Mass Society in an Age of Progress

1
Mass Society in an Age of Progress
FIFI

• 1871 - 1894

2
Main Points

• Era of significant material prosperity and
  progress
• Second Industrial Revolution reinforces faith in
  materialism
• Mass Society emerges with this broad urban,
  industrial and economic growth
• Era of increased democracy and the triumph of
  liberalism
• New ideas of mass politics, propaganda and mass
  press

3
Growth of Industrial Prosperity

• After 1871, new technology and industrial
  developments triggered Second Industrial
  Revolution
• First IR focused on textiles, coal, iron and RR
• Second focused on steel, chemicals, electricity,
  and petroleum

4
New Products, New Markets

• Substitution of steel for iron (Bessemer Process
  and Gilchrist Process)
• Chemical production Germany surpasses GB (soap,
  paper, dyes, film)
• Electricity
• T. Edison (1847-1931) and Joseph Swan light
  bulb
• A.G. Bell (1847-1922) telephone, 1876
• G. Marconi (1874-1937) radio waves across the
  Atlantic, 1901
• Transformation of factories to electrical power

5
New Products, New Markets

• Internal combustion engine and petroleum power
• Automobile and airplane
• Daimler (1886) engine
• H. Ford (1863-1947) mass production
• Zeppelin airship, 1900
• Wright brothers, 1903

6
Evolution of the Zeppelin
to a reallybigexplodingGermanZeppelin
From the very first Zeppelin
to the virile progenitors of heavy metal Zeppelin
to the Viagra-dependent Zeppelin!
7
New Products, New Markets
Marconis radio (1901) Daimlers internal
combustion engine in the first motorcycle (1885)
8
New Products, New Markets

• New markets
• Increased wages and elevated standard of living
• Competition
• Advertisement
• Tariffs
• Cartels (Rhenish Westphalian Coal Syndicate)
• Precision tools/interchangeable parts and
  assembly line

9
New Patterns in an Industrial Economy

• Depression, 1873-1895 falling prices, business
  slump
• Economic boom after 1895
• La belle époque
• German Industrial Leadership
• Germany replaces Britain as the industrial leader
  of Europe
• New areas of manufacturing emphasis on
  scientific and technological education

10
New Patterns in an Industrial Economy

• Europes two economic zones Industrial and
  Agricultural
• Advance industrial core of Great Britain, Belgium
  France, the Netherlands, Germany, western part of
  the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and northern Italy
• Little industrial development in southern Italy,
  most of Austria-Hungary, Spain, Portugal, the
  Balkan kingdoms, and Russia
• Development of world economy caused many
  agricultural areas to specialize due to an
  abundance of grain

11
Industrial Regions of Europe by 1914
12
Women and Work

• Right to work
• Ideal of domesticity/cult of domesticity vs.
  reality of financial need
• Sweatshops and slopwork and factory
  restrictions
• White-Collar Jobs
• Increased white-collar jobs created shortage of
  male workers opening up opportunities for women
• Secretaries, teachers, clerks, telephone
  operators, nurses
• Freedom from domestic patterns
• Prostitution
• Contagious Diseases Acts of 1870s and 1880s
• Government penalizes prostitutes, not Johns
• Josephine Butlers Shrieking Sisters
• Repeal of the acts in 1886

13
Women and Work
Female telephone operators French prostitutes
Why didnt they just wash the muff?
14
Organizing the Working Class

• Growing numbers of workers they wanted their
  voices heard and developed labor unions and
  political parties
• Socialist Parties in Germany
• German Social Democratic Party (SPD) 1875 most
  prominent socialist party why in Germany?
• Liebknecht and Bebel Marxist rhetoric
• Socialist Parties in France
• Variety of socialist parties
• Jean Juares rejects Marxism in favor of model
  from French Revolution
• Effects of the growth of socialist parties
  Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland,
  Romania and Russia
• Second International (1889) and International
  Labor Day 5/1

15
Organizing the Working Class

• Two divisive issues Revisionism and Nationalism
• Evolutionary Socialism vs. Marxism
• Bebel and Marxism
• Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932) and Revisionism
• Nationalism
• The working man has no country (?)
• Many like Marx favored international approach but
  nationalism was a powerful force!

