Lecture 25 -- Northern Transatlantic Economy and Society, 1815-1914

Introduction: During the 19th century, Northwestern Europe and the Northern and Western United States developed industrial economies. A new kind of labor force—the factory worker for wages—emerged in these nations. By the second half of the nineteenth century, many features of modern life, from nation-states to urban living were emerging. Businesses formed giant corporations and workers formed unions. Europe increasingly came to depend on foreign markets to sell its goods and obtain its raw materials. Europe was tied to a world economy. This dependence was hidden for a time by European power over much of the world. The US also now arose as a major power.

European Factory Workers and Urban Artisans: In 1830, only Britain had really begun to industrialize, though railroads and factories were starting to appear on the Continent. By 1850, agriculture was more productive but employed fewer laborers, who now had to move to the cities. The artisan class was collapsing as industrialization replaced their jobs with machines. A process of proletarianization was underway. "This term indicates the entrance of workers into a wage economy and their gradual loss of significant ownership of the means of production, such as tools and equipment and control over the conduct of their own trades." (Heritage, pp. 739-40) Factory workers lost much of their freedom to the owner's quest for efficiency, which tried to make humans work as regularly as machines. Some artisans benefited from the rise of the factory system—construction workers, for example. But artisans now lost control of their own trades as the guild systems collapsed in the face of factory production. Small workshops had to standardize their production and each worker's skills became more specialized and less valuable. Wages shrank, and fewer journeymen ever made the leap to master and most became life long wage labor. Defenders of slavery used these issues to try to argue slaves were better off than wage labor as they were guaranteed food and shelter for life.

Nineteenth Century European Women

Women in the Early Industrial Revolution: The Industrial Revolution increasingly removed the production of goods from the home, opening the way for the Urban Middle Classes to try to make women devote themselves to child-rearing and house-keeping. (Yet these same families usually had servants who handled most domestic labor.) Men were expected to go out into the world and earn the family's living and be involved in the problems of the world. In the nineteenth century, the working class tried to follow this model as well. Industrialization also provided jobs for women outside a family context, but reduced women's wages.

Women and Textiles: Women had traditionally done textile production and were involved in industrial textile production from the start. New jobs opened up but required less skill than old ones and thus paid less. Female factory workers were usually unmarried. Unmarried women often lived in dorms connected to their jobs. However, most female workers worked outside textiles—domestic labor in Britain, farming in France and the rest of the continent.

Uncertainty of Employment: Men and women alike faced great uncertainty of employment. It was hard for women to find permanent jobs, because a lot of industrial work was seasonal; the factory would close every so often to sell off overstocked goods.

Family Life: Many women worked to save up a dowry in hopes of eventual marriage. However, marriage was less of an economic partnership than in times past. The wage economy made it hard for women to combine domestic duties with work. Women served as support staff for the wage-earners—the husband and the children.

Social Disabilities Confronted By All Women: Nineteenth century women began the century with legally conferred penalties in a variety of areas, especially connected to property rights, family laws, and education. Regardless of social class, women were inferior to men of their own rank in legal status.

Women and Property: Until the late nineteenth century, no European women could own property in their own right. Women were basically property of their fathers or husbands (or even children). This hampered the freedom of women in the workplace and private sphere. Advances in this were slow at best, though Britain allowed married women to own property in their own right in 1882.

Family Law: European laws forced women to obey their husbands. Divorce was difficult at best, even for adultery. The affairs of men were tolerated more than those of women. Husbands had the dominant power over children. And contraception and abortion were usually illegal. The laws on rape usually worked against women.

Educational Barriers: Women had less access to education than men and the access they had was often inferior in quality. Only after 1850 did universities begin to open to women. Most women had no access to secondary education to qualify for a college. Women were barred from the professions by fearful men. Those women who did break in faced bigotry and social opposition. Many women became teachers or nurses, professions which were largely taken over by women in the 19th century.

New Employment Patterns for Women: In the late nineteenth century, economic opportunities for women improved, but married women stopped working.

New Opportunities: The growth of business and government gave jobs to many female clerical workers. So did the growth of retail businesses employ women as clerks. But women still suffered low wages, as they were expected to be taken care of by husbands.

Women Out of the workforce: Women increasingly withdrew from work once they got married. Employers preferred unmarried women. Also, men made more money in real terms, so there was less need for women's labor. And growing social expectations kept many women at home.

Late Nineteenth Century Working Class Women: Many working class women continued to work in the textile trade. Women workers were heavily exploited because people expected men to be earning enough to raise a family, so 'clearly' women's work was just for a little extra money and could be paid less.

The Rise of Political Feminism: Liberal society did not automatically help women; many male liberals feared women would vote conservatively due to too much connection to religion.

Obstacles to Achieving Equality: Many women prioritized other identities over worrying about women's problems, from communists to nationalists to racists. These divisions divided potential feminists. Liberal society provided women with the tools to attack sexism, however. Mary Wollstonecraft in her 1792 The Vindication of the Rights of Women, and John Stuart Mill and his wife Harriet Taylor in their 1869 The Subjugation of Women had both used liberal ideas to critique sexism. Even efficiency arguments could be turned to show the talents of women being wasted. Socialists also critiqued the subjugation of women. The radicalism of many early feminists harded opposition to Feminism, unfortunately. As a result, women on the continent found it hard to organize large movements.

