Transcript The Mass Society in an “Age of Progress”

The Mass Society in an “Age of
Progress”
Nathan Caldwell
The Growth of Industrial Prosperity
• New Products
– New Methods of rolling and shaping steel in late
1800’s
– French and German lead in chemical industry
– Electricity utilized as cheap power, spawned many
advances, inventions
•
•
•
•
•
Thomas Edison – Lightbulb
Joseph Swan – electric lights for commercial use
Guglielmo Marconi – radio waves across Atlantic, 1901
Alexander Graham Bell – Telephone, 1876
Electric Railroads/Streetcars – 1880’s
Growth of Industrial Prosperity
• New Products
– Internal Combustion Engine, 1878
• Used to power ships and naval vessels
• Gottlieb Daimler invented the light engine, key to the
invention of the automobile
• Henry Ford mass-produced his Model T Series (1916) to
make construction quick, efficient, and cheap
• Internal combustion engines were also used to power
early aircraft: the Zeppelin (1900), and the Wright Flyer,
invented by Wilbur and Orville Wright in 1903.
Growth of Industrial Prosperity
• New Markets
– Tariffs
• High taxes on imports were put on foreign-manufactured products to
encourage consumers to buy from manufacturers within the country to
strengthen the domestic economy
– Cartels
• Independent enterprises worked together to control prices and fix production
quotas. Cartels were essentially formed to eliminate the competition that
reduced prices of goods, giving the cartels a higher selling price without
worrying about competition. Cartels were very common in Germany.
– Larger Factories
• Formation of cartels led to increased factory sizes, especially in the iron and
steel, machinery, heavy electrical, and chemical industries. Greater
competition led some factories to streamline and rationalize production as
much as possible, like cutting labor costs by employing machines instead of
human labor. The assembly line system, pioneered by Henry Ford, allowed
interchangeable parts to be put together quickly, cleanly, and in large numbers
by workers.
Growth of Industrial Prosperity
• New Patterns in an Industrial Economy
– Although the years following 1870 were described as an era of material
prosperity, recessions and crises were not uncommon. In fact, it is
suggested that there was a depression from 1873 to 1895, however, some
countries weren’t as affected.
– German Industrial Leadership
• After 1870, the leader in the Second Industrial Revolution
was Germany
– Britain took longer to transition from older equipment and
methods from the First Industrial Revolution
– British investors were reluctant to invest in new plants; cartels
were eager to invest in more factories
– Germany placed a higher emphasis on technology and science
than did Britain
Growth of Industrial Prosperity
• New Patterns in an Industrial Economy
– European Economic Zones
• Industrial Core – Great Britain, Belgium, France, the
Netherlands, Germany, west Austria-Hungary, and northern
Italy
– High standard of living, decent transportation systems, relatively
healthy and educated population
• Agricultural Core – southern Italy, most of Austria-Hungary,
Spain, Portugal, Balkan kingdoms, and Russia
– Largely agricultural, provided food and raw materials to the
Industrial Core
– Soon, industrialized countries would develop methods for
agriculture that would enable them to provide their own food,
like chemical fertilizers and machines for harvesting and
threshing.
Growth of Industrial Prosperity
• New Patterns in an Industrial Economy
– Spread of Industrialization
• After 1870, Industrialization began to spread to beyond western
and central Europe and North America. Development in Russia
and Japan was rapid.
• Just as in the First Industrial Revolution, the early workers in Russia
and Japan worked long hours in unsanitary and unpleasant
conditions.
– A World Economy
• By 1900, the world economy was very prosperous because many
countries that participated owned special resources that other
countries wanted. This included the European importing of beef
and wool from Argentina and Australia, coffee from Brazil, nitrates
from Chile, iron ore from Algeria, and sugar from Java. European
capital was also risked in investments in third-world countries.
These risks were often rewarded with high rates of return.
Growth of Industrial Prosperity
• Women and Work: New Job Opportunities
– Early Jobs for Women
• Despite the argument made by men that women should be exclusively in the
house, many women found it necessary to obtain a job to make ends meet.
