The Industrial Age

By : Andrew Kirchner &Evan Welbon

The Industrial Revolution Spreads

Britain stood alone as a world industrial giant in the early part of the revolution.In 1807 a British mechanic named William Cockerill opened factories in Belgium.This caused Belgium to be the first European nation outside Britain to industrialize.After this, countries with greater natural resources borrowed British technology and experts to industrialize their nations.The first American factory was a textile factory in Pawtucket, Rhode island.Germany and the united states both thrust themselves into industrialization.The united states became the world industrial leader by 1900.Rapid urbanization, job availability, and lower priced goods were the effects of this industrializationTo improve efficiency of machines, things like interchangeable parts and the assembly line were created to ensure simplified assembly and repair.During this time period Henry Bessemer developed a way to purify iron into steel, Alfred Nobel created dynamite, Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity, Alessandro Volta created first battery, and Thomas Edison created the light bulb.Transportation also advanced during this period with steam ships and railroads.Also, the first car was created in 1887 when Gottlieb Daimler combined Nikolaus Otto’s internal combustion engine with his automobile and in 1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright flew for the first time in an airplane of their own design.Communication advanced when Samuel B. Morse developed the telegraph, Alexander graham Bell invented the first telephone, and Guglielmo Marconi invented the radio.

The World Of CitiesScientists had to combat disease due to the population growth of industrialization.In 1870 Louis Pasteur clearly showed the link between germs and disease, in the 1880s dr.Robert Koch identified the bacteria that causes tuberculosis, and in 1914 yellow fever and malaria were traced back to microbes from mosquitoes.Other major medical advance was the introduction of anesthesia to relieve pain in 1846 and the English surgeon Joseph Lister discovered how antiseptics prevent infection.City life underwent dramatic changes as cities came to dominate the west.The basic layout of the city changed as city planners built spacious squares and boulevards.The rich developed pleasant residential neighborhoods on the edge of town while the poor crowded into slums in the center of the city in walking distance to factories.Paved streets, street lamps, police forces, and fire departments helped make urban areas safe and livable.Cities also designed sewer systems because they realized that clean water supplies was necessary to combat cholera and tuberculosis.By the late 1800s steel beams allowed for big cities to build skyscrapers.City life was still rough for the poor who had to live in tenement houses in the slums where whole families were confined to a single room.Music halls, opera houses, theaters, museums, libraries, and sports provided education and entertainment for the millions of people immigrating to cities.Workers tried to improve working conditions and did so by joining unionsThese unions along with reformers and working class voters pushed governments to pass laws to regulate working conditions.The standard of living improved after these laws were passed.

Changing Attitudes and Values

The Industrial Revolution slowly changed the old social order in the western world.Before this time there was only the main social classes of the nobles and the peasants, but now there was the superrich class, a middle class, and a worker/peasant class.

The middle class had evolved its own way of life by mid-century.Middle class nuclear families usually lived in a large house or apartment and had a strict code of etiquette that governed social behavior such as how to dress for every occasion, when to write letters, and how long to mourn a relatives death.

Parents strictly disciplined children and told them to be seen but not heard.

Even small middle class families were expected to have a cook and a housewife.

In courtship and marriage children had a large say in who they married but were still expected to go through “courting rituals” and the husband had to convince the father of his bride to be that he could support her.The division of labor also changed within the family circle.

The women were now expected to stay at home and take care of things there where they used to have helped in businesses of their husband and family.Women who stayed on the work force were paid less than men.

Women and women's rights groups protested the restrictions imposed upon women and campaigned for fairness in marriage, divorce, and poverty laws.Cady Stanton and Susanne B. Anthony both crusaded for women’s rights after doing so for the abolishment of slavery.

The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 demanded that women have the right to vote.

Continued…Women won this movement and were able to vote before 1900 and other countries later followed in their footsteps.Reformers convinced governments t set up public schools and require all children to be educated by the 1800s.Teaching the three R’s was thought to make better citizens.The first elementary schools were primitive but their conditions improved as well as the quality of education the students received.There were also secondary schools that trained students for more serious study or governmental jobs but only middle class families could afford to send them there.Universities also expanded in this time period.The students that attended these universities were from middle and upper class families and were primarily male.By the 1840s there were a few small women’s colleges.A breakthrough in science occurred in the 1800s when John Dalton developed the atomic theory and Dmitri Mendeleyev grouped the elements into a table that became the basis of the Periodic Table of Elements. Major events of geology and archaeology include Charles Lyell claiming that the Earth had formed over millions of years and the discovery of fossilized prehistoric human remains in Germany.In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species that included his Theory of Natural Selection. This caused an uproar among theologists.Despite all of these scientific conclusions, Christianity still played a major role in western society.

A New CultureMany artists and writers strayed from the industrial life and instead focused on the natural world in the 1800s.A movement called romanticism shaped the western world from 1750 to 1850.Romantic writers, artists, and composers rebelled against the enlightenment emphasis on reason and used new verse forms, bold colors, or swelling sounds to excite emotion.Romantic writers created a new kind of hero that often hid a guilty secret and faced a grim destiny.Many writers mixed history, legend, and folklore with romantic drama in their writing.Romantic painters painted anything from simple peasant life to medieval knights to current events but used bold brush strokes and bright colors.Romantic composers sought to make the audience laugh or weep solely with their music.The orchestra as we know it took shape in the early 1800s.The composer named Beethoven lived from 1770 to1827.Beethoven felt he had much in common with Napoleon Bonaparte and even wrote his symphany called Eroica about himWhen Beethoven died he had produced nine symphonies, an opera, and dozens of shorter pieces.A new artistic movement took place in the mid 1800s called realism.It was designed to show how the world really was without the sentiment associated with romanticism.Realists often look at the harsher side of life.Realist writers such as Charles Dickens vividly described the lives of slum dwellers and actory workers.

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Other realistic writers include Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, and Henrik Ibsen.Romantic painters focused on ordinary subjects such as working class men and women.Women writers such as Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Aurore Dupin Dudevant, Harriet Beecher Stowe,and Kate Chopin were part of the growing number of women to get their work published in the mid 1800s.The art form of photography started emerging in the 1840s.The art movement known as impressionism was formed to compete with photography.Impressionist painters sought to capture the first fleeting impression the eye had on a scene in paint.Impressionism can be recognized by obviously unsmoothed brush strokes.