A Second Industrial Revolution occurred in the later nineteenth century, a revolution of steel, chemicals, electricity, and the internal combustion engine. Higher wages fueled internal markets. Tariffs replaced free trade, and cartels monopolized production. Germany became the industrial leader as Britain was overly cautious in adopting new technologies. Europe was divided into an industrialized north and a poorer south and east, and, world-wide, European manufactured goods and investment capital was exported abroad in exchange for raw materials.

The status of women improved somewhat in service and white-collar jobs as typists and clerks. Prostitution remained an avenue for survival for many women. Working-class political parties, such as Germany s Social Democratic Party, were established. The Second International, 1889, hoped to coordinate Marxist socialist parties, but unity floundered on the shoals of nationalism as well as disagreements between the advocates of the revolutionary class struggle and those who envisioned socialism being achieved democratically. Trade unions were most successful in Britain. The anarchist movement was another response to perceived abuses of industrial capitalism.

Europe s population reached to 460 million by 1910. Due to economic reasons, many migrated from the poorer east and south to the industrialized north. They also hoped to escape ethnic and religious persecution. In the industrial north, urban populations constituted up to 80 percent of the total. Urban conditions improved because of building codes and better housing, cleaner water, and new sewage systems. Governments often took the lead in contrast to earlier laissez-faire, but wealthy reformer-philanthropists also established model houses and new garden towns. Old city walls were torn down, and workers commuted by trains and streetcars to the new suburbs. In redesigned cities, such as Paris and Vienna, parks and wide roads were built.

The standard of living generally improved. The elite were 5 percent of the population but controlled 30-40 percent of the wealth, as old landed wealth merged with the new industrial wealth. The middle classes, with their values of hard work and propriety, encompassed the upper middle class professionals down to the lower middle class white-collar clerks and bank tellers. Family togetherness was the aim, with a new focus upon the child. The lower classes made up 80 percent of the population, but with rising wages many workers adopted middle class values. Industrialism reinforced traditional female inferiority: women stayed at home while men went out to work. The birthrate dropped as families limited the number of children.

Because of expanding voting rights and the need to have an electorate educated in national values, most states assumed responsibility for mass compulsory education up to the age of twelve. Literacy rates reached almost 100 percent in northern Europe, leading to a demand for mass newspapers, filled with sports and sensationalism. New leisure hours, including the weekend, led to new mass entertainment; the music hall and dance halls were popular, as was organized tourism for the middle classes. Sports were also organized, on an amateur basis in the elite schools and professionally as in American baseball.

