The process by which societies group their members and the norms that govern the interactions between these groups and between individuals influence political, economic, and cultural institutions and organization.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Explain how the Enlightenment affected societies over time.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS

KC-5.3.I.C Enlightenment ideas and religious ideals influenced various reform movements. These reform movements contributed to the expansion of rights, as seen in expanded suffrage, the abolition of slavery, and the end of serfdom.

KC-5.3.IV.B Demands for women’s suffrage and an emergent feminism challenged political and gender hierarchies.

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES

Expansion of rights

§ expanded suffrage

§ abolition of slavery

§ end of serfdom

Demands for women’s suffrage:

§ Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

§ Olympe de Gouges’s Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen

§ Seneca Falls Conference (1848) organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott

The development of ideas, beliefs, and religions illustrates how groups in society view themselves, and the interactions of societies and their beliefs often have political, social, and cultural implications.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Explain the intellectual and ideological context in which revolutions swept the Atlantic world from 1750 to 1900.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS

KC-5.3.I.A Enlightenment philosophies applied new ways of understanding and empiricist approaches to both the natural world and human relationships; they also reexamined the role that religion played in public life and emphasized the importance of reason. Philosophers developed new political ideas about the individual, natural rights, and the social contract.

KC-5.3.I The rise and diffusion of Enlightenment thought that questioned established traditions in all areas of life often preceded revolutions and rebellions against existing governments.

KC-5.3.II.i Nationalism also became a major force shaping the historical development of states and empires.

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES

• philosophies and empiricist approached natural world and human relationships

• philosophies reexamined the role that religion and emphasized reason

• rise and diffusion of Enlightenment ideas often preceded revolutions and rebellions

• Rise of Nationalism

Expansion of rights

§ expanded suffrage

• feminism was a transatlantic movement in which European and American women attended the same conferences, corresponded regularly, and read one another’s work.

• Access to schools, universities, and the professions were among their major concerns as growing numbers of women sought these previously unavailable opportunities

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton published a Women’s Bible, eliminating the parts she found offensive

• By the 1870s,feminist movements in the West were focusing primarily on the issue of suffrage

• By 1914, some 100,000 women took part in French feminist organizations, while the National American Woman Suffrage Association claimed 2 million members.

• British Women’s Social and Political Union organized a campaign of violence that included blowing up railroad stations, slashing works of art, and smashing department store windows.

  • • British activist, Emily Davison, threw herself in front of the king’s horse during a race in Britain in 1913 and was trampled to death.

• The Vote Achieved:

  • • 1893, New Zealand became the first country to give the vote to all adult women

    • Finland followed in 1906.

    • Elsewhere widespread voting rights for women in national elections were not achieved until after World War I and in France not until 1945.

• Beyond suffrage

  • • By 1900, upper- and middle-class women had gained entrance to universities, though in small numbers, and women’s literacy rates grew

    • United States, a number of states passed legislation allowing women to manage and control their own property and wages, separate from their husbands.

      • • Divorce laws were liberalized in some places.

    • Britain, Florence Nightingale professionalized nursing and attracted thousands of women into it

    • Jane Addams in the United States virtually invented social work, which also became a female-dominated profession

    • An overtly feminist newspaper was established in Brazil in 1852

    • an independent school for girls was founded in Mexico in 1869

    • Japanese women and men, including the empress Haruko, raised issues about marriage, family planning, and especially education as the country began its modernizing process after 1868

      • • the state soon cracked down firmly, forbidding women from joining political parties or even attending political meetings.

    • Huda Sharawi, founder of the first feminist organization in Egypt, returned to Cairo in 1923 from an international conference in Italy and threw her veil into the sea.

      • • Many upper-class Egyptian women soon followed her example

§ abolition of slavery

Opposition to the Institution of Slavery

• major rebellions

  • • Haitian Revolution

    • three major rebellions in the British West Indies

      • • harshly crushed, in the early nineteenth century. They demonstrated clearly that slaves were hardly “contented,” and the brutality with which the revolts were suppressed appalled British public opinion

• Enlightenment Thinkers

  • • became increasingly critical of slavery as a violation of the natural rights of every person

• Revolutionary Documents

  • • American and French revolutions about liberty and equality likewise focused attention on this obvious breach of those principles

• religious opposition

  • • Quakers and Protestants (Methodists, Clapham Sect), in Britain and the United States

    • moral arguments made widely acceptable the growing belief that, contrary to much earlier thinking, slavery was not essential for economic progress.

