Unit 5: The Social and Political Impact of Industrialization
Industrialization not only changed the way societies produced goods. It also transformed the way people lived, turning rural towns into urban manufacturing centers. Newly industrialized societies faced health problems and challenges to conventional family and social structures. It also helped intensify the urbanization of European society, as more factories and industrial production moved from the countryside and city periphery into the urban centers. Factory owners preferred this centralization since it promoted social control of the working classes, who may have had more independence if they had lived further from their workplaces.
Politics in industrialized societies were transformed as traditional landed elites gave way to industrial capitalists and the burgeoning "middle class" of businessmen and professionals. Successful working-class entrepreneurs and small business people emerged as an expanding urban middle class. These individuals were not part of the traditional aristocracy or the peasant or working classes but created a new middle-class culture. Workers also began to challenge traditional political systems, drawing on new ideologies to suggest alternatives to the developing capitalist-industrial world in which they lived.
This unit will survey the sweeping changes that industrialization brought to Europe and the rest of the world between the late 18th and mid-19th centuries. We will then examine how working- and middle-class individuals and organizations used these changes to challenge traditional elites.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 11 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- describe how the growth of industry led to increased urbanization in Europe;
- explore the impact of child labor on the larger society;
- dissect the evolving role of women in the industrial workforce;
examine the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the political - ideologies of the middle and working classes;
- compare primary source documents to explain the ideals and goals of the Revolutions of 1848;
- discuss the causes, spread, and events of the Revolutions of 1848; and
- explain why the effects of the Revolutions of 1848 were felt significantly less in Britain.
- describe how the growth of industry led to increased urbanization in Europe;
5.1: Urban Migration and Growth of Industrial Cities
Before the Industrial Revolution, when most of the work was agrarian or artisanal, people lived on the land they worked on or near the area that produced their raw materials. As factories began to be built, the machines they housed were too large and too expensive for workers to own themselves. The merchant classes started owning the means of production: the workers no longer had direct access to what they needed to produce their work. Urban centers began to grow from industrial centers as workers' living spaces grew around the factories. As artisans started to lose their jobs due to cheap mass production, they were forced to move to urban centers searching for industrial work.
Read this article, which discusses how demographic changes affected urbanization in Europe. It explains some of the challenges of urbanization and some of the things urbanization made possible.
Read this article about the ills of urbanization. Many issues had not been addressed, from pollution to health issues to poverty, overcrowding, and crime.
Watch this lecture to learn how industrialization changed urban life during the 19th century. It also covers how the growth of cities during this time differed between the U.S. and European cities.
5.2: Women as Industrial Workers
Industrialization meant that many families had to supplement their meager wages through the employment of women and children. Women were still responsible for running the household; those employed outside the home primarily worked as domestic servants, but some worked in factories, especially if they were unmarried. In addition, families often needed children to supplement the family income as factory workers.
Watch this excerpt from this lecture you watched earlier to focus on how the Industrial Revolution changed women's lives.
Read this short article about women's roles in the workforce at the time of the Industrial Revolution. It includes accounts of women working in factories, as field hands, and as coal miners.
Read these short excerpts from Parliamentary papers about English women working in coal mines'. Accounts vary from those of the women themselves to an outside inspector who finds the spectacle of women working in the coal mines "disgusting"'.
Read this article about the emergence of two jobs suitable for unmarried middle-class women. At the time, women who were not strictly of the laboring class were not supposed to work outside the home, but "there were not enough husbands to go round", and it was not always possible for a woman's family to support her throughout her life. Being a nurse or a typewriter gradually became more acceptable employment for single, middle-class women, helping those who remained unmarried.
5.3: Widespread Use of Child Labor
One income was often not enough for the lower classes to support a family – especially a larger one. In addition, this class stratification severely limited educational opportunities. Children often went to work to help support their families, particularly at simple jobs related to work they could learn at home, such as spinning or printing.
Read this article about children living during the time of the Industrial Revolution. While it offers more of an account of the lives of lower-class children of the time, it also describes the contrasting experience of upper-class children.
Read this article about the historical debate surrounding child labor. Of particular interest is the perspective that "the nature of children's work changed so dramatically that child labor became seen as a social problem and a political issue".
Read this article about how "the exploitation of the child workforce intensified during the Industrial Revolution". It covers some of the early legislation enacted to combat the abuses suffered by child laborers.
5.4: A New Social Order in Victorian England
Industrialization in England created a new and expanding middle class that created a unique social identity based on the concept of merit rather than privilege and inheritance. Many began to encourage a new belief in personal and social progress. The emerging middle class valued principles of competition, thrift, prudence, self-reliance, and personal achievement. They also emphasized individual responsibility and freedom of action as avenues to success. These values were distinct from the social norms of the aristocracy, which were based on privilege, hierarchy, and social class status.
