Life in the emerging urban society in the nineteenth century-Chapter 24

I. Taming the City

a. The growth of industry in western society caused gigantic challenges for
everyone.
b. By 1850 working conditions throughout Europe were improving and wages
were also rising for most of the working people. These things continued to happen till
1914.
c. Cities that were born from the Industrial Revolution were usually horrible
places that had bad housing and poor sanitation.
A. Industry and the growth of the cities.
1. European cities were the centers of government and culture. But they were also
dirty, unsanitary, congested, and they were usually small “walking cities”.
2. Although these conditions existed before the industrial revolution, the
revolution exposed these problems.
3.The steam engine freed people from a dependence on energy from streams and
rivers. In the 1800’s new factories were built in urban areas, where there were jobs for
people who needed them. As a result of this, already overcrowded cities expanded.
4. The first country to feel these affects was Great Britain.
5. The causes of these urban problems, in Great Britain, was the total absence of
public transportation, the pressure of more people moving into the city, the government
who did not provide sanitation facilities quickly enough or provide proper building codes,
and most importantly rural housing conditions because it was not a top priority.
B. Public health and the bacterial revolution.
1. Cleanliness was becoming more important for some reformers. The most
famous one was Edwin Chadwick. He was a follower of the radical philosopher Jeremy
Bentham. His followers were also called Benthamites.
a. Benthamites believed that public problems should be dealt with on a
scientific rational basis.
b. Chadwick believed that disease and death were causes of poverty. He
also believed that cleaning up cities could prevent disease.
c. Chadwick’s findings became the basis of Great Britain’s first public
health law.
2. Beginning in the 1840’s other countries joined the public health movement.
3. However, to take effective control of disease, people needed more medical
knowledge. At the time most people believed that people contracted diseases by
breathing in bad odors, decay, and excrement. This was also known as the miasmatic
theory.
4. Louis Pasteur discovered a developmental breakthrough in science. it is called
the germ theory of disease. He found that fermentation was dependant on the growth of
living organisms and that this process could be suppressed by heating the beverage. This
is now known as pasteurization.
a. Pasteur’s work showed the connection between germs and disease.
b. The acceptance of this theory brought improvement to hospitals and
surgeries.
c. When Pasteur demonstrated that air was full of bacteria, Joseph Lister
made the connection between aerial bacteria and wound infection.
 5. All of these achievements became known as the bacterial Revolution.
C, Urban Planning and Public Transportation.
1. One of the keys to improving urban life was improving urban planning. One of
the first cities to change their urban planning was Paris. Napoleon III believed rebuilding
most of Paris would improve living conditions and provide more employment.
2. Baron Georges Haussmann designed the new Paris. His plan was very bold and
different from the way cities were usually designed. So Haussmann’s plan shocked many
contemporaries.
a. The streets were replaced with tree-lined boulevards.
b. Most of the city slums were destroyed.
c. New parks were created throughout the city.
3. Rebuilding Paris created a new model for urban planning, while stimulating
urbanism throughout Europe. Many other city planners followed Haussmann’s example
and rebuilt other cities.
4. In the 1870’s private companies were given permission to run horse drawn
street carriages. In the 1890’s, Europeans adopted the American transit innovation of the
electric street car.
5. Good public transportation helped the middle class move into better housing
along the boulevard’s.
II Rich and poor and those in between.
A. Social Structure.
1. The industrialized world changed the social framework of society. One change
was that there was an increase in the standard of living for the average person.
2. Although there was a greater economic reward, poverty and hardship were not
eliminated.
3. The rich and poor’s income were still not equal because the wealthy had little
income tax. As a result the gap between the rich and poor was very large. This gap made
society less unified but more diverse.
4. The upper and lower class made up a majority of the society but the middle
class was a very small group
B. The middle class.
1. There was a lot of diversity in the middle class, ranging from the upper middle
class to the lower middle class. However they were all unified by jobs requiring mental
skill instead of physical skill.
2. The upper middle class was made up of wealthy businessmen who were
progressive and very attracted to the aristocratic lifestyle.
a. The upper middle class tried to be more like the aristocrats by building
lavish homes in the country.
b. They also had many servants because servants were an indication of
wealth.
c. The top of the upper middle class formed a new class in society that
mirrored the old aristocracy.
3. Below the upper middle class was a larger more diverse group called the
middle middle class. This group consisted of successful industrialist and merchants.
4. Most people in the middle class were well-educated and had jobs that required
mental skills instead of technical skills.
C. Middle class culture.
1. Food was the most important for the middle class they ate very rich foods and a
lot of meat.
2. A middle class wife had more free time than other wives because she and
servants that worked for her and they had enough money.
3. Many middle class families did not own their own homes but instead they
rented.
4. A very important factor for the middle class was education. Many middle class
parents wanted to provide their children with an advanced education, so that they could
travel and entertain people with their knowledge especially in the arts.
5. All of the middle class were united by a code of morality, etiquette and
expected behavior. This code was very strict and demanding.
D. The working class.
1. 4 out of 5 people in Europe were part of the working class. During the turn of
the century most of the working class consisted of peasants and small land owning
merchants.
a. The urban working class was divided into 3 categories: Highly skilled,
Semi-skilled and the unskilled.
b. Each of the three categories created their own lifestyles and values,
these differences made them less unified.
