6.2 Africa

WEST AFRICA
Europeans did not hesitate to deceive Africans in order to get their land and natural resources.
Driven by of rivalries among themselves, Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, and Portugal placed almost all of Africa under European rule between 1880 and 1890.
West Africa was particularly affected by the slave trade, but trafficking in slaves had declined after it was declared illegal by both Great Britain and the United States by 1808. By the 1890s slavery was abolished in all the major countries of the world.
As slavery declined, Europe’s interest in other forms of trade increased—for example, trading manufactured goods for peanuts, timber, hides, and palm oil. In the early nineteenth century, the British established settlements along the Gold Coast and in Sierra Leone. The growing European presence in West Africa caused increasing tensions with local African governments, who feared for their independence.
In 1874 Great Britain annexed (incorporated a country within a state) the west coastal states as the first British colony of Gold Coast. Simultaneously, it established a protectorate over warring Nigerian groups.
France controlled the largest part of West Africa, and Germany controlled Togo, Cameroon, and German Southwest Africa (now Namibia).

NORTH AFRICA
Egypt had been part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1805, an officer of the Ottoman army named Muhammad Ali seized power and established a separate Egyptian state.
Ali introduced a series of reforms to modernize Egypt. He modernized the army, set up a public school system, and helped create small industries.
The growing economic importance of the Nile Valley along with the development of steamships gave Europeans a desire to build a canal east of Cairo to connect the Mediterranean and Red Seas. In 1854 Ferdinand de Lesseps, a Frenchman, signed a contract to build the Suez Canal. The canal was completed in 1869.
Great Britain bought Egypt’s share in the Suez Canal. Britain suppressed an 1881 revolt against foreign influence, and Egypt became a British protectorate in 1915.
The British believed they should control the Sudan, south of Egypt. In 1881 the Muslim cleric Muhammad Ahmad seized control of the Sudan and defeated the British military force under General Charles Gordon. The British army was wiped out at Khartoum; Gordon died in the battle. The British seized the Sudan again in 1898.
The French had colonies in North Africa. In 1879, 150,000 French had settled in the region of Algeria. The French government established control there, along with making protectorates of Tunisia and Morocco.
Italy joined the competition for North African colonies by trying to take over Ethiopia. Ethiopian forces defeated the Italians in 1896. Italy was humiliated and tried again in 1911 to conquer Ethiopia. Italy seized Turkish Tripoli, which it renamed Libya.

CENTRAL AFRICA
European explorers had generated European interest in the dense tropical jungles of Central Africa.
David Livingstone was one such explorer. He arrived in Africa in 1841 and trekked through the unexplored interior for 30 years. When he disappeared for a while, the New York Herald sent the young journalist Henry Stanley to find him. When Stanley found him, he said the now famous words, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”
Although he said he hated the place, Stanley stayed in Africa, and in the 1870s he sailed down the Congo River. He encouraged the British to send settlers to the Congo River basin. When Britain refused, Stanley turned to King Leopold II of Belgium.
King Leopold II was the real driving force behind the colonization of Central Africa. In 1876 he hired Henry Stanley to set up Belgian settlements in the Congo. Belgium’s claim to the vast territories of the Congo worried other European states.
France especially rushed to gain territories in Central Africa. Belgium ended up with the territories south of the Congo River, and France received the territories north of the Congo River.

EAST AFRICA
By 1875 Britain and Germany had become the chief rivals in East Africa. At first Bismarck had downplayed the importance of colonies. He became a convert to colonialism, however, after more and more Germans called for a German empire.
Germany was one of many European nations interested in East African colonies. At the 1884 Berlin Conference, the major European powers divided up East Africa, giving recognition to German, British, and Portuguese claims. No African delegates were present at the conference.