Votes for Women in Britain: Europe's most advanced feminist movement was in Britain. The National Union of Women's Suffrage societies was the moderate faction of feminism, trying to impress men with women's talents and seriousness in order to get the vote. By 1908, this organization could mobilize up to half a million women for protests. In the last years before World War I, however, Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia led the Women's Social and Political Union (1903), the radical wing of the suffragete movement. Mrs. Pankhurst copied the methods of the Irish and working class protesters her husband was involved with, stepping up the pressure for women's rights. After 1910, they turned to vandalism—breaking windows, arson, burning postal boxes, etc—and to 'ambushing' members of Parliament on the street, including even Winston Churchill. The Liberal government of Herbert Asquith (Prime Minister from 1908-1916) imprisoned many and force fed would be hunger strikers. With the outbreak of WWI in 1914, Mrs. Parkhurst and her daughters turned to pressuring employers to let women take over men's jobs as men went to the front in droves. In March 1918, women over 30 got the right to vote if they had enough property (and all men age 21 and older could now vote). In November 1918, women 21 or older could now become members of Parliament. Finally, in 1928, all women 21 or older could vote.

Political Feminism: French feminists rejected the use of violence and were smaller in scale than those of Britain. They rarely could organize mass rallies. French women did not get the right to vote until 1944. In Germany, German law blocked women from political activity. By 1902, the Union of German Women's Organizations was calling for the vote, but its main focus was labor and social conditions. The German Social Democratic party backed women's suffrage, but most Germans viewed it with disdain before World War I. In 1918, German women got the right to vote.

Jewish Emancipation

Early Steps to Equal Citizenship: In the 18th century, some countries began to give Jews the same basic rights as Christians. Austria emancipated the Jews in 1782, and the French did in 1789. In Russia, on the other hand, persecution continued, sometimes slaughtering entire villages in the Pogroms.

Broadened Opportunities: After 1848, more countries expanded the rights of Jews. After 1858, Jews could sit in the English Parliament. In Austria-Hungary, Jews got full legal rights in 1867. From 1850-80, anti-semitism was weak. Jews moved openly into society and the professions. Some Jews now began adapting Jewish religion to modern conditions, creating the branch of Judaism known as Reform Judaism, which moved away from thousands of years of built up interpretation of Jewish law to try to re-adjust the holy teachings to modern conditions. However, economic problems after 1870 led to anti-Jewish prejudices, especially in eastern Europe. Most Jews felt confident their new status would protect them.

European Labor, Socialism, and Politics to World War I

The Working Classes in the Late Nineteenth Century: After the mid-century, 19th century workers stopped rioting and started finding new ways to organize to fight for better conditions, as it was clear the old world of artisan labor was dying and could not be saved.

Trade Unions: In the late 19th century, unions now became legal. Most unions fought for better hours, wages, and working conditions for skilled labor. By 1900, large unions of unskilled workers also formed. Despite their growth, however, most workers remained un-unionized.

Democracy and Political Parties: Except for Russia, most of Europe allowed ever increasing popular participation in government in the late 19th and early 20th century. The discontented could now fight from inside the system. New political parties arose to mobilize voters who often were poorly informed of political issues.

Marxist Critique of the Industrial Order: In the 1840s, Karl Marx (1818-1883) began to produce the most influential critique of the capitalist order. Exiled to London from his native Germany due to his radical politics, Marx met Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), the German son of a factory owner. Together, they wrote the Communist Manifesto (1848) and began calling for radical revolution of the working class. At the time few noticed, but Marx's words would, in the future, shake the pillars of human society.

The Communist Manifesto: Marx and Engels argued the central conflict of human history was economic—the struggle between those who control the means of production and those who work for the controllers. In this age, the 19th century, this was the conflict of the Proletariat (the working class, especially the poorest and hardest struggling) and the middle to upper class controllers of industry. This conflict would inevitably sharpen as the capitalists squeezed labor harder and harder to increase their profits. Only radical revolution could end this age and usher in a better one of communal ownership of the means of production. And this coming was inevitable; class conflict had to end with the more numerous poor rising up and overthrowing the wealthy. But the new society to come would finally end history by being classless, with all working for the good of all and sharing their resources and products. It was a revolutionary dream of a secular utopia to come. Marx's vision of inevitably increasing conflict did not come to pass in most places—perhaps his own vision of it helped to scare people into taking measures to tamp down conflict—but instead, the upper classes eventually made concessions in order to save capitalism and themselves. Marxism would shape the larger socialist movement for years to come, nevertheless.

Germany: Social Democrats and Revisionism: Founded in 1875, the German Social Democratic Party (SDP) adopted some of Marx's ideas, helping to spread them. But it would also eventually provide the model for peaceful political reform by European Socialists. It was originally persecuted by Bismark, who then turned to social reform measures which helped workers, such as health and old age insurance, to woo voters from the SDP. Legalized in 1891, the Party called for Marxist style reform of society—through the ballot, not the bullet—since the inevitable revolution was coming whatever men did. So best to improve things while you wait. SDP thinker Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932) challenged Marx in his 1899 work, Evolutionary Socialism. He pointed out that the middle class was growing, not shrinking, and more workers were gaining power, and called for gradual socialist reform, not revolution. This became known as revisionism, which remained controversial. But the SPD stuck with its old philosophy...for now.