his

By now, you have learned about the revolutionary changes that occurred in the 17th and 18th century. By the end of this week, you will be introduced to the industrialization and mechanization in 19th century.

During the latter half of the 19th century, industrialization and mechanization brought about greater changes than the industries they encompassed. Industrialization forever altered the social structure from rural, agrarian societies to ones with lifestyles familiar to us today.

However, Europe continued to struggle with its borders. The mid 19th century saw a substantial number of revolutions throughout Europe, but by the end of the century Germany and Italy were each unified under constitutional monarchies. France had become a republic again and the Russian czars emancipated the serfs.

Worldwide, the changes from farm to factory affected every aspect of life from the division of domestic labour to the recreational activities pursued in free time. In the United States, as with other nations, the shift from farm to factory involved the creation of an entire social structure to include grocery shopping, ready made clothing, need for urbanization and urban infrastructure, universal education, health care, etc. It heralded the birth of department stores and the Sears and Roebuck catalogue that sold EVERYTHING from corsets to house kits.

From the early 19th century to the late 19th century, society moved from a relatively simple division of labour within the household to the development of a middle class with a primary breadwinner. People went from working long hours for survival to working long hours for pay. There was the birth of new recreational activities, including professional sports, amusement parks, vaudeville, and art museums.

Yet, inequalities increased. Indeed, they were as much a part of the new order as the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge or the appearance of advertising. During the latter half of the 19th century, optimists believed that unfair treatment based on region, class, and even race and gender might ease with time. By World War I, these hopes had worn thin.

Popular Forms of Entertainment Between
1870–1920

As a result of the cumulative scientific, economic, and political changes of the preceding years, the idea took hold among literate people in the West that continuing growth and improvement was the usual state of human and natural life.

Darwin’s theory of evolution and survival of the fittest (1859), defended by intellectual and scientists against theological objections, was taken as confirmation that progress was the natural course of life. The controversy helped give rise to the popular image of the dedicated scientist and the belief that human knowledge of and control over the world would continue to grow (as illustrated by Foucault’s demonstration of earth’s rotation in 1851 and Pasteur’s germ theory in 1861).

The technological processes and managerial innovation of the English industrial revolution spread to Europe (especially Germany) and the United States, causing an explosion of industrial production, demand for raw material, and competition for markets. In fact, by the end of the century, industrial and technological proficiency characterized two new great powers in the world—Germany and the U.S. Coal and iron deposits enabled Germany to reach 2nd or 3rd place status in iron, steel, and shipbuilding by 1900. And Germany’s electrical and chemical industries were world leaders. (Have you ever heard of Siemens?)

Inventions such as Bessemer steel (1856) and the sewing machine (1846) seemed to roll into people’s lives at an quickening rate. The Kodak camera (1888), linoleum (1860), the motorcycle (1885), and the telephone (1876) are a few of the modern conveniences that entered the lives of people in the 19th century and are still with us today. Life as we know it in the present was born during the latter portion of the 19th century. Developments in transportation and communication, as well as mass population movements, helped create an awareness of an interdependent world. The birth of the automobile, the airplane, phonographs, and motion pictures forever connected the nations of the world, for better or worse.

A growing awareness and social consciousness developed worldwide, with a desire for reform across the board. Significant developments included the abolition of slavery (Great Britain in 1833, United States in 1865, and Brazil in 1888), improved social conditions for women, the mentally ill and prisoners, and the extension of the vote to the middle and lower classes, Catholics Jews and women (New Zealand – 1893, Australia – 1901, Finland – 1906, Norway – 1913, Denmark/Iceland – 1915, Russia – 1917, U.K./Austria/Canada/Ireland – 1918, Netherlands/Luxembourg/Germany – 1919, and lastly the U.S. – 1920). This consciousness spilled over into Utopian social thought, the desire for anarchy, and the growing Marxist belief in the inevitable triumph of socialism.