      • • England and New England were among the most prosperous regions of the Western world in the early nineteenth century, and both were based on free labor.

        • Slavery in this view was out of date, unnecessary in the new era of industrial technology and capitalism.

        • moral virtue and economic success were joined

Abolition

• 1792, Denmark passes importation to colonies ban (Denmark ban on importing new slaves to its West Indies colonies took effect in 1803)

• 1807-United States banned the importation of slaves into the country

• 1807, Britain forbade the sale of slaves within its empire

• 1833-1834, Britain emancipated those who remained enslaved

  • • Britain paid out £20m (about £16bn today) in 1833. Not to free slaves but to line the pockets of 46,000 British slave owners as “recompense” for losing their “property”. Having grown rich on the profits of an obscene trade, slave owners grew richer still from its ending.

• United States- the only slave holding society in which the end of slavery occurred through a bitter, prolonged, and highly destructive civil war (1861–1865)

  • • various forms of legally free but highly dependent labor, such as sharecropping, emerged to replace slavery and to provide low-paid and often indebted workers for planters.

• 1888, Brazil was the last Latin American country to abolish slavery

Unintended consequences

• indentured servants

  • • reluctance of former slaves to continue working in plantation agriculture created labor shortages

    • Large numbers of indentured servants from India and China were imported into the Caribbean, Peru, South Africa, Hawaii, Malaya, and elsewhere to work in mines, on sugar plantations, and in construction projects.

    • There they often toiled in conditions not far removed from slavery itself.

• United States

  • • a brief period of “radical reconstruction,” during which newly freed blacks did enjoy full political rights and some power

    • Post-1877, harsh segregation laws, denial of voting rights, a wave of lynching, and a virulent racism that lasted well into the twentieth century.

• Africa

  • • Europeans imposed colonial rule on Africa in the late nineteenth century

    • one of their justifications for doing so was the need to emancipate enslaved Africans.

§ end of serfdom

• fear of rebellion, economic inefficiency, and moral concerns—persuaded the Russian tsar to free the many serfs of that huge country in 1861, although there it occurred by fiat from above rather than from growing public pressure

• end of serfdom in Russia transferred to the peasants a considerable portion of the nobles’ land

  • • but the need to pay for this land with “redemption dues”

    • the rapid growth of Russia’s rural population ensured that most peasants remained impoverished and politically volatile

Demands for women’s suffrage:

§ Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

• one of the earliest expressions of a feminist consciousness

• believed women should have political rights, including voting and holding office

  • • an ideal society could not be realized until everyone was free to exercise those rights.

• She spoke out against the situation of women in the eighteenth century, declaring that they were educated to be submissive to men and to value physical attractiveness over character and intelligence.

§ Olympe de Gouges’s Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen

• Women's Rights advocate who actively participated in the Revolution

  • • She called for more education for women

    • demanded that women share equal rights in family property

    • appealed to Queen Marie Antoinette to use her influence to advance women’s rights

• Wrote “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the [Female] Citizen”) in 1791 as a reply to the “Declaration of the Rights of Man”

  • • she asserted that women should have the same rights as men

      • • freedom and equality were inalienable rights of women as well as men

        • she insisted on the rights of women to vote

        • speak their minds freely

        • participate in the making of law

        • hold public office

    • also that children born outside of marriage should be treated as fairly as “legitimate” children in matters of inheritance

• Results:

  • • Revolutionary leaders dismissed her appeal as a publicity stunt and refused to put women’s rights on their political agenda

    • 1793 they executed her because of her affection for Marie Antoinette and her persistent crusade for women’s rights

§ Seneca Falls Conference (1848) organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott

• The first organized expression of the new feminism took place at a women’s rights conference in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted a statement that began by paraphrasing the Declaration of Independence:“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.”