16
Organizing the Working Class

• Formation of labor unions
• Right to strike
• Replacement of violent upheaval with collective
  bargaining
• Strong ties to socialist parties why?
• Anarchism
• Initially a peaceful movement
• Bakunins approach more violence
• Use of assassination

17
Contrasting Political Viewpoints
Gradual change!
Destroy the state!
VIOLENT REVOLUTION!
And shoot someone!
Bebel We aim in the domain of politics at
republicanism in the domain of economics at
socialism in the domain of what is today called
religion, at atheism. Bernstein "The Communist
Manifesto was correctbutwe see the privileges
of the capitalist bourgeoisie yieldingto
democratic organizationsIn my judgmentsuccess
lies in a steady advancethan ina catastrophic
clash. Bakunin If there is a State, then there
is domination, and in turn, there is slavery.
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Emergence of Mass Society

• Population Growth
• 270 mil to 460 mil from 1850-1910!
• Decline in the death rate
• Medical discoveries and environmental conditions
• Improved publication sanitation
• Improved nutrition
• Increased emigration to urban areas and to US
• Opportunity for employment
• Need to escape persecution

19

• Population Growth in Europe, 1820-1900

20
The Urban Environment

• Growth of cities / Urbanization
• Urban Reformers and Improved Living Conditions
• Edwin Chadwick, Rudolf Virchow
• Pointed to relationship between living conditions
  and disease
• Boards of Health established
• Buildings begin to be inspected for problems
• Public Health Act of 1875 in Britain
• Clean water into the city
• Expulsion of sewage

21
Transformation of the Urban Environment

• Housing Needs
• Reformer-philanthropists focused on relationship
  of living conditions to political and moral
  health of the nation
• Victor A. Huber, German reformer no more SLUMS!
• Octavia Hill personal investment in housing
• Lord Leverhulme Port Sunlight and his soap
  factory
• Ebenezer Howard Letchward Garden City
• Garden City Movement
• Redesigning the cities British Housing Act of
  1890
• Construct new buildings, reconfigure spaces
• Cheap modern transportation urban sprawl,
  suburbs
• Liberal principles of government dont hold true

22
Transformation of the Urban Environment
Slum housing Lord Levelhulmes houses for his
employees at Port Sunlight Village the visual
concept for the Garden City Movement
23
Social Structure of Mass Society

• The Elite
• 5 percent of the population that controlled 30 to
  40 percent of wealth
• Alliance of wealthy business elite and
  traditional aristocracy
• Common bonds
• The Middle Classes
• Stratification Upper middle class, middle
  middle-class, lower middle-class
• Professionals
• White-collar workers
• Middle class values came to dominate society and
  culture
• The Lower classes
• 80 percent of the European population
• Agriculture
• Urban working class stratification Skilled,
  semiskilled, unskilled workers

24
Social Structure of Mass Society
The elite, the urban poor and the rural poor
25
The Woman Question

• There were increased job opportunities for women
• However, many women still aspired to the ideal of
  femininity
• Marriage was the only honorable and/or available
  career
• Lord Tennysons The Princess
• Man is the hunter woman is his gameThe sleek
  and shining creatures of the chase,We hunt them
  for the beauty of their skinsThey love us for
  it, and we ride them down.
• Pt. V, l. 147-150.
• Man for the field and woman for the hearthMan
  for the sword and for the needle sheMan with
  the head and woman with the heartMan to command
  and woman to obeyAll else confusion.
• Pt. V, l. 427-431.

26
The Family and Family Life

• Cult of Domesticity glorified
• Before increased job opportunities, women had to
  marry out of financial necessity
• Most women chose to marry, however lowering
  illegitimacy, but so did
• Family Planning
• Family size limited (contraception vulcanized
  rubber)
• Dr. Aletta Jacob first birth control clinic in
  Amsterdam 1882
• Those who could afford children used birth
  control those who could not often didnt
• Many spoke out against birth control

27
The Middle Class Family

• Family was a central institution
• Men income
• Women household, socials, needlepoint the
  more idle the better!
• Domestic Servants housework/cooking
• 1890 to 1914 higher paying jobs made it possible
  to live on the husbands wages
• Leisure time due to higher wages and reduced work
  week
• Holiday traditions
• Gender-based activities, toys for children

28
The Working Class Family

• Wages improved to allow younger children NOT to
  work, and even more women were staying at home
  like middle class
• Consumer goods sewing machines, stoves,
  bicycles provided goals to work toward
• Saturday leisure
• Compulsory education removed children from
  factories and put them in schools

29
Education and Leisure

• Schools
• Gymnasium (Secondary Schools)
• Secondary (University) for wealthy and later,
  middle class
• Needed compulsory education for informed voting
  public and national pride!
• Germany had 1st public education system early
  19th century
• By 1870s more school requirements
• Impact on literacy
• Growth of publications

30
Education and Leisure

• Second IR decimated village life of past long
  holidays didnt mesh with industrial pace
• Shorter work days/weeks more leisure!
• Machines to do housework more leisure!
• Rail travel to resorts and Tourism (Thomas Cook)
• Music and dance halls
• Organized sports
• Amusement Parks

