19th Century Timelines
Episode Nine: Century of the
Machine (1800-1900)
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999
/millennium/learning/timelines/
How the World Has Changed – World’s 5
Largest Urban Areas (million population)
1800
Peking (Beijing)
1.1
London
.86
Canton
.80
Edo (Tokyo)
.69
Constantinople (Istanbul)
.57
How the World Has Changed – World’s 5
Largest Urban Areas (million population)
1900
London
6.5
New York
4.2
Paris
3.3
Berlin
2.7
Chicago
1.7
The Larger Nineteenth-Century World
Context
By 1800 the British navy ruled the seas
but inexpensive Indian cottons still ruled
the English markets. Beautifully handcrafted, brightly-colored calico prints
were far more desirable than traditional,
scratchy English wool. English merchants
sought ways to compete.
The answer lay in the
mechanization of the spinning and
weaving process. The wave of
industrialization that followed these
early innovations in textile
manufacturing had a greater impact
on people around the world than
any change since the agricultural
revolution.
Industrialization
Industrialization came in three distinct
stages. First, machines were invented to
augment human labor. John McKay's
flying shuttle and James Hargreaves'
spinning jenny reduced the number of
workers needed for making textiles and
speeded up the process.
In the second stage, inexpensive
sources of power replaced the efforts
of humans and animals. The water
wheel is an early example, but a far
more satisfactory attempt was James
Watt's steam engine. The need for
durable machines stimulated the
development of the Bessemer process
to produce the strong, high-grade steel
needed to make these machines.
In the third stage, engineers analyzed
and improved the process of
manufacturing. Eli Whitney introduced
interchangeable parts for his
inventions, making the production
process more efficient. Henry Ford's
assembly line would similarly speed up
production in the twentieth century.
Transportation and Communication
Cheap manufactured products were
ready for shipment everywhere. The
balance of trade shifted to the West, as
London became the world's new
financial capital. Modern corporations
were formed. Plans for the Suez and
Panama Canals moved from the
drawing board to the construction
phase.
The steam engine opened new lands to
railroad transport and seas to
steamships. Both of these inexpensive,
reliable modes of transportation were
scheduled and coordinated with the use
of the telegraph. From 1850 to 1900,
transport and communications
improved and reached a global scale
Labor, Migrations, and Demographic
Change
Populations continued to expand in
most parts of the world, though isolated
peoples in Polynesia and Siberia died of
infectious diseases. In the early decades
of the century, the plantation system
was expanded, increasing the demand
for African slave labor.
When slavery was abolished toward
the end of the century, contract
laborers from India and then China
replaced slave laborers. Factories were
hiring the poor; even young children
were willing to work long hours in
dangerous conditions for reduced
wages.
As some nations passed legislation
to regulate child labor, poor
European immigrants became the
new work force. By the end of the
century, nearly 50 million
Europeans had immigrated to new
lands.
Consequences of Industrialization
Industrialization caused significant disruption
within and between societies around the
world. Mid-century conflicts like the Opium
Wars, the Crimean War, and the American
Civil War demonstrated the advantages
industrialized societies achieved by using
mass-produced weaponry in armed conflicts.
The century ended with the Battle of
Omdurman (1898) in which the
British killed eleven thousand
Sudanese and lost <400 soldiers.
Industrialization also brought
changes to the basic organization of
societies; as Japan and Russia began
industrializing, their class structures
changed.
Quest for Raw Materials and Markets
The second half of the nineteenth
century, for industrialized societies,
ushered in an imperialist quest for
raw materials, new markets, and new
territories. For non-industrialized
societies, the nineteenth century
brought conquest, colonialism, and
dependency.
Those who sold raw materials and
bought manufactured goods in an era of
free trade were at a disadvantage.
Societies like India and China, which
had strong economies in 1750, were
unable to develop their own
manufacturing capabilities and compete
in the global market.
Mass-produced rifles, automatic
machine guns, and armored warships
had given industrialized societies an
important advantage. The century
ended with Europe, the United States,
and Japan locked in a contest for
markets, raw materials, and colonies.