Some jobs such as “sweating”, the subcontracting of piecework as for a tailor,
allowed women to earn wages while still working at home.
– White Collar Jobs
• After 1870, new jobs became available for women in the service, or whitecollar, field. Some of these jobs included working as clerks, typists, secretaries,
postal occupations, and teaching.
– Prostitution
• Desperate women who could not work a regular job tried to find economic
refuge in prostitution. These prostitutes sometimes contributed to large parts
of a city’s population. In the 1870’s and 1880’s, the British government passed
the Contagious Diseases Acts which gave the government the right to examine
prostitutes for diseases. These acts incited opposition from middle-class
female reformers like Josephine Butler and her “shrieking sisters” who were
known for discussing sexual matters in public.
Growth of Industrial Prosperity
• Organizing the Working Class
– Socialist Parties
• German Socialism
– The two leaders, Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel, of the SPD
(Social Democratic Party) in Germany, both organized the association
around Marxist theories while campaigning for seats in the Reichstag.
They claimed that they would negotiate for the working class.
• French Socialism
– Jean Jaures, the leader of the French Socialists, was independent and
looked to the French revolutionary tradition rather than Marxism to
justify socialism.
• Results of Socialism
– As Socialist parties grew in many nations, an international organization
founded to strengthen their position against capitalism called the Second
International was created. The international labor holiday, May Day, was
created by the Second International to justify organized labor strikes and
demonstrations
Growth of Industrial Prosperity
• Organizing the Working Classes
– Evolutionary Socialism or Revisionism
• Eduard Bernstein was a member of the SPD, who challenged
Marxism, saying that the system was wrong. Because of the rapidly
changing social environment in which the working and the middle
classes grew closer and closer together, there was no need for a
violent struggle or revolution between the two. Instead, the
workers must combine and form political parties to be assured
socialism through democratic means. Revisionist Marxists stated
that socialism could be achieved through peaceful reforms from
within a capitalist system.
– The Problem of Nationalism
• Nationalism was a problem for Socialism because each Socialist
system in each country had different issues and concerned.
Because of this reason, Europe would never be able to fully unite
under the Socialist flag.
Growth of Industrial Prosperity
• The Role of Trade Unions
– Instead of joining Socialist parties, some workers united to form trade unions
to better their working conditions. Although in Britain labor unions saw much
success, they failed to develop as quickly on the continent. On the continent,
trade unions were closely tied to socialist parties, each union having varying
degrees of success.
• The Anarchist Alternative
– Some people who viewed Marxism as anti-radical became frustrated with the
lack of revolutionary fervor and resorted to anarchism, the belief that true
freedom could be achieved only after all state and social institutions had been
abolished. Initially, the movement was non-violent, however, some anarchists
like Mikhail Bakunin and Lev Aleshker believed that well-trained
revolutionaries could perpetrate so much violence that the state could be
disintegrated. Because of this violent side of anarchy, many world leaders
were assassinated including a Russian tsar (1881), a president of the French
Republic (1894), the king of Italy (1900), and the president of the United
States (1901).
Emergence of a Mass Society
– After 1870, a new mass culture began to appear in Europe that
included new patterns of industrial production, mass consumption,
working-class organization, a larger and vastly improved urban
environment, new patterns of social structure, gender issues, mass
education, and mass leisure.
• Population Growth
– European population increased dramatically between 1850 to 1910,
increasing from 270 million to 460 million inhabitants.
– Decline in death rate, increase in birth rate, as well as increased
agricultural production, better nutrition and food hygiene, cause
increase in population.
• Emigration
– Terrible conditions in eastern and southern Europe and cheap fares to
the Americas with the promise of a better life lured emigrants to
America.
– Between 1846-1932, estimated 60 million Europeans left for America.
Emergence of a Mass Society
• Transformations of the Urban Environment
– Urban dwellers made up more than half of
European populations by 1914.
– By 1900, London’s population was over 6.5
million, and Berlin’s was 2.7 million. 147 cities
had populations over 100,000 in 1900 compared
to 21 in 1800.
– People driven to urban areas because of
employment, improved health and living
conditions.