SOUTH AFRICA
The European presence in Africa grew most rapidly in the south. By 1865 close to two hundred thousand white people had moved to the southern part of Africa.
The Boers, also called Afrikaners, were the descendants of the original Dutch settlers who occupied Cape Town in South Africa in the seventeenth century. Later, the British seized these lands. In the 1830s the Boers fled British rule, going northward and establishing the independent republics of Transvaal—later the South African Republic—and the Orange Free State. The Boers believed white supremacy was ordained by God; therefore, they put a lot of the indigenous (native) peoples on reservations.
The Boers frequently battled the Zulu, an indigenous people. The Zulu had risen to prominence under their great ruler, Shaka. Later the British defeated the Zulu.
In the 1880s British policy in South Africa was directed by Cecil Rhodes, who had set up diamond and gold companies that had made him fabulously wealthy. He named the territory north of the Transvaal Rhodesia, after himself.
Rhodes’s ambitions led to his downfall in 1896. The British government forced him to resign as prime minister of Cape Colony after finding out he planned to overthrow the Boer government of the South African Republic without British approval. Conflict broke out between the British and the Boers, leading to war.
The Boer War went from 1899 to 1902. Fierce guerrilla resistance by the Boers angered the British, who burned crops and herded more than 150,000 Boer women and children into detention camps, causing 26,000 to die.
In 1910 the British created the independent Union of South Africa, combining the Cape Colony and the Boer republics. This was a self-governing nation within the British Empire. To appease the Boers, the policy was that only whites could vote.

COLONIAL RULE IN AFRICA
By 1914 only Liberia, which had been created by freed United States slaves, and Ethiopia were African nations free of European domination. Native armed forces had been devastated by the superior European forces.
Britain especially relied on existing political elites and institutions to govern its colonies. An advantage of indirect rule for the indigenous peoples is that it interfered much less with their traditions and customs. However, most decisions came from the parent country, and local rulers rubber-stamped and enforced these decisions, maintaining their power. This system sowed the seeds of later class and tribal tensions among native peoples.
The French ideal was to assimilate the African peoples. They did not want to preserve African traditions.

RISE OF AFRICAN NATIONALISM
A new class of African leaders emerged in the early twentieth century. Mostly intellectuals, they knew about the West from their education in colonial and Western schools. The members of this new class often admired Western culture and wanted to introduce Western ideas and institutions to their culture because they saw certain aspects of European culture as superior to their own cultures.
These same people often resented the foreigners and their contempt for Africa. These intellectuals saw the gap between Western democratic theory and Western colonial practice. Africans had little chance to participate in the colonial institutions, and many had lost their farms for terrible jobs in sweatshops or on plantations.
Middle-class Africans also could complain, not just the poor peasants. They usually had only menial jobs in the government or bureaucracy, and they were paid much less than whites. Europeans segregated most of society, and often called adult black males “boy.”
During the first quarter of the twentieth century, resentment turned to action. Educated native peoples began to organize political parties and movements to end foreign rule.

6.1 SE Asia

THE NEW IMPERIALSIM
In the 1800s European nations began a new push of imperialism—the extension of a nation’s power over other lands.
A new phase of Western expansion into and trade with Asia and Africa began in the nineteenth century. Asia and Africa were seen as a source of raw materials for industrial production and as a market for Europe’s manufactured goods.
This “new imperialism,” as some historians have called it, was not content to have trading posts and agreements, as the old imperialism was, but wanted direct control over territories.
There was a strong economic motive for Western nations to increase their search for colonies after 1880. Europeans wanted direct control of the raw materials and markets it found in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
European nations also acquired colonies to gain an advantage over European rivals looking for colonies and world power. Having colonies was a source of national prestige as well.
The new imperialism was tied to racism and Social Darwinism. To Social Darwinists, the imperialist European nations were simply exerting themselves in the struggle for the fittest to survive. Losing nations were racially inferior nations, these people argued erroneously. Others believed that the Western nations had a moral or religious duty to “civilize” Asian, African, and Latin American nations, which often meant to Christianize them.

