Chapter 24: Mass Society and
Democracy
Growth of Industrial Prosperity
The Second Industrial Revolution
• Bessemer Process
– Henry Bessemer
– Production of steel
– Cheaper and more efficient process
• Electricity
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Thomas Edison’s electrical lights
Joseph Swan’s light bulb
Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone
Guglielmo Marconi’s radio waves
The Second Industrial Revolution
• Internal combustion engine
– Automobiles
– The Wright Brothers’ airplane
• Kitty Hawk, North Carolina 1903
• Led to airlines beginning in 1919
• Assembly line (Henry Ford)
– Manufactured goods more efficiently
– Instead of the people moving, the product moved down a
conveyor belt
– Led to mass production (benefits?)
Organizing the Working Classes
• Karl Marx
– Communist Manifesto (1848)
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Industrial Revolution led to poor factory conditions
Capitalism was the problem behind it
Claimed all of world history is “history of class struggles”
Battle between:
– Bourgeoisie (Middle Class Oppressors)
» Owned and ran everything
– Proletariat (Working Class Oppressed)
» Controlled and owned nothing
– Eventually this will lead to revolution and destruction of
classes
Organizing the Working Classes
• Socialism
– Parties formed based on Marxist ideas
– German Social Democratic Party
• Wanted revolution to become one political party
• Competition for election into parliament
• Would allow for laws regarding working conditions to be passed
– However people were divided over how these parties
should be run
• Some wanted true Marxists ideas and revolution
• Others wanted more peaceful methods (revisionists)
Chapter 24: Mass Society and
Democracy
Emergence of Mass Society
The New Urban Environment
• Movement in populations
– People moving to cities to find jobs
– Before they lived in country and farmed
– Led to need for improved housing and sanitation
• Europe in 1850 and 1890
– England: 40% lived in cities (up to 60% in 1890)
– France: 15% lived in cities (up to 25% in 1890)
– Prussia: 10% lived in cities (up to 30% in 1890)
The New Urban Environment
• The Need for Sanitation
– All new buildings needed running water and internal
drainage systems
– Creation of aqueducts and tunnels to bring in fresh water
to cities
– Introduction of gas and electric heaters for hot water
– City officials required to frequently check buildings for
hazards
– All used to combat diseases in the cities
Social Structure of Mass Society
• The New Elite
– Top 5% of the wealthy
– Controlled 30-40% of wealth in society
– Bankers, merchants, industrialists, aristocrats
• The Middle Class
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Made up of levels
Top: doctors, lawyers, engineers, architechs
Middle: shopkeepers, traders, farmers
Lower: salesmen, phone operators, bookkeepers
Social Structure of Mass Society
• The Working Class
– Made up 80% of society
– Skilled workers, unskilled workers, poor farmers,
sharecroppers
– As time goes by, they earn better wages, better work
conditions, and shorter work days
Women’s Experiences
• Jobs
– Second Industrial Revolution brought around job
opportunities (secretaries, typists, salesclerks)
• Marriage and Family
– Women began having fewer children (Why?)
– Children began working at the age of 9 or 10 in working
class families
Women’s Experiences
• Women’s Rights
– Feminism
• The movement for women’s rights
– Rights fought for
• Owning Property
– Most couldn’t own property until 1870 to 1900
• Access to colleges
– Wanted to become doctors but mostly allowed to only be
nurses
• Suffrage
– The right to vote
– Was not attained by the mass until after World War 1
Education
• Education
– Meant only for the elite at first, spread to other classes at
the turn of the century
– Working class kids went to school up until the age of 12 or
13
– The whole goal of education for the masses was to create
better educated voters
– Secondary goal was to create skilled workers for the
Industrial Revolution
Chapter 24: Mass Society and
Democracy
The National State and Democracy
Western Europe
• Political democracy
– Signs
• Universal male suffrage
• Ministerial responsibility
• Political Parties
– Great Britain
• Established two-party system
– Liberals and Conservatives
• Established prime minister
• Voting rights: men over 21 and women over 30 (By 1918)
Western Europe
• Political democracy
– France
• 3rd Republic (1875)
– Republican constitution
– President and two house system
» Senate elected by high ranking officials
» Voters elected the lower house
Central and Eastern Europe
• Germany
– Established by Otto von Bismarck
– Two house system
• Lower house elected by voters
• Ministers of government reported to emperor not house
– Emperor
• Controlled army, foreign policy, and bureaucracy
• Austria-Hungary
– Established ministerial responsibility and two house
system
– Emperor Francis Joseph ignored it all and did things his
way
Central and Eastern Europe
• Russia
– Czar Nicholas II
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Began in 1894
Believed in absolute power of the czars
Socialism growing in Russia with industrialization
Revolt leads to changes
– 1905
» Granted civil liberties
» Established the Duma (Congress)
– By 1907 was taking power away from Duma again
The United States
• Post Civil War
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13th Amendment: Abolished Slavery
14th Amendment: Gave African Americans citizenship
15th Amendment: Protected voting rights
By 1900
• Richest nation in the world
• Top 10% had 70% of wealth
– Hawaii
• Seen as a productive colony
• Annexed in 1898 for its sugar fields and pineapples
– Spanish American War (1898)
• Gained Puerto Rico, Guam, and Philippines from Spain
Creation of Alliances
• Triple Alliance (1882)
– Germany
– Austria-Hungary
– Italy
• Triple Entente (1907)
– Great Britain
– France
– Russia
Chapter 24: Mass Society and
Democracy
Modern ideas and Uncertainty
Modernism
• 1870-1914
• Rebellion against traditional style of art and literature
• Literature
– Addressed social problems
• Women in society
• Alcoholism
• Urban slums
– Symbolist writers
• True reality was the human mind
• Everything seen is just symbols of the mind
Modernism
• Painting
– Impressionism
• Went to the outdoors for inspiration (Nature)
• Claude Monet
– Postimpressionism
• Art as a spiritual experience
• Vincent van Gogh (Starry Nights)
– Cubism
• Geometric designs in art
• Pablo Picasso
– Abstract
• Line and color only (Speaks to the soul)
• Wassily Kandinsky
Claude Monet- Japanese Bridge
Van Gogh- Starry Nights
Picasso- Houses on the Hill
Pablo Picasso- The Old Guitarist
Wassily Kandinsky-
Modernism
• Architecture
– Functionalism
• Buildings should be functional not ornate
• Simplify buildings
• Louis H. Sullivan
• Music
– Igor Stravinsky
• The Rite of Spring (1913)
– Bold rhythms and expressive sound
Uncertainty in Science
• Marie Curie
– French Scientist
– Discovered element radium
• Gave off energy known as radiation
• Found within an atom
• Albert Einstein
– Theory of Relativity
• Space and time not absolute but relative to who is looking at it
• Matter is another form of energy
• Sigmund Freud
– Psychoanalysis
• Allows therapist to go deep into a person’s mind and unlock
memories
• Helped to unlock repressed memories to help heal
Extreme Nationalism
• Social Darwinism
– Herbert Spencer
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Social progress came from the idea “survival of the fittest”
Strong survive and weak die
Social progress stresses helping the weak/poor
Nations were in a “struggle for existence”
– Nations compete for resources
– Used to justify racism and discrimination
Extreme Nationalism
• Anti-Semitism
– Hostility towards Jewish people
• Dreyfus Affair
– French military officer accused of selling secrets
– Evidence showed otherwise
• Russia
– Pogroms
» Organized massacres of the Jewish people
» 25,000 emigrated from Russia
• Zionism
– Movement to create homeland for Jews in Palestine