Like everything else, art and literature changed to showcase new (or rediscovered) ideas. The Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Vienna Opera were built. Impressionists such as Monet, Pissaro, and Renoir rejected formalism in art; in turn, post-impressionists like Cézanne and Gauguin moved into uncharted artistic waters. Where they left off, unprecedented experimentation in art occurred. Just look at Matisse and Picasso. Realist novelists such as Dickens, Eliot, and Tolstoy gave way to Freud, Wilde, Nietzsche, Gorky, and Sinclair. As universal education and global literacy increased, the previously denied masses found information at every juncture.

While the United States struggled with the aftermath of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, anti-Semitism, peppered with a new racist rationale, became a significant political force in Germany, Austria, and France. Much of this burgeoning racism was brought about by mass emigration from crowded European centers. Some 70 million Europeans emigrated in the century prior to 1914, with 9 million migrating to the United States and millions more going to Siberia, Canada, Argentina, Australia, South Africa, and Algeria. Several million Chinese, Indians, and Japanese migrated into Southeast Asia, where their urban skills often enabled them to take a predominant economic role.

Such was the world as it stood on the threshold of World War I. In a mere 100 years, humanity saw more changes and advancements than in the previous 500. Social conditions, religion, and day-to-day living had evolved into a pattern of life that we in the 21st century can recognize and appreciate.

Under Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany sought a political and imperial role consonant with its industrial strength, challenging Britain’s world supremacy and threatening France, which still resented the loss in 1871 of Alsace-Lorraine. Austria wanted to curb an expanding Serbia (after 1912) and the threat it posed to its own Slavic lands. Russia feared Austrian and German political and economic aims in the Balkans and Turkey. An accelerated arms race resulted. The German standing army rose to more than 2 million men by 1914. The Russian and the French armies numbered more than a million, while the Austrian and the British armies were close to a million. Dozens of enormous battleships were built by the powers after 1906.

The assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand by a Serbian on June 28, 1914 was the pretext for war. The system of alliances made the conflict Europe-wide; Germany’s invasion of Belgium to outflank France forced Britain to enter the war. Patriotic fervor spread to all classes in virtually all countries.

German forces were stopped in France in one month. The rival armies dug trench networks. Artillery and improved machine guns prevented either side from making any lasting advance, despite repeated assaults (600,000 died at Verdun between February to July 1916). The poison gas used by Germany in 1915 proved ineffective. The entrance of more than one million American troops tipped the balance after mid-1917, forcing German to sue for peace in 1918. The formal armistice was signed on November 11, 1918.

In the East, Russian armies were thrown back at the battle of Tannenberg on August 20, 1914. Thereafter, the war grew increasingly unpopular in Russia. An allied attempt to relieve Russia through Turkey failed. The Russian Revolution of 1917 abolished the czarist regime and the new Bolshevik government signed the capitulatory Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. Italy entered the war on the allied side in May 1915, but was pushed back by October 1917. A renewed offensive in October and November 1918 forced Austria to surrender.

The British Navy successfully blockaded Germany, which responded with submarine U-boat attacks. Unrestricted submarine warfare against neutrals after January 1917 helped bring the United States into the war. Other battlefields included Palestine and Mesopotamia, both of which Britain wrested from the Turkish Empire in 1917. Most of the colonies Germany held in Africa and the Pacific fell to Britain, France, Australia, Japan, and South Africa.

From 1916 on, the civilian populations and economies of both sides were mobilized to an unprecedented degree. Hardships especially intensified among fighting nations in 1917. More than 10 million soldiers died in the war.

At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, concluded by the Treaty of Versailles, and in subsequent negotiations and local conflicts, the map of Europe was redrawn with a nod to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s principle of self-determination. The Austro-Hungarian empire was split up, and much of its territory was given to Yugoslavia (formerly Serbia), Romania, Italy, and the newly independent states of Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Germany lost territory in the West and East, while Finland and the Baltic States were detached from Russia. Turkey lost nearly all of its Arab land to British sponsored Arab States or to direct French and British rule. Belgium’s sovereignty was recognized.

A huge burden of reparations and partial demilitarization were imposed on Germany. President Wilson obtained approval for a League of Nations, but the U.S. Senate refused to allow the U.S. to join.