COLONIAL TAKEOVER IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
By 1900 almost all of Southeast Asia was under Western rule.
Great Britain led the way in nineteenth-century imperial colonialism. In 1819 Great Britain founded a colony on a small island called Singapore (“city of the lion”). In the new age of steamships, Singapore soon became a major port for traffic to and from China.
The British moved deeper into Southeast Asia in the next decades. Britain took control of Burma (present-day Myanmar) to protect its possessions in India and to have a land route to South China.
France had interests in Vietnam and was alarmed by British expansion into Southeast Asia. To stop any British move on Vietnam, the French government decided in 1857 to force the Vietnamese to accept French protection. By 1884, the French had seized control of the country and made the Vietnamese Empire into a French protectorate—a political unit that depends on another government for its protection. In the 1880s France extended protection over neighboring Cambodia, Laos, Annam, and Tonkin.
In the final quarter of the nineteenth century, both Britain and France tried to make Thailand into a colony. Two remarkable rulers prevented the takeover—King Mongkut (memorialized in The King and I) and his son King Chulalongkorn. Both promoted friendly relations with the West and Western learning. In 1896 France and Britain agreed to maintain Thailand as an independent buffer state between their possessions.
The United States naval forces under Commodore George Dewey defeated the Spanish in Manila Bay in the Philippines. President William McKinley believed it was his moral duty to civilize other parts of the world. Colonizing the Philippines would also prevent it from coming under Japanese rule and would serve the United States’s interest in securing a jumping-off point for trade with China.
Many Filipinos objected to the colonization—for example Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of an independence movement. His guerrilla forces fought against the Spanish and the United States, who defeated the guerrillas.

COLONIAL REGIMES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
The chief goal of the Western powers in their colonies was to exploit the natural resources and open up markets for Western manufactured goods. The colonial powers ruled either indirectly or directly.
Indirect rule was used when allowing local rulers and political elites their authority best achieved the goals of the Western parent country. This approach was the preferred route because it made ruling easier and less costly.
Especially when local elites resisted foreign conquest, indirect rule was not practicable. In these cases new officials from the mother country were put in charge of taxes, law and order, and other governmental matters. This system is called direct rule. This was Britain’s approach in Burma, for example, where the British abolished the monarchy.
France used direct and indirect rule in Indochina. It imposed direct rule in the southern provinces in the Mekong delta, which had been ceded to France as a colony after the first war in 1858 to 1860. In the northern parts of Vietnam, France used indirect rule (protectorate).
Western powers often justified their conquests by arguing they brought civilization and development. These same powers, however, often feared the indigenous peoples gaining political rights. The native peoples might want full participation in the government or independence.
Colonial powers did not want their colonists to develop their own industries. Thus, the parent countries stressed exporting raw materials—teak wood, rubber, tin, spices, tea, coffee, sugar, and others.
In many places the native people worked as wage laborers on plantations owned by foreign investors. Plantation owners kept wages at a poverty level. Conditions on plantations often were horrible. Colonial governments often levied high taxes on the peasants.
Colonial rule did bring benefits to Southeast Asia. It began a modern economic system and improved infrastructure. Expanded exports developed an entrepreneurial class in rural areas, even though most of the export profits went to the mother country.

RESISTANCE TO COLONIAL RULE
Initial resistance to colonial rule came from the ruling classes among the subject peoples. Sometimes resistance to Western rule took the form of peasant revolts. Peasants often were driven off land to make way for plantation agriculture.
Early resistance movements were overcome by Western powers. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a new kind of resistance based on the force of nationalism emerged. The leaders often were a new class created by colonial rule: westernized intellectuals in the cities.
These new leaders were part of a new urban middle class—merchants, clerks, students, and professionals—which had been educated in Western schools, spoke Western languages, and knew Western customs. At first the resistance movements organized to protect religious traditions and traditional cultural customs. In the 1930s these resistance movements began to demand national independence.