Declaration of Sentiments drafterd by Elizabeth Cady Stanton

• Asked for equality in:

  • • Education

    • Property Ownership

    • Child Custody

    • The Right to Vote

• philosophies and empiricist approached natural world and human relationships

European Scientific Revolution

• Copernicus from Poland, Galileo from Italy, Descartes from France, Newton from England, and many others—saw themselves as departing radically from older ways of thinking

• no longer rely on the external authority of the Bible, the Church, the speculations of ancient philosophers, or the received wisdom of cultural tradition.

• knowledge would be acquired through a combination of careful observations, controlled experiments, and the formulation of general laws, expressed in mathematical terms

Long-term significance

• it fundamentally altered ideas about the place of humankind within the cosmos and sharply challenged both the teachings and the authority of the Church.

  • • substantially eroded religious belief and practice in the West

• When applied to the affairs of human society, scientific ways of thinking challenged ancient social hierarchies and political systems

  • • played a role in the revolutionary upheavals to come

• Views on race and gender

  • • science was used to legitimize racial and gender inequalities, by defining people of color and women as inferior by nature.

• modern science became a universal worldview

  • • similar to how Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam had previously

• philosophies reexamined the role that religion and emphasized reason

Knowledge of the universe could be obtained through human reason alone—by observation, deduction, and experimentation— without the aid of ancient authorities or divine revelation

Previous Understanding of the universe

• Catholic Church view

  • • derived from Aristotle, perhaps the greatest of the ancient Greek philosophers, and from Ptolemy, a Greco-Egyptian mathematician and astronomer who lived in Alexandria during the second century C.E

    • universe was centered on the earth and its human inhabitants, among whom God’s plan for salvation unfolded.

    • It was a universe of divine purpose, with angels guiding the hierarchically arranged heavenly bodies along their way while God watched over the whole from his realm beyond the spheres

• Nicolaus Copernicus

  • • On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres was published in the year of his death, 1543.

    • “at the middle of all things lies the sun” and that the earth, like the other planets, revolved around it.

    • Significance: Thus the earth was no longer unique or at the obvious center of God’s attention.

• Johannes Kepler

  • • German mathematician

    • showed that the planets followed elliptical orbits,undermining the ancient belief that they moved in perfect circles

• Galileo Galilei

  • • Italian

    • developed an improved telescope, with which he observed sunspots, or blemishes, moving across the face of the sun.

      • • This called into question the traditional notion that no change or imperfection marred the heavenly bodies

    • His discovery of the moons of Jupiter and many new stars suggested a cosmos far larger than the finite universe of traditional astronomy.

      • • Some thinkers began to discuss the notion of an unlimited universe in which humankind occupied a mere speck of dust in an unimaginable vastness

    • Galileo was compelled by the Church to publicly renounce his belief that the earth moved around an orbit and rotated on its axis

• Sir Isaac Newton

  • • Englishman who formulated the modern laws of motion and mechanics,which remained unchallenged until the twentieth century

    • the core of Newton’s thinking was the concept of universal gravitation.

      • • “All bodies whatsoever,” Newton declared,“are endowed with a principle of mutual gravitation.”

    • Significance: implication of this view was that the heavens and the earth, long regarded as separate and distinct spheres, were not so different after all

• Giordano Bruno

  • • Italian philosopher proclaiming an infinite universe and many worlds

    • burned at the stake in 1600

• Adam Smith (1723–1790)

  • • Scottish

    • applied natural laws to human affairs (not just the physical universe)

    • formulated laws that accounted for the operation of the economy and that,if followed,he believed,would generate inevitably favorable results for society

    • On the issue of slavery

      • • Smith argued that slavery, like all examples of monopoly and special privilege, inhibited economic growth.

        • Lacking the opportunity to acquire wealth and property for himself, the slave would find it in his interest to work as little as possible.

        • Slave owners advocated their system not so much for its economic benefits but for the power it gave them over others, despite economic losses.

• Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)

  • • German

    • belief in the power of knowledge to transform human society

    • “What is Enlightenment?” ...'It is man’s emergence from his self-imposed... inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance.... Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own understanding’

• John Locke (1632– 1704)

  • • English philosopher

    • “popular sovereignty,” which meant that the authority to govern derived from the people rather than from God or from established tradition

    • argued, the “social contract” between ruler and ruled should last only as long as it served the people well.

      • • In short, it was both possible and desirable to start over in the construction of human communities

    • offered principles for constructing a constitutional government, a contract between rulers and ruled that was created by human ingenuity rather than divinely prescribed

    • On the issue of slavery

      • • In Two Treatises of Government (1689), Locke compared the king’s claims to power to the also-illegitimate claims of masters over their slaves: neither had hereditary and rightful claims.

          • • The king might argue that his right to rule descended from Adam, but neither he nor masters of slaves had power over others by such specious claims.

• Locke believed each person has a right to his own person and labor, a right that includes the ability to contract with someone else. That right is very different from slavery, which is forced labor.

• Voltaire (1694–1778)

  • • Treatise on Toleration was directed against the superstition, ignorance, and corruption of established religion

    • Voltaire’s own faith, like many others among the “enlightened,”was deism.

      • • Deists believed in a rather abstract and remote Deity, sometimes compared to a clockmaker, who had created the world, but not in a personal God who intervened in history or tampered with natural law

• resented the persecution of religious minorities and the censorship of royal officials

  • • called for religious toleration and freedom to express their views openly

• Voltaire idealized China as an empire governed by an elite of secular scholars selected for their talent, which stood in sharp contrast to continental Europe, where aristocratic birth and military prowess were far more important.

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)

  • • argued that members of a society were collectively the sovereign

      • • all individuals should participate directly in the formulation of policy and the creation of laws.

        • the general will of the people would carry the day

    • minimized the importance of book learning for the education of children

    • stressed immersion in nature

      • • taught self-reliance and generosity rather than the greed and envy fostered by “civilization.”

    • believed one finds freedom by sacrificing some individual rights for the common good

    • On the issue of Women's Rights (Emile, 1762:

      • • stressed the importance of mothers in educating their children, but encouraged teaching girls to be entirely subordinate and dependent on their husbands

    • On the issue of slavery

      • • has almost nothing to say directly about the actually-existing slavery of his own time.

        • his arguments were used to support abolitionist positions

          • • his critique of Roman imperial philosophy on slavery

            • application of social contract within the European empire

• Montesquieu

  • • wrote Spirit of the Laws

    • believed Power should be divided and contain checks and balances

    • called for a separate: Legislative, Executive, and Judicial powers

    • On the issue of slavery

      • • that slavery violated the law of nature; it was inconsistent with the nature of humankind.

        • in his assessments of the nature of laws and government, argued that “the call for slavery was the call of the wealthy and the decadent, not for the general welfare of mankind.”

• rise and diffusion of Enlightenment ideas often preceded revolutions and rebellions

The overall thrust was to extend political rights further than ever before, these Atlantic movements have often been referred to as “democratic revolutions.”

• Although women,slaves,Native Americans,and men without property did not gain much from these revolutions, the ideas that accompanied those upheavals gave them ammunition for the future.

• Rise of Nationalism

• Overview

  • • first took root in Europe following Napoleon's empire building.

    • nationalists hoped to do away with disunity and foreign rule

    • would have a global significance in the centuries that followed

• transformation facilitates Nationalism

  • • older identities and loyalties eroded (local,limited to clan, village, or region,with only modest connection to the larger state or empire that governed them)

      • • Science weakened the hold of religion on some

        • Migration to industrial cities or abroad diminished allegiance to local communities

        • printing and the publishing industry standardized a variety of dialects into a smaller number of European languages

    • deeply bound to their fellows by ties of blood, culture, or common experience

    • literate public to think of themselves as members of a common linguistic group or nation

• Invention of the "nation'

  • • the idea of the “nation” was constructed or even invented

    • it was often presented as a reawakening of older linguistic or cultural identities

    • drew upon the songs, dances, folktales, historical experiences, and collective memories of earlier cultures