AP European History
AP European History
During the first fifty years of the nineteenth century, industrialization swept across Europe west to east, from England to eastern Europe. In its wake, all modes of life would be challenged and transformed.
Continental economic growth had been retarded by the Napoleonic Wars.
Because England was so technically advanced, European countries found it difficult to compete. However, catching up to England was made easy by avoiding the costly mistakes of early British experiments and by using the power of strong central governments and national banks to promote native industry. But on the Continent there was no large labor supply in cities; iron and coal deposits were not as concentrated as in England, except in a few places (Ruhr, Saar, Silesia. Lorraine, and so on).
England was the undisputed economic and industrial leader until the mid-nineteenth century. The industrialization of the Continent occurred mostly in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and in the southern and eastern regions, in the twentieth century.
By 1830, industrialism had begun to spread from England to Belgium, France, and other areas. These successful industrial operations were due to the exportation from England of machines, management, and capital. Germany was slower in following English methods until a tariff policy was established in 1834 (the Zollverein), which induced capital investment by and in German manufacturers.
The undermining of Western society’s traditional social structure (that is, clergy, nobility, and commoners) was the result of the Industrial Revolution.
The middle class was the major contributor as well as principal beneficiary of early industrialism. Those of the middle class measured success in monetary terms and tended to be indifferent to the human suffering of the new wage-earning class. The industrial bourgeoisie had two levels: (1) upper bourgeoisie, that is, great bankers, merchants, and industrialists who demanded free enterprise and tariffs: and (2) lower bourgeoisie, that is, small industrialists, merchants, and professional men who demanded stability and security from government.
To the chagrin of traditionalists, increasing numbers of the old aristocracy of birth intermarried with wealthy bourgeois, thus forming the nucleus of a new plutocracy. The new upper class, long a fact in British society, began to infiltrate, and later rule, society in France, north Italy, Belgium, the Germanies, Austria – in other words, areas where industry was making strides and society was already in ferment.
The Industrial Revolution created a unique category of people dependent on their job alone for income, a job from which they might be dismissed without cause. The factory worker had no land, no home, and no source of income but his job. During the first century of the Industrial Revolution, the factory worker was completely at the mercy of the law of supply and demand for labor.
Working in the factory meant more self-discipline and less personal freedom for workers. The system tended to depersonalize society and reduced workers to an impersonal status. The statistics with regard to wages, diet, and clothing suggest overall improvement for the workers, with some qualifications, since some industries were notoriously guilty of social injustices. Contemporary social critics complained that industrialism brought misery to the workers, while others claimed life was improving. Until 1850, workers as a whole did not share in the wealth produced by the Industrial Revolution. Matters improved as the century advanced, as union action combined with general prosperity and a developing social conscience to improve working conditions, wages, and hours first of ski lied labor, and later of unskilled labor.