5.4

FROM CERTAINTY TO UNCERTAINTY
Before 1914 the Enlightenment ideals of reason, science, and progress remained important to many Europeans.
Science was a chief pillar of the West’s optimism about the future. Many believed science could yield a complete picture of reality. One basis of this belief was the belief in the Newtonian, mechanical conception of the universe. In this conception, everything ran in a machine-like, orderly fashion through knowable laws of causality acting on the basic constituents of the material world, atoms.
The French scientist Marie Curie discovered radium, an element that gave off energy. It appeared that atoms were worlds in themselves, not just hard material bodies.
In 1905 the German-born physicist Albert Einstein provided a new picture of the universe. His special theory of relativity stated that space and time are not absolute but are relative to the observer.
Matter and energy reflect the relativity of space and time. Matter was now believed to be energy, an idea that led to understanding the energies within atoms and to the Atomic Age.
To some, Einstein’s relative universe took the certainty out of the mechanical, Newtonian universe.
At the turn of the century, a doctor from Vienna named Sigmund Freud proposed groundbreaking theories about the human mind and human nature. These added to the uncertainty of the era.
Freud argued that human behavior is strongly influenced by past experiences and internal forces that people for the most part are not aware of. Painful experiences were repressed and then they influenced people’s actions without their knowledge. Repression began in childhood.
To help rid people of these repressed unconscious forces, Freud proposed a method called psychoanalysis. Patient and therapist probe deep into the patient’s psyche through free association, talking, and dream analysis to go back to childhood and confront the painful experiences to unlock the repression.
The patient’s gaining control of the painful experience and being released from the unconscious control of the repression led to healing. Freud’s work gave us such concepts as the unconscious and repression, and eventually led to a major new profession—psychological therapy.

SOCIAL DARWINISM AND ANTISEMITISM
Sometimes scientific theories were misapplied. One example is Social Darwinism. Racists and nationalists misapplied Darwin’s ideas to human society.
Herbert Spencer of Britain was the most popular Social Darwinist. He argued that social progress comes from the struggle for survival. Some businessmen adopted this view to explain their success, saying the poor were just weak and lazy.
Extreme nationalists said that nations were in a Darwinian struggle for survival. The German general Friedrich von Bernhardi said that war was a biological necessity for society to rid it of the weak and unfit.
The combination of extreme nationalism and racism that came out of Social Darwinism was most evident in Germany. Houston Stewart Chamberlain, a Briton who became a German citizen, argued that Germans were the only pure successors of the Aryans, the supposed original creators of Western culture, and that Jews were the enemy of the Aryan race.
Anti-Semitism is hostility and discrimination against Jews and a significant feature of modern European history. Since the Middle Ages, Jews had been portrayed as the murderers of Christ, subjected to mob violence, and had had their rights restricted.
In the nineteenth century, Jews had increasingly assumed positions within mainstream European society. The Dreyfus affair in France showed that these gains were tenuous.
Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish captain in the French army, was accused of selling military secrets. He was sentenced to life imprisonment even though evidence showed his innocence and pointed to the guilt of a Catholic officer. Public outrage finally resulted in a new trial and pardon for Dreyfus.
During the 1880s and 1890s, anti-Semitic political parties sprang up in Germany and Austria-Hungary. The worst treatment was in eastern Europe, where 72 percent of the world Jewish population lived. In Russia, for example, there were organized persecutions and massacres called pogroms.
To escape persecution, hundreds of thousands of Jews emigrated to the United States and Palestine, where Zionists headed by Theodor Herzl wanted to establish a Jewish homeland and state. That desire remained a dream in the early 1900s.

THE CULTURE OF MODERNITY
Between 1870 and 1914 many artists and writers rebelled against traditional artistic and literary styles, creating an aesthetic called modernism.
Between 1870 and 1914 many artists and writers rebelled against traditional artistic and literary styles, creating an aesthetic called modernism.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, a group of writers known as the symbolists caused a literary revolution by arguing that art should be about the inner life of people and should serve only art, not social progress.
This period was one of the most productive in the history of art. Impressionism was a movement begun in France in the 1870s, most importantly by Claude Monet. Impressionists left the studio and painted outdoors, hoping to capture the light that illuminated objects, rather than the objects themselves.
Postimpressionism arose in France and Europe in the 1880s. Vincent van Gogh was a famous Postimpressionist. For him, art was a spiritual experience. He believed color was its own kind of language.
By the twentieth century the idea that the point of art was to accurately depict the world had lost much of its meaning. This job was given to the emerging genre of photography. Photography was widespread after George Eastman created his first Kodak camera in 1888. Now anyone could capture reality.
Artists came to see their strength was in creating reality, not mirroring it as the camera did. These artists found meaning in individual consciousness and created modern art.
One of the most famous figures in modern art was the Spaniard Pablo Picasso. He began his career by 1905. He created a new style, called cubism, that used geometric designs to recreate reality. He painted objects from many different views at once. In 1910 abstract painting began with Wassily Kandinsky, who sought to avoid visual reality entirely.
Modernism in architecture gave rise to functionalism—buildings were like products of machines in that they should be useful. In the United States, the Chicago School architect Louis H. Sullivan designed skyscrapers with hardly any external ornamentation. Frank Lloyd Wright was one of Sullivan’s most successful pupils. He pioneered the modern American house.
Developments in music in the early twentieth century paralleled those in painting. The Russian Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring revolutionized classical music. The audience at its 1913 Paris premiere almost rioted because it was so outraged by the piece’s novel sounds and rhythms.