31
Early Days of Sport
Rugby in Britain Football (Soccer) in Genoa
32
Ferris Wheel Old School
Weeeee!
Life sucks for us!
33
The National StateWestern Europe and the Growth
of Political Democracy

• With the exception of Spain and Italy,
  parliamentary control of the governments of
  western Europe were able to push for liberal
  reforms.
• Great Britain and Gladstones Reforms
• Reform Act of 1884
• Redistribution Act
• Salaries to members of the House of Commons

34
The National StateWestern Europe and the Growth
of Political Democracy

• Irish Question
• Act of Union 1801 and the impact of nationalism
• Gladstones attempt at land reform
• Failure of Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893
• Irish Protestants in Ulster (N. Ireland) vs.
  Catholics

35
The National StateWestern Europe and the Growth
of Political Democracy

• France in turmoil
• Defeat in the Franco-Prussian War led to the
  downfall of Emperor Louis Napoleon III.
• Bismarck required defeated France to choose their
  new government by UNIVERSAL MALE SUFFRAGE, though
  the French Republicans had set up a provisional
  government
• Once put to vote, the French public rejected the
  republican government and elected a majority of
  monarchists for the new National Assembly!

36
The National StateWestern Europe and the Growth
of Political Democracy

• France in turmoil
• Radical republicans rebel Paris Commune
  established
• National Assembly brutally puts down the commune
  after a month of nasty street fighting
• Louise Michel and the role of women
• Outcome broadened the rift between middle and
  working class already begun in 1848-9 revolutions

37
The National StateWestern Europe and the Growth
of Political Democracy

• France in turmoil
• Monarchists failure to choose a king
• Ineffective leadership opens door for republic to
  prevail
• By 1875, Third Republic born. 1st? 2nd?
• Republicans come to dominate Chamber of Deputies
• Resistance to the Third Republic and the
  Boulanger Affair

38
The National StateWestern Europe and the Growth
of Political Democracy

• Spain and Italy
• Spain remains conservative and brutally
  suppresses outbursts of socialists and anarchists
• Italy, the Ethiopia humiliation, and the rift
  between industrialists and working class

39
The National StateCentral and Eastern Europe
and the Persistence of the Old Order

• Germany
• Established legislature as well as universal male
  suffrage, yet still remained an authoritarian and
  conservative regime
• Bicameral legislature Bundesrat and Reichstag
• Role of Chancellor and persistence of
  Junker-dominated military hierarchy

40
The National StateCentral and Eastern Europe
and the Persistence of the Old Order

• Germany a power struggle
• Bismarck
• Kulturkampf and playing to liberals
• Bismarcks conservative backlash in 1878
• Outlawing SDP
• Social Welfare Legislation (?)
• Failure to curb growth of SDP and desire to use
  undemocratic, repressive measures to obliterate
  them
• Kaiser Wilhelm II
• Desire to rule alone
• Role of Kaiser made secure by Bismarck
• Dissatisfaction with Bismarcks failure to win
  over the workers and stop spread of SDP
• Bismarcks dismissal in 1890

41
The National StateCentral and Eastern Europe
and the Persistence of the Old Order

• Austria
• Ausgleich created dual monarchy 1867 with
  constitution and parliament, but Emperor Francis
  Joseph undermined its authority
• Ethnic minority problem
• Edward von Taaffe as PM (1879-1893)
• Concessions to minorities anger German-speaking
  bureaucracy
• Francis Joseph used Catholicism to keep people
  together
• Universal male suffrage 1907

42
The National StateCentral and Eastern Europe
and the Persistence of the Old Order

• Hungary
• More effective parliament but dominated by Magyar
  landowners
• Forced Magyarization
• Ethnic tensions

43
The National StateCentral and Eastern Europe
and the Persistence of the Old Order

• Russia
• No concessions or liberal democratic reforms
• Assassination of Alexander II made his son
  Alexander III reactionary
• Secret police, power of Zemstovs curtailed
• Industrialization would force inevitable change

44
In Summary

• This era the Second Industrial Revolution and
  the wealth it brought, brought with is great
  prosperity and a higher standard of living.
• Education, the right to vote, higher pay, better
  healthcare and living conditions coupled with
  technological advancements gave people more
  leisure time, and with this, they took vacations,
  joined social clubs, attended performances, and
  played on teams.
• A people participated more in government, they
  came to rely increasingly on the national state
  to take care of the population, and peoples
  pride in their national identity continued to
  grow, triggering a wave of intense nationalism
  and competitive international rivalries.