2. The highly skilled workers became known as labor aristocracy. They earned
twice as much as the unskilled workers.
a. This group was under a lot of pressure for jobs, they were being
replaced by machines and semiskilled workers.
b. The labor aristocracy adopted their own values and almost puritanical
behavior, because they were committed to economic improvement.
3. The semi-skilled and unskilled workers were a big group that was made up of
factory workers. They had jobs that almost anyone could do.
a. The largest group of unskilled workers was the group of servants.
b. Most of the servants were women or girls trying to make money for
their family.
E. Working class leisure and religion.
1. Although the working class worked for most of the week they did enjoy
relaxation. One of their favorite ways to relax was drinking, however many people
believed it was a sin.
2. Other leisure time activities were political discussion in taverns and pubs,
Sports and music.
3. Religion was also an important part of the working class lifestyle because
people would turn to religion for guidance.
4. Some historians believed that the 19th century was another religious revival, but
during the last couple of decades of the 19th century there was a decline in church
attendance.
a. There is some argument that people became less religious.
b. Another reason is that the church did not keep records of the growing
population.
III. The changing family.
A. Premarital sex and marriage.
1. By the 1850’s the practice of planned marriages was pretty much dead,
especially in the working class. Instead romantic love was triumphing. However
economic consideration remained important in middle class marriages.
a. Middle class girls love life was carefully planned and watched by their
mothers, so the family could get more money. Also their virginity was guarded for her
marriage.
b. Middle class boys were also watched but not as closely. As a result boys
gained sexual experience from prostitutes and maids.
2. Between 1750 and 1850 there was an illegitimacy explosion because their was
a lot of premarital sex. All of the illegitimate children caused their parents to want to
marry but they couldn’t because of economic problems and poverty.
1. However some areas were untouched by the explosion of illegitimate
children because they were not touched by industrialization.
2. Other area’s were untouched because the religion in the area prohibited
premarital sex.
3. Although in the first half of the 19th century there was a rise in illegitimate
children in the second half of the century more children were being born to married
people.
B. Prostitution.
1. Between 1871 and 1903 the number of woman registered as prostitutes was
very high and many other were suspected prostitutes.
2. Men of every class visited prostitutes, but the middle and upper class men gave
them the most money.
3. An eleven-volume autobiography, My Secret Life, tells the tale of a very
promiscuous man who indulged in prostitutes.
C. Kinship ties.
1. Working class people had strong relationships with their kinsmen; most
newlyweds lived near their in-laws.
2. People turned to their families for support in sickness, death, old age, and
unemployment.
3. Relatives were very valuable to people.
D. Gender roles and family life.
1. The role of woman changed after the industrial revolution and the
modernization of cities.
2. After 1850, the work of woman became more distinct and different from their
husband’s. They tended to stay home and manage the home.
3. When economic condition’s improved women were expected to work outside
the home.
a. When woman did try to find jobs men were prejudice against them.
b. Woman didn’t have as many legal rights either.
4. Middle class feminist believed that single or widowed women had more
opportunities to support themselves.
5. In 1882 a law was passed in England giving married woman property rights.
6. Socialist women leaders argued that the freedom of working class women
would only come when all of the working class was freed in a revolution.
7. Women ruled a home because of how complicated it was and because her all of
her efforts were focused on pampering her husband. Her leadership of the household
increased simultaneously with the increasing importance of the home.
E. Child rearing.
1. Along with the growing emotional ties in a family, mothers began to love their
infants without fearing their child’s death.
2.Before the industrial revolution many mother hired wet nurses to breastfeed
their babies, after the revolution many mother began to breastfeed their own children.
3. More families began to have less children so they could give their children
more advantages in life.
4. In some cases parent’s believed that their child deformities were their fault
5. Sigmund Freud postulated that most of human behavior is motivated by
emotional needs.
IV. Science and thought.
A. The triumph of science.
1. As more scientific advances were made, science became more influential on
human thoughts.
2. Breakthroughs in industrial technology stimulated basic scientific inquiry.
3. Beginning in the 1830’s there was an explosive growth of scientific thought.
a. A new branch of physics was discovered called thermodynamics. It
built on Sir Isaac Newton’s law of mechanics.
b. Chemist’s found new ways to measure atomic weight. Dmitri
Mendeleev codified the rules of chemistry in periodic law.
c. Chemistry was also divided into separate branches.
4. Science became more popular for discussion by philosophers and methods of
science gained prestige.
B. Social science.
1. Beginning in the 1830’s many people tried to apply science to the study of
society.
2. A French philosopher, Auguste Comte, postulated “intellectual activities
progresses through predictable stages.”
3. Many people were fascinated by the idea of evolution in the 19th century.
a. Jean-Baptiste Lamart believed that all life forms have risen through a
long process of continuous adjustment to the environment. However his work was
flawed.
b. Although Lamark’s work was flawed, it paved the way for Charles
Darwin. His conclusion was that all life forms gradually evolve from a common ancestor
and that only the strongest creatures survive.
C. Realism in literature
1. Realism emerged in the 1840’s and continued through the 1890’s. Realist
writers believed that their writing should depict life as it really is. This is unlike the
romantic’s who glorified everything.
2 The realist movement began in France, where romanticism never really caught
on. It quickly spread throughout France and the rest of Europe.