5.3 Western Europe & Political Democracy

WESTERN EUROPE AND POLITICAL DEMOCRACY
As a result of the massacre of peaceful petitioners in 1905, Czar Nicholas II of Russia faced a revolution. Elsewhere, many people were loyal to their nation-states. By the late nineteenth century, progress had been made in establishing constitutions, parliaments, and individual liberties in the main European states. As more people won the vote, political parties needed to create larger organizations and find ways to appeal to the masses.
In Great Britain, its two parties—the Liberals and Conservatives—competed with each other in passing laws that expanded the right to vote. By 1918 all males over 21 and women over 30 could vote.
Political democracy was fairly well established in Britain by the beginning of the twentieth century. Social reforms for the working class, who followed the Liberals, soon followed. The growth of trade unions, which pursued increasingly radical goals, and the emergence of the new Labour Party made the Liberals fear they would lose the support of the working class.
To retain the support of the workers, the Liberals enacted social reforms like benefits for workers in case of sickness, unemployment, or injury on the job.
In France the collapse of Louis-Napoleon’s Second Empire left the country in confusion. In 1875 a new constitution created a French republic—the Third Republic. The new republic had a president and a two-house legislature, the upper house (Senate) being elected indirectly and the lower house (Chamber of Deputies) being elected by universal male suffrage.
A premier (prime minister) actually ran the new French state. The premier and his ministers were responsible to the Chamber of Deputies. This principle of ministerial responsibility—the idea that the prime minister is responsible to the popularly elected legislative body and not the chief executive—is crucial for democracy.
France failed to develop a strong parliamentary system because it had a dozen political parties. Nonetheless, most French people were loyal to the Third Republic.
Italy emerged as a nation by 1870, but it had little unity because of a great gulf that separated the poor, agricultural south from the rich, industrial north. The unity of the nation was torn by turmoil between labor and industry. Universal male suffrage was granted in 1912 but did little to stop corruption and weakness in the government.

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE: THE OLD ORDER
Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia pursued policies different from other European nations.
In Germany, the constitution of the government begun by Otto von Bismarck in 1871 provided for a two-house legislature. The lower house was the Reichstag, which was elected on the basis of universal male suffrage. Government ministers reported to the emperor, not to the legislature, however.
The emperor also controlled the armed forces, the government bureaucracy, and foreign policy. As chancellor (prime minister), Bismarck worked against democracy. By the time of William II (1888–1918) and the expansion of Germany’s industry, cities grew and cries for democracy increased.Conservatives—landowning nobility and big industrialists—tried to stifle the demands for democracy by supporting a strong foreign policy, thinking that expansion abroad would not only increase profits but would also distract people from making democratic demands.
Austria enacted a constitution after the creation of Austria-Hungary in 1867, but in fact the emperor, Francis Joseph, ignored the parliamentary system. He appointed and dismissed his own ministers and enacted laws when parliament was not in session.
Austria was troubled by disputes among the nationalities under its rule—for example, the Germans, Czechs, Poles, and other Slavic groups. These groups agitated for their own freedom.
Hungary had a parliament that worked. It was controlled by Magyar landowners who dominated the peasants and various ethnic groups.
Nicholas II began his rule in Russia in 1894. He believed in the absolute power of the czars, but conditions were changing. By 1900 industrialization was beginning to take off in Russia. It was the world’s fourth largest producer of steel.
Industrialization brought the creation of an industrial working class and pitiful living conditions for most of its members. Socialist parties developed, and government repression forced them underground. Revolution broke out in 1905.
In 1905 a massive procession of workers went to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to present a petition of grievances to the czar. Troops opened fire and killed hundreds of demonstrators. This “Bloody Sunday” caused workers in Russia to call strikes. Nicholas II granted civil liberties and created a legislative assembly, the Duma. Within a few years, however, he again controlled Russia through the army and bureaucracy.