Emergence of a Mass Society
• Transformation of the Urban Environment
– Improving Living Conditions
• Urban reformers like Edwin Chadwick, Rudolf Virchow, and Solomon Neumann pointed
out that filthy living caused diseases.
• Public Health Act was an act passed in 1875 by Parliament that improved living
conditions by prohibiting the construction of new buildings without running water and
plumbing.
• Sewer systems began to appear in German cities in the 1860’s. London constructed a
large system of sewers that carried waste to a location outside of the city where it was
chemically treated. However, many other sewer systems in other cities caused major
pollution.
– Housing Needs
• Reformers such as V.A. Huber stressed the need for clean, affordable housing for urban
dwellers, and Octavia Hill rehabilitated houses and built new buildings to create housing
for 3,500 tenants.
• Lord Leverhulme constructed Port Sunlight, a special community for his soap factory
workers.
• Ebenezer Howard founded the garden city movement which advocated the construction
of new towns separated by open country to provide recreational opportunities, fresh air,
and sense of community. Letchward Garden City, founded in 1903, was the first garden
city.
• Lawmakers tried to set and enforce building codes, however, they failed to meet the
requirements of the working class.
Emergence of a Mass Society
• Transformation of the Urban Environment
– Redesigning the Cities
• Cities were modernized and enlarged, replacing old
defensive walls with parks and boulevards. Broad
streets helped the military to quell civil disturbances
and to beautify the cities.
• 1850 reconstruction of Paris under Napoleon III was
most famous reconstruction, provided a model for
other urban centers.
• Streetcars and Commuter Trains improved traffic flows
in cities.
Emergence of a Mass Society
• Social Structure of the Mass Society
– Upper Class
• Divided into plutocrats and aristocrats; aristocrats had titles, but
little money, and plutocrats were usually very wealthy because
they were the owners of large businesses, but didn’t have a title.
As a result, many plutocrats and aristocrats intermarried,
plutocrats for a title, and aristocrats for money, as was the case of
Consuelo Vanderbilt marrying the Duke of Marlborough.
– Middle Classes
• The middle classes were divided into many groups, each of which
was determined based on income. Most of the middle class
members were well-off people who held good jobs. It was the
middle class that stressed the importance of science and
technology, as well as good conduct and living proper lives.
Emergence of a Mass Society
• Social Structure of the Mass Society
– The Lower Class
• Almost 80% of the European population belonged to the lower
class, many of them working as landholding peasants, agricultural
laborers, and sharecroppers, especially in eastern Europe.
• The number of agricultural laborers in western Europe was not
many, however, most of the lower classes resorted to urban labor,
working as artisans, semi-skilled laborers, and factory workers.
• Also, a large part of the unskilled lower class worked as domestic
servants, almost 1 out of every 6 workers in Britain. Most were
women.
• Urban workers experienced a betterment of living in their material
conditions after 1871, when wages began to rise, efforts were
made to improve housing, and workdays became shorter.
Emergence of a Mass Society
• “The Woman Question”: The Role of Women
– The “woman question” was used to refer to the debate over the role of
women in society. Women were still largely considered inferior (legally, in
fact) as expressed in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem The Princess.
– Marriage and Domesticity
• For women, marriage was largely an economic necessity. Because
it was necessary to marry to economically sustain oneself,
marriage rates increased and illegitimacy rates decreased.
– Birthrates and Birth Control
• Birthrates dropped during the late 1800’s because of more
advanced forms of birth control like condoms and contraceptives.
In 1882, Aletta Jacob established the first family planning center in
Amsterdam. The idea of family planning came originally from the
need to control the poverty of the lower class, but the idea soon
spread to middle class families as well.
Emergence of a Mass Society
• The “Woman Question”: The Role of Women
– The Middle-Class Family
• The family was the central institution of middle class life. Men
provided the family income, while women focused on household and
child care. Later, the woman was supposed to devote more time to
child care and domestic leisure, providing and fostering her children in
a constructive manner. Mothers were seen as the most important
force in protecting children from the adult world, and was responsible
for determining the atmosphere of the household through her
character.