By the end of the century most British males had the vote. In France, the Third Republic was established in spite of opposition from monarchists, army officers, and the Catholic clergy. Italy was troubled by regional differences, political corruption, and ever-changing governments. The traditional order lasted longer in central and eastern Europe. In Germany, where the popularly elected Reichstag lacked power, Bismarck implemented social welfare programs to seduce the workers away from socialism. After the assassination of Russia s Alexander II, the reactionary Alexander III (r.1881-1894) and Nicholas II (r.1894-1917) opposed all reforms.
  1. Explain how innovations and advances in technology during the Industrial Revolutions led to economic and social change.
    1. European states struggled to maintain international stability in an age of nationalism and revolutions.
      1. Mechanization and the factory system became the predominant modes of production by 1914.
        • Illustrative Examples of factory production: Manchester, England, The Krupp family (Essen, Germany)
        • Illustrative Examples of New technologies: Bessemer process, Mass production, Electricity, Chemicals
      2. New technologies and means of communication and transportation – including railroads – resulted in more fully integrated national economies, a higher level of urbanization, and a truly global economic network.
        • Illustrative Examples of Developments in communication and transportation: Telegraph, Steamship, Streetcars or trolley cars, Telephones, Internal combustion engine, Airplane, Radio
      3. New, efficient methods of transportation and other innovations created new industries, improved the distribution of goods, increased consumerism, and enhanced quality of life.
        • Illustrative Examples of New, efficient methods of transportation and other innovations: Steamships, Railroads, Refrigerated rail cars, Ice boxes, Streetcars, Bicycles
        • Illustrative Examples of New industries: Chemical industry, Electricity and utilities, Automobile, Leisure travel, Professional and leisure sport
  2. Explain how industrialization influenced economic and political development throughout the period from 1815 to 1914.
    1. During the second industrial revolution (c. 1870 1914), more areas of Europe experienced industrial activity, and industrial processes increased in scale and complexity.
      1. Volatile business cycles in the last quarter of the 19th century led corporations and governments to try to manage the market through a variety of methods, including monopolies, banking practices, and tari s.
    2. Along with better harvests caused in part by the commercialization of agriculture, industrialization promoted population growth, longer life expectancy, and lowered infant mortality.
    3. A heightened consumerism developed as a result of the second industrial revolution.
      1. Industrialization and mass marketing increased both the production and demand for a new range of consumer goods – including clothing, processed foods, and labor-saving devices – and created more leisure opportunities.
        • Illustrative Examples of Developments in Mass marketing: Advertising, Department stores, Catalogs
      2. Industrialization in Prussia allowed that state to become the leader of a unified Germany, which subsequently underwent rapid industrialization under government sponsorship.
        • Illustrative Examples of Industrialization in Prussia: the Zollverein, Investment in transportation network, Adoption of improved methods of manufacturing, Friedrich List s National System
  3. Explain the causes and consequences of social developments resulting from industrialization.
    1. In industrialized areas of Europe (i.e., western and northern Europe), socioeconomic changes created divisions of labor that led to the development of self-conscious classes, including the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
    2. In some of the less industrialized areas of Europe, the dominance of agricultural elites continued into the 20th century.
    3. Class identity developed and was reinforced through participation in philanthropic, political, and social associations among the middle classes, and in mutual aid societies and trade unions among the working classes.
    4. With migration from rural to urban areas in industrialized regions, cities experienced overcrowding, while a ected rural areas su ered declines in available labor as well as weakened communities.
    5. Bourgeois families became focused on the nuclear family and the cult of domesticity, with distinct gender roles for men and women.
    6. By the end of the century, higher wages, laws restricting the labor of children and women, social welfare programs, improved diet, and increased access to birth control a ected the quality of life for the working class.
      • Illustrative Examples of Laws restricting the labor of children and women: Factory Act of 1833, Mines Act of 1842, Ten Hours Act of 1847
    7. Economic motivations for marriage, while still important for all classes, diminished as the middle-class notion of companionate marriage began to be adopted by the working classes.
    8. Leisure time centered increasingly on the family or small groups, concurrent with the development of activities and spaces to use that time.
      • Illustrative Examples of Leisure time activities and spaces: Parks, Sports clubs and arenas, Beaches, Department stores, Museums, Theaters, Opera houses

Reading 1: Pages 691-696

The Growth of Industrial Prosperity:
New Products
New Markets
New Patterns in an Industrial Economy

Reading 2: Pages 696-701

The Growth of Industrial Prosperity:
Women and Work: New Job Opportunities
Organizing the Working Classes

Reading 3: Pages 701-706

The Emergence of a Mass Society:
Population Growth
Emigration
Transformation of the Urban Environment

Reading 4: Pages 706-712

The Emergence of a Mass Society:
Social Structure of the Mass Society
 The Woman Question : The Role of Women

Reading 5: Pages 712-716

The Emergence of a Mass Society:
Education in the Mass Society
Mass Leisure
Mass Consumption

Reading 6: Pages 716-720

The National State:
Western Europe: The Growth of Political Democracy
Central and Eastern Europe: Persistence of the Old Order

Chapter 23 Introduction
Chapter 23 Summary
Chapter 23 Glossary
Chapter 23 Reading Guide
Chapter 23 Outline
Chapter 23 Overview
Chapter 23 Old-Style M-C Test: Questions Answers
Chapter 23 Scan

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