THE UNITED STATES
Between 1870 and 1914 the United States became an industrial power with a foreign empire.
The old South was destroyed in the American Civil War. One-fifth of the adult white male population had been killed, and four million African American slaves were freed. A series of amendments granted African Americans rights, but state laws took these rights away. White supremacy was in power by 1880.
Between 1860 and 1914 the United States shifted from an agrarian to an industrial society. Industrialization led to urbanization. Over 40 percent of the population lived in cities in 1900. By 1900 the United States was the world’s richest nation.
Problems remained. 9 percent of the population owned 71 percent of the wealth. Workers organized unions due to unsafe working conditions and regular cycles of unemployment. By 1900 the American Federation of Labor was labor’s chief voice, but only 8.4 percent of workers were members.
The United States began to expand abroad by the end of the nineteenth century, for example in the Pacific Samoan and Hawaiian Islands. Sugar was a lucrative crop from Hawaii. Americans sought to gain political control in Hawaii. When Queen Liliuokalani tried to retain control of her kingdom, the U.S. government sent troops and deposed her, annexing Hawaii.
In 1898 the United States defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War, gaining Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. By 1900 the United States had an empire.

INTERNATIONAL RIVALRY
Bismarck formed the Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy in 1882. It was a defensive alliance against France, whom Bismarck feared was making anti-German alliances with other nations. In 1890 William II fired Bismarck and pursued a foreign policy of enhancing Germany’s power.
William II dropped Germany’s treaty with Russia. In 1894 France and Russia made an alliance. Great Britain joined with France and Russia in what was known as the Triple Entente. Europe was now divided into two uncompromising camps. Events in the Balkans moved the world toward war.

CRISES IN THE BALKANS
Balkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire had gradually gained independence over the nineteenth century. Greece, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro were independent by 1878. Bosnia and Herzegovina were annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908.
The Serbs opposed the annexation because they wanted to subsume Bosnia and Herzegovina to create a large, Slavic nation. Russia supported the Serbians in this effort. William II demanded Russia acknowledge Austria-Hungary’s claim. The result would be war if Russia did not.
Allies of Austria-Hungary and of Russia were determined to support the countries on their sides. In 1914 each side viewed the other with suspicion and hostility.

5-2 Emergence of Mass Society

What is Mass Society?

• The majority of people
• In this case, the lower classes
• Mostly located in cities
• Government now had to pay attention to them and their needs

Major Concerns

• Sanitation – water was polluted and there was no set way for people to get rid of their waste
• This led to diseases like cholera
• Unsafe housing – many builders hadn’t paid attention to safety issues when constructing apartments and other buildings

City Reforms

• Cities required health and building inspectors to check housing
• Dams & reservoirs were made to store safe, clean water for city use
• Sewage systems were installed in cities

• Social Structure

Wealthy Elite (5%)

• Industrialists, merchants, bankers, aristocrats
• The people with the most $$
• Upper middle class
• Doctors, lawyers, architects, accountants, engineers, etc

Middle class

• Lower middle class
• Small shopkeepers, traders, farmers
• Working class
• 80 % of the population
• Middle class – believed in hard work
• Went to church
• Manners were very important

White collar workers – between middle & working class

• Sales people, secretaries, phone operators, bookkeepers

Working class

• Improved wages & lowered cost of goods meant that they had more $$ to spend on fun
• 10 hr workdays meant more free time

Education

• Universal education – everyone goes to school (between 6 & 12 years old)
• New jobs meant that people had to be more educated ( like clerks, bank workers, salespeople, phone operators)
• Since everyone could vote, the gov’t wanted them educated
• Women also received an education

Literacy

• More and more people could read
• Magazines and newspapers adapted for the masses
• Added pictures, shorter, more colorful stories, and gruesome details to attract readers

Leisure

• After work, weekends, and summer vacation
• New forms of fun cost money
• Amusement parks and sports teams were created