Read this article about the Victorian Era in England, which sets the stage for the rest of the sub-unit.
Read these excerpts from Friedrich Engels' The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844. It describes the industrialized areas of Manchester, England, and the surrounding workers' neighborhoods.
Read this article about Victorian England's quality of life. In particular, note the shift in most people's circumstances between the earlier and later Victorian eras.
Read this article about the state of public health in the Mid-Victorian era in England. Consider its arguments against what we know of people's lifestyles during those times. What accounts for any differences in the accounts?
Read this excerpt from Florence Nightingale's Selected Writings of Florence Nightingale. She describes the unsanitary conditions in which many people lived and how mothers could change the environment to make it healthier for children.
5.5: Wealth from Industry and Global Trade
As the middle class grew in the latter half of the 19th century, it split into sub-classes. The upper-middle-class brought its middle-class values with it as it continued to accumulate wealth – including a focus on merit rather than social connections. However, the aristocracy or those born into wealth did not accept the members of this "nouveau riche".
Watch this video to discover "how the production of agricultural surplus enabled a ruling class based on exploitation to take power". Pay special attention to the steps involved in this process. Do they make sense in the social and historical context considered?
Read these selected excerpts from Andrew Carnegie's "Wealth". Carnegie was a dedicated philanthropist: many of his endowments enrich today's higher education institutions. What do you think of his sense of public service?
5.6: Negative Effects of Industry Prompt Demands for Change
The Revolutions of 1848 were a complex series of events unique to each European country that experienced them. The revolts primarily resulted from a food crisis and famine in 1846, coupled with various political aspirations. While some members of the working class participated, the bourgeois or middle classes led the rebellions to protest the privileges of the monarchy. At their core, the protesters were inspired by the political ideals of the French Revolution. They protested various issues, such as the price of grain, economic hardship, harsh working conditions, and petitioned for the right to vote.
The leaders aimed to create republican or constitutional governments with universal male suffrage and limited government. Many of these revolts were liberal rebellions against monarchical governments, which the Congress of Vienna and Klemens von Metternich (1773–1859), the Austrian diplomat, had reimposed following the defeat of Napoleon. Nationalism played a significant role, particularly by the German and Italian liberals seeking German and Italian unification.
Their leaders also protested the industrialization of labor and were influenced by the rise of various socialist movements. But, many of the participants – the working classes and newly developed bourgeoisie – had different goals, and they rarely united in their opposition to conservatism and monarchism. Consequently, the revolutions failed.Read this article to understand the distinctions between socialism, socialist economics, market socialism, and related terms. It also covers key figures in socialist regimes and their policies.
Read this article about conflict theory. Karl Marx suggested that conflict (particularly between the bourgeoisie and proletariat) was a force for societal change.
Read these primary source documents that France's provisional government issued in 1848. The French revolutionaries' actions and ideals quickly spread to many other European nations. The excerpts come from the book, Readings in European History, edited by James Harvey Robinson and published in 1906.
Watch these two lectures about Marx's Theory of Alienation and Marx's Theory of Class and Exploitation. Both lectures do an excellent job showing how Marx's theories evolved and the events that influenced them.
Read these chapters about the political changes sparked by the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and Victorian culture – including scientific advances and pseudo-science. Together, they illustrate a socio-political snapshot of this extraordinary time in the British Empire.
5.7: Political Reforms Stave Off Revolution in Britain
England avoided revolution due to a greater sense of political legitimacy among the public. The Reform Act of 1832 gave English middle-class men the right to vote but disenfranchised the working class. The Second Reform Act of 1867, the Third Reform Act of 1884, and the 1885 Redistribution Act expanded the right to vote to even more men, so voting became a right rather than a property of the privileged. (English women did not obtain the right to vote until 1918.) Chartism was the English political movement (1836–1848) that advocated for the rights of the working class. Trade unions had formed to protect the health and welfare of the working classes.
Watch this lecture, which explores why Britain did not experience the revolutionary upsurges that other European nations faced in 1848. Merriman explores the role of cultural values in addition to the reasons we have noted above.
Read this article about the Chartist movement and what it did (and did not) accomplish. Pay particular attention to how the Chartists exploited the tensions between moral and physical force.
Read this article about the Reform Act of 1832. Although the act itself did not achieve sweeping reform, it set the stage for further alteration of the political landscape.
Read this article about the Second Reform Act, which promoted more significant reform than its predecessor. It was responsible for complicating the political landscape by moving Britain toward universal male suffrage.
Unit 5 Assessment
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