• Toys and games also served to educate young children and encourage
them to use their knowledge. Sports were also created in boarding
schools where most boys were sent to “toughen” them up. An
alternative to athletics was the Boy Scout organization, a program
founded in Britain in 1908 by Lord Baden-Powell where boys were
given adventure as well as taught discipline and knowledge of life.
The Emergence of a Mass Society
• “The Woman Question”: The Role of Women
– The Working Class Family
• As opposed to middle-class women, working-class women
were expected to work from a young age to support their
family, however working-class women were not expected to
work as much after wages on industrial jobs increased, so
they could spend more time in the home. Working-class
families also followed the middle class in limiting the size of
their families, as children were viewed more as dependents
instead of potential wage-earners. Improvements in living
conditions and public health made it easier to choose to
have less children.
Emergence of a Mass Society
• Education in the Mass Society
– Universal Elementary Education
• Many Western countries established primary school systems
throughout Europe and North America run through the
government in order to create citizens with knowledge to be more
successful in life and inculcate the middle-class virtues of hard
work, thrift, sobriety, cleanliness, and respect. In states like France
and Austria, primary education was provided free-of-charge.
– Female Teachers
• Women were given job opportunities for teaching school because
of the demand created by compulsory schools. Women were
considered “natural” for this role because it reflected their role as
nurturers of the family. Soon, colleges for women to learn how to
teach were established, giving women a chance to make a large
impact on their society.
Emergence of a Mass Society
• Education in the Mass Society
– Literacy and Newspapers
• An immediate result of compulsory schooling was a
decreased illiteracy rate, eliminating illiteracy in much of
western Europe and North America. However, illiteracy
rates in eastern Europe, where little public schooling was
available, were very high, ranging above 70%.
• Newspapers and magazines soon became popular after the
1870’s after the dramatic increase in literacy. “Yellow press”
was a popular form of journalism of the day. Written in
easy-to-understand style, these newspapers featured articles
for everyone, including details of crimes, gossip, and sports.
• Mass literature like pulp fiction and specialty magazines also
became popular.
Emergence of a Mass Culture
• Mass Leisure
• Mass leisure was what was considered “fun” while not at
work. After the advent of the “weekend”, mass leisure
became something that all people could enjoy, even the
working class. Places like Blackpool, Coney Island, athletic
events, and beaches attracted workers from cities to take
day-trips to relax and enjoy not working.
– Music and Dance Halls
• Music and Dance Halls became popular during the late
1800’s, and even more popular by the 1900’s. Music halls
catered more to families and lower-class audiences, while
dance halls were more oriented for adults.
Emergence of a Mass Culture
• Mass Leisure
– Mass Tourism
• Because of increased wages, more families were able to afford vacations,
often paid ones.
• Thomas Cook set up a company that offered railroad trips on regular bases by
renting special trains and lowering prices to attract more people. He offered
trips to Paris as well as to Switzerland later on. These trips were affordable to
every social class, allowing even the lower class to take weekend excursions.
Thomas Cook's legacy lives on in the form of a charter service mainly dealing
with air charters.
– Team Sports
• Playing and watching sports was also considered mass leisure. As well as the
benefit of fun, sports offered training for adolescents and adults alike.
• Professional Sports Leagues like the Football (Soccer) Association in Britain,
and the American and National Leagues (Baseball) in America allowed
workers to experience cheap mass leisure.
The National State
• Western Europe: The Growth of Political
Democracy
– Reform in Britain
• By 1871, Britain had a functioning two party system that was
pushed along by the expansion of suffrage.
– Reform Act of 1867 was a precursor to the Reform Act of 1884,
which gave the right to vote to all males who paid regular rents
and taxes, however females were excluded.
• The Irish Home Rule was a proposal by Charles Parnell that
would give the people of Ireland a parliament, but not
complete independence. A bill was drafted in 1886 by
William Gladstone to give these demands to Ireland,
however they never were passed by Congress and the
Ireland question remained unsolved.
The National State
• Western Europe: The Growth of Political Democracy
– The Third Republic in France
• After fighting broke out after Bismarck forced France to become more liberalized, a
new constitution was drafted, establishing the Third French Republic, complete
with universal male suffrage, bicameral legislature, as well as a president with a
term of seven years. This Republic lasted 65 years.