5.1 Growth of Industrial Prosperity

THE SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
Westerners in the 1800s worshiped progress due to the amazing material growth from the Second Industrial Revolution. Steel, chemicals, electricity, and oil were the new industrial frontiers.
Between 1870 and 1914 steel replaced iron. New methods for shaping steel made it possible to build lighter, smaller, and faster machines, engines, railroads, and more. By 1913 Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany were producing an astounding 32 million tons of steel a year.
The new energy form of electricity was quite valuable because it was convertible into heat, light, or motion. By 1910 hydroelectric power stations and coal-fired steam generating plants allowed houses and factories to have a single, common power source.
Electricity gave birth to many inventions, such as the light bulb invented by Thomas Edison in the United States and Joseph Swan in Great Britain. A revolution in communications was ushered in when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone (1876) and Guglielmo Marconi sent the first radio waves across the Atlantic (1901).
Electricity gave birth to many inventions, such as the light bulb invented by Thomas Edison in the United States and Joseph Swan in Great Britain. A revolution in communications was ushered in when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone (1876) and Guglielmo Marconi sent the first radio waves across the Atlantic (1901).
By the 1880s streetcars and subways powered by electricity appeared in European cities. Electricity also changed the factory. With electric lights factories never had to stop production.
The development of the internal-combustion engine provided a new power source for transportation and new kinds of transportation—ocean liners, airplanes, and the automobile.
Increased sales of manufactured goods caused industrial production to grow. Wages increased after 1870. Reduced transportation costs caused prices to fall. Urban department stores put many consumer goods up for sale.
Some European countries did not benefit from the Second Industrial Revolution. Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and other countries had a high standard of living. Spain, Portugal, Russia, Austria-Hungary, the Balkans, and southern Italy were agricultural and much less wealthy. They provided the industrialized nations with food and raw materials.
There developed a true world economy in Europe. Europeans were receiving goods from all corners of the world. European capital was invested abroad to develop railroads, power plants, and other industrial projects. Europe dominated the world economy by 1900.

ORGANIZING THE WORKING CLASS
Industrial workers formed socialist political parties and unions to improve their working conditions. Karl Marx developed the theory they were based on.
In 1848 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto. They were appalled by industrial working conditions and blamed capitalism. They proposed a new social system. One form of Marxist socialism was eventually called communism.
Marx believed world history was a history of class struggle between the oppressing owners of the means of production and the oppressed workers. The oppressors controlled politics and government. Government is an instrument of the ruling class.
Marx believed that society was increasingly dividing between the bourgeoisie (middle-class oppressors) and the proletariat (working-class oppressed), each hostile to the other. Marx predicted the conflict would result in a revolution in which the proletariat would violently overthrow the bourgeoisie and form a dictatorship (a government in which a person or group has absolute power). The revolution would ultimately produce a society without classes and class conflict.
Working-class leaders formed parties based on Marx’s ideas. The German Social Democratic Party (SPD), which emerged in 1875, was the most important. SPD delegates in the parliament worked to pass laws for improving conditions of the working class. The SPD became Germany’s largest party in 1912 when it received four million votes.
Socialist parties emerged in other European states. In 1889 various socialist leaders formed the Second International, an association of socialist groups dedicated to fighting worldwide capitalism. Marxist parties divided over their goals, however. Pure Marxists looked to overthrow capitalism violently. Other Marxists, called revisionists, rejected this revolutionary program and argued to work with other parties for reforms. Democratic rights would help workers achieve their goals.
Trade unions also worked for evolutionary, not revolutionary, change. In Great Britain in the 1870s unions won the right to strike. Trade union workers used the strike to achieve other reforms.
By 1900 two million workers were in British trade unions. By 1914 there were four million, and trade unions had made great progress in many European countries toward improving conditions for the workers.
Trade unions also worked for evolutionary, not revolutionary, change. In Great Britain in the 1870s unions won the right to strike. Trade union workers used the strike to achieve other reforms.
By 1900 two million workers were in British trade unions. By 1914 there were four million, and trade unions had made great progress in many European countries toward improving conditions for the workers.

