Chapter 30: The Making of Industrial Society
Vocabulary
Horsepower: A term used to describe/measure the energy generated by steam engines. This was coined as such because the machine did the work of several animals.
Cholera: A disease that became a European epidemic in the late 19th century and early 20th century. This disease developed from the lack of sanitary practices regarding water supplies.
Raw Materials: There was a high demand for these materials because of industrialization. Industrial societies needed minerals, agricultural products, and other raw materials from sometimes distant regions of the world. This produced a more globalized world.
Factory System: A system of labor that replaced the protoindustrial and putting-out systems of labor that was common before it. This system involved each person working in somewhat of an assembly line, doing the same task(s) repeatedly.
Cult of Domesticity: Also called the Cult of True Womanhood, this so-called “cult” had four core beliefs;
1. Women were more religious then men.
2. They were pure in heart, mind, and body.
3. They should submit to their husbands.
4. They should stay at home.
Dependent economics: Economics where a civilization or populations depend on either imports or exports primarily to stimulate local jobs and economies.
Socialism: An ideal that worked to alleviate the social and economic problems generated by capitalism and industrialization. Early socialist sought to expand ideals from the Enlightenment era. Two of the earliest socialists were Charles Fourier and Robert Owen.
Sergei Witte: Sergei Witte was the finance minister for Russia from 1892-1903. In this time, Russia was very profitable. This was done by inviting foreign investors to bring their capital to Russia and by encouraging the establishment of savings banks to raise additional investment funds for Russians at home.
Demographic transition: In the 19th century, industrializing lands began to go through a change, the demographic transition, which is when patterns and rates of fertility and infant mortality change.
Communist Manifesto: A piece written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel, two communists who led efforts in Eastern Europe to go from a capitalist economy/government to a socialist economy/government. They worked towards such things as the abolition of private property and equal social classes for all.
Horizontal/vertical Organization: This applies to the buildings of factories. Horizontal factories were built flat, while vertical were built up to down. As time went on in the industrial revolution, horizontal became much more common because assembly lines worked better that way.
Focus Question #1
What appears to be the necessary conditions for industrialization? Give specific examples in Britain, Germany, US, and Russia.
To enter into an industrialization period, a region/state must have raw materials, a willing labor force, and the technological advances to be industrialized.
Take Britain, for example. The British had a large work force, willing and ready to jump head into the industrial revolution. They also had the technological means to do so, many of the inventors of key industrial revolution machines were British. However, the amount of raw materials they had was small compared to other states. This was a non-factor though, because of all the colonies British had at the time that they could bring in resources from.
The US, is also a good example. Although the willing labor force was not as large as Britain’s, they still had enough laborers. The United States also had a bounty of raw materials, which allowed for them to take part in industrialization. The technological advances they needed came from Europe, which diffused over.
Focus Question #2
What were the beneficial and the adverse effects of industrialization?
Some of the beneficial effects of industrialization were that it encouraged rapid urbanization, created booming economies, and rapid technological advances. On the other hand, it also was detrimental in that it sometimes generated widespread and unsettling social changes, while also straining traditional domestic life.
Because industrialization was occurring, factories and settlements were being built up around natural resources. Wherever these factories and settlements popped up, urbanization occurred rapidly. Also some technological advances, such as the steam engine, widely improved factory methods and transportation. All of these, working together, largely improved human life.
The negatives of the industrialization, however, were also bad. The social changes that resulted from this were very negative. Some of these changes included the mistreatment of women and girls in mines, and other work places. The traditional domestic life was also damaged because children, and even mothers, were forced to work.
Focus Question #3
What were the global effects of industrialization?
Industrialization caused an increased amount of globalization; this was done through an increased amount of trade and communication between regions.
Globalization, which is defined as becoming or making something more international, was increased because places were having to trade with each other for raw materials that they needed to develop new industrial goods and machinery. Because of this increase in trade, communication also had to increase. An example of this communication was the telephone, which allowed long distance contact between two or more persons.
Industrialization also resulted in international corporations and mass production. International corporations, such as the East India Trading Company, also increased globalization. Mass production increased the quantity of goods, while not necessarily increasing the quality of goods. But this mass production also caused increased competition between corporations, which did allow for an increased quality of goods.