• The Commune
– An independent republican government formed after the monarchists
gained control of the National Assembly that attempted to rule France,
but was put down French troops after a short war that gave women the
opportunity to show that they could do men's work: fight. However,
these actions were in vain, ending the deaths of thousands of Commune
defenders and the deportation of more than ten thousand to the penal
colony of New Caledonia.
• General Georges Boulanger
– A popular military leader who attempted to lead a coup d'etat with the
support of those disgruntled by the Third Republic. By 1889, he had
gained enough power and support to the point where he could
overthrow the government, however he feared for his life and fled to
Britain.
The National State
• Western Europe: The Growth of Political Democracy
– Spain
• In Spain, a parliamentary system was created under King Alfonso
XII in 1875. After the loss of the Spanish American War, in which
Spain lost the territories of Cuba and the Philippines to the United
States, a group of intellectuals called the Generation called for
political and social reforms. After violence erupted in 1909, the
military brutally suppressed the rebels. The revolt and repression
made it clear that reform would not be easy in Spain.
– Italy
• By 1870, Italy had emerged as a geographically united state,
however, loyalties to towns and families were placed above loyalty
to the state. Also, sectional differences between the povertystricken South and the industrial North weakened any sense of
unity. Also, less than 10% of the population was able to vote.
The National State
• Central and Eastern Europe: Persistence of the Old
Order
– Germany
• The creation of the Reichstag, a German parliament based on
universal male suffrage, did little to improve democracy in
Germany largely because of the policies of Bismarck, the
chancellor
• Bismarck’s policies
– Kulturkampf
» A series of acts passed by Bismarck that limited the power of the
Catholic Church in Germany. He was supported by the liberals in
the Reichstag.
– Bismarck, with the aid of the Reichstag, created a social security system
with sickness, accident, and disability benefits as well as pensions. He
was stopped from trying to quell socialism in 1890 when he was fired by
Emperor William II.
The National State
• Central Europe: Persistence of the Old Order
– Austria-Hungary
• In order to unify the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, a combination of
religious and bureaucratic force was used. In Hungary, there was an
ethnicity problem, only temporarily solved by Magyarization, an
action taken by the people of Hungary in order to provoke a sense of
nationalism, the Magyar language was taught in schools, and was the
only language used by government and military officials.
– Russia
• Tsar Alexander III allowed no democratic reforms because he believed
that reforms were what got his father, Alexander III, assassinated. He
used a strict bureaucracy in conjunction with a strong military to
ensure the unity of his country. He also implemented Russification, a
social program that limited the public schools in Russia to speak
strictly Russian, a policy that angered many social groups in Russia,
considering that true Russians made up a minority.
SPRITE
•
Social
– Weekend, Coney Island, Blackpool, mass transit, day-trippers, population growth, whitecollar jobs, domestic servants, prostitution, Contagious Diseases Act, SPD, Liebknecht
and Bebel, Jean Jaures, May Day, evolutionary socialism, Bernstein, mass society,
emigration, urban populations, V.A. Huber and Octavia Hill, Port Sunlight, Garden City
movement, plutocrats, Consuelo Vanderbilt, “the woman question”, family planning,
sports, Boy Scouts, mass education, female teachers, “yellow press”, mass leisure, music
and dance halls, Thomas Cook, team sports, Magyarization, Russification
•
Political
– Revolutionary socialism, anarchy, Michael Bakunin, Reform Act of 1884, Irish Home Rule,
Third French Republic, Commune, General Georges Boulanger, Spanish-American War,
Cuba and Philippines, Reichstag, Bismarck’s welfare legislation
•
Religious
– Christian and Catholic trade unions, kulturkampf
•
Ideas
– Edison, Marconi, Daimler, Swan, Ford, Wright Brothers, evolutionary socialism
•
Technology
– Steel, electricity, chemicals, internal combustion engine, airplane, assembly line
•
Economic
– Tariffs, cartels, larger factories, depression, German factories, agriculture, Asian
factories, trade unions