Mass Society in an "Age of Progress"

Chapter 23

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Notes

Mass Society in an “Age of Progress” Notes
Spielvogel Chapter 23

  • Age of Progress
    • new society arises from new technology
    • people feel they have arrived at the pinnacle of scientific understanding
  • Technological changes – Second Industrial Revolution
    • Differences from the first
      • First IR had textiles, railroads, iron, & coal
        • Second focuses on steel, chemicals, electricity, and petroleum
      • Science & technology become irrevocably joined
    • German production surpasses British
      • In steel by 1910
      • In organic chemical compounds by 1900
      • Because it was hard for Britain to shift gears after dominating first industrialization
    • electricity – available by 1870s
      • Changes in lifestyle
        • Light bulb
        • Telephone
        • Radio
        • Electric railroads – streetcars & subways
      • Factory work easier
      • Countries without adequate coal could industrialize
    • Internal combustion engine 1878
  • Technological Changes lead to Economic Changes
    • Markets
      • Foreign markets already dominated, switch to domestic
        • Reaction against free trade
        • cartels
      • Real wage increase between 1850-1900
        • Mass marketing
      • Economic crises (arguable depressions) 1873-1895
        • Different times in different countries (first in US & Germany, then in France & Britain)
      • Move toward a world economy
        • Imports worldwide, exports worldwide
    • Eastern vs. Western Europe – divided by 1900
      • Advanced industrialized areas with high standard of living (mostly in the North, also northern Italy)
      • Backwards suppliers of food and raw materials (mostly in the south and east)
        • Many in these backwards areas emigrated to the Americas
    • Changes in jobs
      • Initially married women mostly forced to do piecework
        • Shortage of men to do low-paying white collar jobs leads women to do them
          • Secretaries, file clerks, sales clerks, teachers, etc.
          • These were opportunities for middle class
        • many lower-class women forced into prostitution to support families
          • often licensed/regulated
            • many eventually rejoined the regular workforce or married
  • Economic changes led to changes in views of government
    • Divisions within socialism
      • revisionists – non-Marxian socialists (a.k.a. Evolutionary Socialists)
        • Eduard Bernstein (d. 1932)
          • Exiled to Britain
          • Challenged Marxist ideas in Evolutionary Socialism
            • Middle-class expanding
            • proletariat getting better-off
        • favor change by democratic means
      • Nationalism – contrary to Marx’s ideas
      • German Social Democratic Party
        • Largest socialist party, was the largest single party in Germany in 1912
      • France also had a variety of Marxist parties
    • Unions
      • Only 1/5 of workforce by WWI
      • Not as popular on the Continent as in Britain
        • viewed as being too tied to socialist ideology
          • in Germany, they were tied to political parties
    • Anarchists
      • Goal was to have true freedom by abolishing all social institutions
        • initially non-violent, later ultra-violent under Bakunin (Russian)
        • after his death, move to assassination
          • including a tsar, president of France, king of Italy, and pres. of US
      • Mostly in less industrialized countries
        • tendency to be uneducated/lack wealth – in short, have no power
  • Governments act on these changes
    • Western Europe increases liberal reforms (constitutions, parliaments, individual liberties)
      • further division between East & West
      • tied to economy – freedom leads to better economy
    • Britain
      • Further increase in voting rights, British parliament now paid (access to lower classes)
      • Ireland
        • Nationalism; rule by British
        • Irish Catholics began to demand independence through terrorism
        • Granted in Home Rule Act of 1914
          • northern Protestants didn’t want to join Catholic state
    • France
      • Napoleon III gone with defeat in Franco-Prussian War
      • Republicans set up a provisional government
        • People elect monarchists
        • Republicans set up separate government – the Paris Commune
          • Fighting broke out in April 1871
            • lower-class women actually fought
          • government massacre of Commune (20,000 shot; 10,000 exiled)
            • leads to ongoing class anger
      • end up with Republic anyway because they couldn’t agree on who should be King
        • Republic set up in the Constitution of 1875
          • Meant to be temporary
          • Lasted 65 years
        • Boulanger crisis
          • Boulanger was a military officer who wanted to do away with republican government
          • lost his nerve and fled on the cusp of coup d’etat
          • crisis served to give support to republic
    • Spain
      • Little change because government tied to conservative order
      • Rebellion in Barcelona in July 1909, brutally suppressed
    • Italy
      • Great sectional differences divided country
        • industrializing north & poorer south
    • Germany
      • Emperor remains in control despite parliament
      • Unity did not do away with each state having its own leaders, and even armies
      • Bismarck worked to maintain power of emperor
        • Kulturkampf (“struggle for civilization”)
          • Effort to seize power from Catholicism
        • began to attack the Social Democratic Party, seeing it as a threat to nationalism
          • tried to reform, but his reforms were inadequate (i.e. no pension until age 70)
        • fired by the new Emperor (William II)
    • Austria-Hungary
      • Universal male suffrage led to move toward independence by minorities
    • Russia
      • Alexander III (d. 1894) undid reforms, expanded secret police, believed in absolute power of the tsar
      • Passed these beliefs on to his son, Nicholas III (d. 1917)
  • Changes in thinking/gov. lead to social changes – “Mass Society” in this period
    • Population increase
      • Medical discoveries (smallpox vaccinations), better environmental conditions, and improved nutrition
      • Due to decline in death rates, move away from rising birth rates after 1880
    • Urbanization
      • Economic necessity (gain employment)
      • Better living conditions due to building regulations
        • Fresh water pipes
        • Heat
        • Sewers
      • Realization that private industry had no motivation to cure housing ills – move to government control
      • Defensive walls turned into parks and boulevards
      • Creation of suburbs
    • New social circumstances
      • Elite
        • 5% of population controlled 30 – 40% of wealth
          • fortunes shifting toward upper middle class
          • fusion of aristocrats and plutocrats
          • called “Gilded Age” by Mark Twain – layer of gold over crud
      • middle class
        • split into upper, middle, and lower
        • new groups of workers idealizing middle-class sprang up
          • traveling salesmen, bank tellers, secretaries, property-less and poorly-paid
        • Women’s roles changing
          • The “woman question” – catchphrase used to refer to the debate over the role of women in society
          • marriage was viewed as the only honorable and available career
            • economic necessity often dictated otherwise
            • women expected to work until they married (new careers – i.e. secretaries)
            • those who can’t marry often go into domestic service
          • Ideals
            • ideal of togetherness – women to provide recreation
            • ideal of idle wife
              • need for servants; usually not affordable
              • leads to women overworking themselves
        • children
          • mass-production of toys (inc. dolls)
          • education
            • Purposes
              • Educated electorate
              • Provided trained workers
              • Indoctrination in nationalization
            • reinforces gender roles
              • daughters – taught to “entertain”
              • sons – taught to be career men
                • Boy Scouts (correct overly-female influence)
            • Effects – countries that spend money on compulsory education have vastly higher literacy rates (in high 90s vs. low 20s)
      • lower class
        • 80% of people
        • Increasingly like everyone else due to compulsory education (speak nat’l language; know nat’l history)
        • Lives getting better with improving wages
    • leisure
      • new technology
        • amusement parks
        • transportation
          • access to athletic events, amusement parks, dance halls
            • not just the local tavern anymore
      • team sports
        • designed to prepare kids for military service and build character
        • focus on males since females not suited for “vigorous physical activity”