Dates/Developments of the 19 Century
1804 – Haiti wins independence
1812 – Canned Food
1819 – Bolivar liberates Colombia,
1826 – First photograph
1829 – First water filtration
1830 – First all-steam railway
1834 – Refrigeration
1838 – Rise of labor movement
1839 – Goodyear vulcanizes rubber
1844 – Marx meets Engels,
1844 – Morse’s telegraph
1846 – Anesthesia used in surgery
1848 – Birth of women’s suffrage
movement
1851 – Singer sewing machine
1854 – Otis’s elevator
1854 – Bessemer refines steel
1859 – First oil well drilled
1859 – Darwin’s Origin of the Species,
1865 – Civil War ends U.S. slavery,
1866 – Mendel’s Law of Heredity
1867 – Nobel invents dynamite
1869 – Suez Canal opens
1876 – Bell invents telephone
1876 – Edison opens laboratory
1882 – Germ theory of disease proved
1886 – Coca-Cola bottled
1895 – First motion picture
1895 – Rontgen discovers X-rays
1896 – Modern Olympics
Nineteenth Century People
Jane Addams 1860 – 1935,
Jane Addams founded Chicago's Hull
House, one of the first settlement houses
in North America, in 1889. Regarded as
the mother of social work,
Susan B. Anthony 1820 – 1906,
Her tireless campaign for women's
suffrage made her a leader in the first
wave of American feminism. After
brazenly casting a vote in 1872, she was
arrested and fined $100 (which she never
paid). The ratification of the 19th
Amendment in 1920, 14 years after her
death, finally confirmed her credo,
"Failure is impossible."
Phineas T. Barnum 1810 – 1891
The patron saint of promoters, he had
a flair for the spectacular that was -and perhaps still is – unmatched.
The circus he dubbed the Greatest
Show on Earth, sealed his reputation
as the consummate showman.
Ludwig von Beethoven
Arguably Western music's greatest
composer, expanded the traditional
sonata, quartet, concerto and symphony
into personal expressions both sublime
and profound.
Alexander Graham Bell 1847 – 1922
When Alexander Graham Bell patented
the telephone in 1876. Three days
after the patent was issued, or so the
legend goes, he spilled battery acid on
his clothes while working near a
transmitter in his lab. His shout for
help to his assistant became the first
phone transmission of voice.
Otto von Bismark 1815 – 1898
Otto von Bismarck unified his
homeland with other German states into
a single powerful nation. Remembered
by some as a moderate, he's seen by
others as a ruthless conservative who set
the stage for fascism.
Charles Darwin
Though not the sole originator of
the evolution hypothesis, nor even
the first to apply the concept of
descent to plants and animals, he
was the first thinker to gain for that
theory a wide acceptance among
biological experts.
Simon Bolivar 1783 – 1830,
El Libertador devoted his life to
fighting for the independence of
northern South America. Military
leader, statesman, dictator, Simón
Bolívar was also the emancipator of
Venezuela and Colombia and a key
figure in the liberation of Ecuador and
Peru.
Napoleon Bonaparte 1769 – 1821
Napoléon Bonaparte seized power in France
in 1799 and quickly set out to conquer the
world. He said he hoped to build a federation
of free governments throughout Europe. But
to some, Napoleon looked like a tyrant.
Nicephore Niepce 1765 - 1833
Louis Daguerre 1789 – 1851
In 1826, the Frenchman JosephNicéphore Niépce took a picture of a
courtyard and a granary framed by a
pigeon house and a bread oven’s
chimney. This eight-hour exposure, was
the world's first photograph. Later Louis
Daguerre reproduced an image that
required just a 20 minutes' exposure
Frederick Douglas 1818 – 1895
A self-made intellectual, he decried the
ignorance and bigotry of a slave society.
Crisscrossing the Union, he testified
about the bonds that held his people's
bodies and souls. His first
autobiography was an overnight
success; his North Star newspaper was,
like Douglass himself, a never-to-beignored beacon of morality.
Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
In 1879, Thomas Edison gave humans
the power to create light without fire,
by inventing a long-lasting, affordable
incandescent lamp. The night after his
funeral, Americans dimmed their lights
for the man who lit up the world.
Michael Faraday 1791 – 1867
He laid the groundwork for the
electrical age. The Englishman's
discoveries and inventions dealing with
magnetic fields and electric currents
showed there was promise in power.
Theodore Herzl 1860 – 1904
Theodor Herzl is considered the
father of the movement that
eventually led to the founding of a
Jewish state, Israel.
Abraham Lincoln 1809 – 1865
When Abraham Lincoln took his first
presidential oath in 1861, he faced the
greatest crisis in his nation's history.
The fabric of the American experiment,
"a more perfect Union," was being torn
apart. This son of a poor Kentucky
farmer led his countrymen -- South as
well as North -- back to union.
Joseph Lister 1827 – 1912
Joseph Lister revolutionized surgery.