4-1 Notes: Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution
Great Britain – The starting point
o Why was it the first place for the IR to start?
1) agriculture – improvements led to an increase in the food supply
2) population – more food= more people
a. enclosure movement – Parliament allowed landowners to fence off land; peasants forced to move to towns.
3) capital – GB had the money to invest in new machines and factories
a. a new group, entrepreneurs, began. The wanted to find new ways to make money.
4) natural resources – water power from rivers, coal & iron ore
5) markets – a colonial empire, GB had many places to sell their goods
a. demand at home increased with the population
o Cotton became a high demand product
 Britain became the #1 manufacturer of cheap cotton goods
 At the beginning of the 18th century, cotton cloth was produced by individuals in their homes
• Known as cottage industry
New inventions made the cottage industry inefficient
1) Flying shuttle – increased weaving speed, so more thread was needed
2) Spinning jenny – increased spinning speed – people could make thread more quickly (invented by Hargreaves)
3) Water-powered loom – people came to the machines; ran on water, made weaving more efficient (invented by Cartwright)
4) Steam engine – could be used to spin and weave, became cotton mill staple
Because of these inventions, it became more practical to make cotton cloth in factories than in individual homes
o Coal & Iron
Steam engines depended on coal to run
• As the steam engine grew more popular, the need for coal increased
• Also contributed to the transformation of the iron industry
Henry Court found a way to make a better quality of iron using a process called puddling
• Puddling changes crude (aka pig iron) into high quality iron
o Railroads
In the 19th century, more efficient transportation was developed: the railroad
• 1st locomotive ran in 1804
• The Rocket was the 1st to run on a public railway line from Liverpool to Manchester
• More railroads = more jobs
• Cheaper transportation = cheaper goods = more money = more factories
o Factories
Created a new labor system
Run 24 hours, workers worked in shifts
Workers were used to a rural farming schedule
• Discipline was needed to make them work regular hours at repetitive tasks
o Adults fired for being late
o Children beaten
The Spread of Industrialization
o Europe
Spread at different times and speeds
After England, the 1st 3 countries to become industrialized : Belgium, France, & German States
Governments active in the spread of industrialization
• Provided money for new transportation
o North America
Hit in the mod 1800’s
Population and cities grew
Because the US is a large country, transportation systems were vital
• Steamboats were invented by Robert Fulton
• Railroads were built, spread across the US
Labor came from farmers
• Most factory workers = female
o Children also a majority
Some factory owners wanted entire families working for them
Social Impact in Europe
o The IR changed the social life of Europe
Seen in: growth of cities and the emergence of new social classes
o Population & City growth
By 1850, population had doubled – why?
• a decline in death rates
• people ate better
• were more resistant to diseases
• no food shortages (except the potato famine)
City growth is directly related to industrialization
• Using the steam engines, factory owners could set up in cities
• People moved to the cities to work in factories
• In England, 50% of the population lived in cities by 1850
Quick city growth = poor living conditions
• Too many people, nowhere to put them
• By 1850 population had doubled – why?
o Industrial middle class
Industrial capitalism – economic system based o industrial production
The Industrial middle class was made up of the people who built factories, bought the machines, and found markets
• They were ambitious and greedy
• Had initiative & vision
o Industrial working class
Workers worked in rotten conditions
Worst conditions – cotton mills
Coal mines are also bad
• People had to dig & haul coal
Dangers: gas fumes, explosions, cave men, got bad lungs, and was deformed
two-thirds of workers were women and kids reduced the age of kids
• Factory act of 1834
o Set 9 as the minimum wage
o Kids 9-13: 9 hours a day
o Kids 13-18: 12 hours a day
o As the number of kids decreasedd, the number of women workers increased
50 % of workforce by 1950
Paid 50% of Men’s Pay
Hours limited in1844
o As laws limited children and women ours, men were required outside the house, doing laundry and sewed for cash
Women moved inside, doing laundry
• Socialism
o System where that government owns and controls the means of production (like factories, etc)
o Idea created by the poor conditions
First created by intellectuals
• Wanted cooperation, not competition
• Known as utopian society
o Robert Owen – turned bad factory towns in prosperous communities

Test!

You have a test next class- be sure to study Chapter 4 sections 2-4.  

Your chapter assessment questions will be due next class- turn them in before the test.