociology idea that you can define certain principles to regulate activity – trying to control society by regulating it 
vii. Biology – Charles Darwin – evolution 
1. Social Darwinism – Herbert Spencer (later becomes a justification of imperialism)
2. Huxley defended evolution 
viii. Freud – geniuses of the 19th century – Marx, Darwin, Freud 
1. Humans are irrational creatures, personalities defined by hidden feelings, repressed sexuality
ix. Marie Curie – radiation – husband Pierre, died of radiation poisoning
1. Rutherford – split the atom, realized that the atoms have nuclei 
2. Max Plank – quantum theory - matter and energy might be two forms of the same thing 
3. Einstein - does for physics what Darwin does for Bio and what Freud does for Psych – theory of Relativity – things like time and space are relative to the viewer, the only constant is the speed light 
a. E=mc2 – it equates mass and energy = controversial 
x. Three major scientific things = three major philosophical view
1. Darwin= undermines the bible version of human creation
2. Freud says that people are not rational  undermines the Enlightenment
3. Einstein – refutes Newtonian physics – the very building blocks of the universe are relative = uncertainty in people’s minds 
a. All this is shown in WWI – maybe we do give into our animal instincts
VI. Catholic challenges
a. In this time the catholic church finds itself under assault like it hasn’t been since the reformation 
i. Nationalism is hurting it – it used to be nationality in itself almost 
ii. Now people see the catholic church as being against nationalism (why should only be Italian popes, why should they tell, say, the French what to do)
b. Bismarck is Majorly against Catholicism 
i. Kultur Kampf – there are two areas in Europe that are trying to become nations – Germany and Italy – as part of this they attack the Catholic church 
1. The pope responds, in the most logical way possible, by attacking them
a. Pope Pius IX – Syllabus of errors (1864) – condemns liberalism and the unification of Italy 
b. The Vatican council will then, six years later, issue the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility (it will only be repealed recently) 
2. Pope Leo XIII – another counter reformation – Rerum Novarum (1891)  trying to allow Catholics to participate in the politics of new liberal states (such as Germany) – he does condemn socialism and Marxism, defends private property (capitalism), workers should be paid a living wage, capitalists are responsible for providing this, supports laws that protect workers  big turnaround from the beginning of the century 
a. We start to catholic parties (CSU/CDU)
b. However, there is still a lowering of church attendance by the lower class 
VII. Realism – more science, more rationality – see the world the way it really is
a. In part, a reaction to the revolutions of 1848
b. Literature 
i. Balzac – a lot about coffee houses… wrote The Human Comedy – depicts urban society and grasping, like the jungle, dog eat dog, criticizing the brutality of Urban life 
ii. Flaubert – Madam Bovary it shows the pettiness and the hypocrisy of the middle class 
iii. Zola – Germinal depicts the hard life of minors in northern France 
iv. George Elliot – (Mary Anne Evans) – criticizes the way classes exploit other classes 
v. Thomas Hardy – Tess of the D’Urbervilles – a young woman from a lower class is abused by the son of her master and ends up getting killed for having premarital sex 
vi. Tolstoy – fatalistic view of the world 
vii. Scandinavia gives us Henry Ibsen – he started as a very unrealistic playwright (father of modern realism) worked together with Grieg (Pyre Gynt )
1. A dolls House – the woman walks out on her husband, is forced to change the ending
2. Ghosts – character dies of venereal disease
3. Hedda gobler – suicide 
c. Sell artwork rather than patrons 
i. France is once again the centre of the art world
ii. The realistic painters want to paint things the way they are
iii. Courbet – coined the term realism 
iv. Millet – farmers, women harvesting 
v. Daumier – painted “Third Class Carriage” 
vi. Degas – “Laundry Girls Ironing” 
vii. The artists did not stay in realistic mode, they got bored because of photography, so they moved into Impressionism 
viii. Manet – moved into impressionism, got people all hot and bothered because of a couple of paintings “Luncheon of the Grass” – nude female with two clothed males and “Olympia” portrait, nude prostitute 
VIII. Impressionism – because photography could take realistic pictures, so they tried to capture the moment, the impression.
a. Used light and the blurring if images, showed brush strokes
i. Monet 
ii. Renoir 
iii. Pissarro 
b. Post- Impressionism  Expressionism 
i. People keep getting farther and farther out there (even though expressionism won’t be coined as a term until after WWI)
ii. Van Gogh 
iii. Paul Gaugin – pioneered expressionistic techniques, famous especially for his paintings of the South Pacific (naked women on beaches) – very avant garde style  
iv. Cezanne – started to move away from traditional 3D, realistic paintings to more 2D expressionist painting 
v. The major avant garde painters, that go into the 20th century, prior to WWII
1. Matisse – lead a group of painters whose work were called expressionism, painted real objects, but were more interesting in color, line and form, so they messed them up, were called the “wild beasts” by the critics
2. Picasso – cubism, Spanish, geometric, zigzagging things, cuts things down into cubes and geometric patterns to emphasize them, rather than hide them 
3. Braque – worked with Picasso, continues to develop cubism
4. Kandinsky – Russian, trends to go completely away from form, into colors, expression, goes beyond cubism