Inspired by Pasteur, he reasoned that if
microbes could cause infection, they
could be killed before reaching the open
wound. His method, employing carbolic
acid as an antiseptic on dressings and
instruments as well as on surgeons and
patients, resulted in stunning statistics.
Karl Marx 1818 – 1883
He devoted his life to political
journalism, supported by his patron and
writing partner, Friedrich Engels.
Marx's vision of a postcapitalist world
where the working class owns the
means of production has not come to
pass, but his critique of the class system
has inspired millions.
Hiram Maxim 1840 – 1916
He changed the way we wage war. In
1884, Hiram Maxim, an American-born
British inventor, developed a recoil
mechanism that made it possible to load
cartridges into a machine gun and eject
them without using a hand crank. As a
result World War I came to be called the
machine gun war.
Gregor Mendel 1882 – 1884
Gregor Mendel, a 19th century
Austrian monk, discovered a basic
principle of biology. Not until 16 years
after his death was he recognized for
having discovered the fundamentals of
genetics.
Samuel F.B. Morse 1791 – 1872
Morse developed the first telegraph
machine. By 1844, when he wired (in
his Morse Code) the biblical verse
"What hath God wrought!" from
Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, there
was no question that Morse – an
influential painter and publisher as well
as an inventor -- had invented a new
way to communicate.
Florence Nightingale 1820 – 1910
Florence Nightingale served with the
British army during the Crimean War,
turning filthy, vermin-infested camps
where the wounded were brought to die
into clean wards where they could heal..
Nightingale worked for improved
conditions in hospitals and workhouses,
and established the first school for
nurses.
Louis Pasteur 1822 – 1895
The French chemist discovered that heat
killed the microorganisms that turned
wine sour. The process of
"pasteurization" is now applied to many
foods and beverages. His greatest
contribution was his work on the germ
theory of disease. Pasteur founded the
modern science of immunology.
Santiago Ramon y Cajal 1852 – 1934
Ramon y Cajal's work is the
foundation of modern neuroscience,
the study of everything from the
biological basis of psychology to how
a person learns, remembers, smells,
sees, walks and talks – in essence, how
the brain makes us what we are.
John D. Rockefeller 1839 – 1937
John D. Rockefeller was the first
billionaire, building his pile on the
monolithic Standard Oil Co. At age 58,
after three decades as an oilman, the
robber baron turned to charity. He spent
$540 million -- the equivalent of $5.6
billion today – on projects primarily in
medical research and education.
Nikola Tesla 1856 – 1943
His work on the rotating magnetic
field and alternating current (AC, as
in AC/DC, the patents for which he
sold to George Westinghouse in
1885) helped electrify the world by
enabling power to travel over wires
to customers great distances away.
Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910
The son of a Russian nobleman, Leo
Tolstoy began wrestling with questions
about the purpose of life while writing
Anna Karenina. The author of War and
Peace attracted admirers from around
the world, including a fellow believer in
nonviolence, Mohandas Gandhi.
Video Segments for the
th
19
Century
Britain - Improved Transportation
In nineteenth-century Britain, engineers and
inventors became heroes. The newly
industrialized powers also had further
means to expand, colonize, and control the
world
England – Darwin and the “survival
of the fittest”
Charles Darwin, a young scientist
conducting a world survey for the Royal
Navy, developed astounding new
theories about evolution. The doctrine
of "survival of the fittest" was
interpreted as justification for the
nations of the West to dominate and
conquer other less "fit" cultures.
United States – The Westward
Movement
Nineteenth-century mechanization also
contributed to the drift of American settlers
westward. Steel plows and railroads
made settlement of the prairies easier.
China – Trade, England and the
Opium Wars
China¹s position as a world-trade
power changed in this century when
the British used new steam gunboats
to defeat China in the Opium Wars.
China is opened up to European
powers and to Western ways.
Europe – Industrialization, Human
and Political Rights
Industrialization changed the conditions of
many people's lives. For some,
manufactured goods improved living
conditions, but others were stirred to
protest the factories and the hardships they
created.
Legacies of the Nineteenth Century
The most significant legacy of this century is the
Industrial Revolution, which changed work habits
and family structure, introduced a new style of
urban living, and increased the number of ways
we have to communicate with one another.
Industrialization transformed societies and
unleashed an imperial race for raw materials and
markets.
The experiences of the colonized shaped the
various independence movements of the
twentieth century.
Legacies of the Nineteenth Century
Reactions to imperial expansion set
the stage for the many armed
conflicts of the twentieth century.
Mass produced goods were cheaper.
Industrialization provided better
food, housing, and clothing. The
quality of people's lives improved.